Turkey and Cats -- Thanksgiving 2012

As is our family tradition, we had two Thanksgiving celebrations this year.  First we spent time in Salina with the Michel family and served dinner here at home for our family lunch.  It was especially great to spend a little time with aunt Jaime.  Ledger was so excited for her to get here... he kept saying "She's really coming?!"  As always, I wish our time together was longer.  Our lunch was a big success.  We let Locke sample some Thanksgiving foods, but his favorite, by far, was the whipped jello treat that Grammie makes.  He was covered head-to-toe in pink.  So cute.

In order to fit in two families (and two cities!) into one Thanksgiving, we had to try to hurry up and get things packed to head to KC after lunch was over.  It was a tight schedule since we had to leave Salina by 2pm to make it to Emily's house for a 5 p.m. dinner.  We were pretty well prepared and we were getting things loaded and ready to go on time until Jaime heard a little noise in the van.  A meow.  For the next 45 minutes, we tore the van apart looking for the cat that was meowing INSIDE our van.  We finally deduced that the kitten was up inside the van's dashboard and we would have to dismantle it to get him out.  Since we were already running late we decided to just take the little stowaway with us to KC.  Josh's brother, Brad, is a car guy and we knew he'd be able to help us get the cat out of there.  So for the three hour trip to Olathe, we heard intermittent meowing that confirmed that the cat was still with us and still alive in there.  Crazy.  So we finally arrive in Kansas City a little late, but glad to be there.  We had an excellent second Thanksgiving with  Josh's family and the Powell family.  Sometimes combining families can be awkward, but the Perkins clan is great and we all just have a great time together.  After dinner, we weren't able to wait for pie.  (Don't worry, Millie saved me a piece!)  We had to head out to the early Black Friday sales that started at 8pm on Thanksgiving evening.  We hated leaving our family gathering, but it was worth it because we are DONE Christmas shopping for Ledger already!  YES!

After our Black Friday adventure, the boys took apart our dashboard and still couldn't find that darn cat.  We parked the van in the garage, left the windows down, and left a plate of beef jerky on the floorboard to try to lure him out of there.  The next morning, the cat was out in the garage (and had finished off the beef jerky and even dug into the Perkins' garbage can...) so we rolled up the windows thrilled to have a cat-free minivan again.  We opened the garage door so that the cat could escape if he was scared and when we came back out later in the morning to run errands, we couldn't find the cat anywhere.  Assuming he let himself out, we headed out to visit Emily at her office.  On the way, we were stunned to hear another MEOW!  When we got to Emily's office, we opened up the hood and this time the cat was camped out on our battery.  I moved quickly and was able to finally fish the little offender out of our engine.  It turned out to be a pretty cute little gray tabby kitty.  We took him inside and offered him some water before trying to drop him off at the Olathe Animal Shelter.  Unbelievably, the shelter wouldn't take him because I told them the story of him travelling from Salina in our car.  So our little guy was set free to become an Olathe cat.  I'm sure he's found a nice sedan to hide out in... :)

We spent the rest of the weekend seeing movies.  Josh and Chris went to see the new James Bond movie "Skyfall" and the next day, the girls went to see "Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2".  We also visited the nearby Bass Pro shop where the kids got to visit the Christmas village.  They rode the carousel and got to sit on Santa's lap.  Both of my kids did great with Santa, but poor Miss Kinley was just terrified.  We also went to Cabella's where Ledger loved shooting in the laser gun shooting range and seeing the BIG catfish in the aquarium.  Lucky for him, his BoomPa, Daddy, and uncle Josh all love doing those things too. :)