Thanksgiving Weekend 2010

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

What a relaxing 4-day weekend we had! Among many, many things that the husband and I are thankful for, we are especially grateful for having our families local and not needing to travel anywhere!

Our Thanksgiving festivities were divided into two days: one with my parents, one with husband's parents. My mom and dad do their best to make sure that they'll be able to gather all 4 of their kids at once. Recently, they've had more luck with that by having dinner the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

Watching my mom do her thang in the kitchen is the best. She refuses to let any of us help her so we sit and relax. Dad is in charge of making sure everyone has a wine, beer, or cocktail in their hand.

Mom is always in charge of the turkey. This year I told her I'd make a few sides. I contributed mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and smashed yams to the feast.

Baby Jack. The newest and cutest addition to my side of the family. My mom is enamoured. For the second year in a row, my mom proclaimed that maybe by next year she'll "have a grand daughter at the table" while giving us the evil eye. False, mother. False. She fails to comprehend that we are much too selfish for kids. Jack smells good, but the part I enjoy most is when I get to return him to his owners. (Sorry cutie, tia loves you!)

Black Friday! 3 years ago, Felipe and I braved the 3am line at Best Buy. It was miserable and we promised to never wake up so early for Black Friday specials again. As a tradition, we do venture out to Macy's to take advantage of their early bird discounts. Although nowadays we go at 6am rather than 3am. We managed to pick up gifts for most of our family members and essentially finished our holiday shopping. So glad to get that out of the way! After Macy's we enjoyed breakfast at Urth Caffe and then headed over to the Grove. We received a coupon for Crate and Barrel in our latest catalog and figured that we'd use it for some home items we've been wanting. We arrived at the Grove before Crate and Barrel opened, but noticed that the Gap was having an early bird special: 50% off the entire store before 10am. Score! After about 45 minutes of searching through the racks, trying on clothes, and indecisiveness I walked out with one shirt and a pair of flats:

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So much for taking advantage of that 50% off special. The husband couldn't find anything that he really liked either. I've been eyeing those flats for a while now, so I'm glad to have waited until I got a killer deal on them.

On Saturday night, one of my besties and I enjoyed a girl's night. We ended up at Drai's - a nightclub in Hollywood located on the rooftop of the W Hotel. We had never been, but it was exactly as we imagined it: very LA. It's funny how all the random people you talk to at these type of places are either a producer, actor, photographer, or some sort of other artist. Nothing wrong with that, but it cracks me up every time.

Finally, the highlight of our weekend:

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Nikon D3100, baby!

The hubs and I have been talking about getting a DSLR for a while now and, well, we took the plunge! I'm so relieved to finally give the boot to my craptastic point-and-shoot. We are totally beginners, but are really excited to start learning how to take advantage of the new camera's fancy features. Expect many more pictures of life in LA, food, city people, and travels (keep those photo quality expectations low for now, though!)