Thanksgiving fun

Holidays are always hard being 2300 miles away from my family. I don't get to see family nearly often enough, but I can usually forget about the distance--until the holiday season.

Luckily, my gorgeous studly boyfriend invited me to spend Thanksgiving with his family. I gladly accepted, as I jump at the chance for family time, even if it's not my family.

I let Nick make all the plans (you all know how tough that is for me!) because it was involving his family.

Clearly I trust him.

Because his dad lives in Kingsville, TX (which is very southern Texas) and his aunt and grandmother live in Austin, they usually meet in the middle on holidays. We met at Boerne, TX at Tapatio Springs Resort, which is about a half an hour past San Antonio. For those who don't know Texas geography very well, that's about a three hour drive south from Waco.

Here's Nick, still loving the idea of spending the weekend with me (but probably due to the fact that this is only a half an hour into our trip).

A little later, we decided that it was time to take more photographs. Clearly Nick is a badass. Or at least is really good at pretending he is! :)

We met his father and stepmother ("Quasi," for quasi-mom) in the parking lot of Bass Pro Shop in San Antonio so we could follow him to the resort. Nick and his father clearly love this store, but we couldn't spend too much time there because we had to go meet the rest of the family for lunch.

Tapatio Springs Resort was beautiful! We went in with the temperature being extremely warm, and when we left it was freezing. Thanks for bringing in the cooler fall temperatures, Thanksgiving!

At lunch were Nick and me, his father Carl, Quasi (Kaley, Kaleigh, Kaylie, I'm not sure how to spell it), his aunt Rosella, and his grandmother. The best part of the lunch was when I met his grandmother. I hugged her and said it was nice to meet her when she grabbed my hands, stared deep into my eyes, took in my soul, and after a solid 5 seconds said, "I approve!"

Well, at least it wasn't "I don't approve," right?

After lunch, I started the five hour drive from Boerne to Dallas and snapped this picture on the way during a little bit of no traffic time. Nick serenades during long car rides; what more could any woman want?!

We drove straight to Nick's mother's house (after a quick stop passing through Waco to grab a warm jacket!) and spent Thursday night there. We woke up early and attempted to hit some Black Friday sales at the Galleria, but we weren't successful in too many amazing deals. I was able to get a few family members' gifts out of the way though, so mission accomplished.

Then, we headed to Nick's brother Patrick's house in Bedford (Fort Worth area) for another Thanksgiving lunch.

I had a blast with Nick and his family at this lunch too! The dinner conversation was interesting, and we had a good time soaking in each other's company.

Post-food, we decided to take a walk in the park close to the Smiths' house to burn off some Thanksgiving calories. We also played XBox Kinect Dance Central, which is the new game where a sensor picks up your infrared signal and you play the game without a controller. I am currently the champion at the LaBouff's household, and (if there was any doubt) I also kicked butt at the Smith household as well.

Here's a wonderful picture of Nicholas dancing during a song. He's so tall that sometimes, he can't get far enough away from the sensor so that his entire body is in its projection.

We then decided to hang out a little bit and relax after a long day. This involved a small photoshoot with the Smith family's dogs.

This is Bailey, a rambunctious, excited dog who loves to be pet and pretends like nobody loves him so he can get more attention. He's adorable.

Here is a picture of Patrick (Nick's brother) and his wife Alana with Bailey. The only one missing is Jade, Nick's niece--for some reason, I don't have any pictures of her from the weekend...I don't know how that happened!

Here are Nick and Ebon, their pitbull/rottweiler mix. Ebon was sweet as well, but a lot more subdued than Bailey.

On Saturday, we woke up and went to a late breakfast with the fam (minus Nick's mother, who drove up to Oklahoma for the day). After breakfast we hung out at a coffeeshop where I had a vanilla rose latte (sounds gross, but was actually pretty darn good) and then the girls (Alana, Jade, and I) went to Joann's to pick out craft projects while the boys spent some quality time together playing musical instruments.

After an early dinner, Nick and I decided to head back to Waco before it got too late, but first, we went boot shopping--Nick's Christmas present to me was taking me boot shopping. He was ridiculously knowledgable about different types of soles, heels, heights, etc. of boots.

I think it comes naturally to Texans.

I ended up buying some beautiful Ariat cowboy boots on sale. They're gorgeous and lovely and totally Texan. I text messaged Courtney Johnson and told her how she'd be proud of me, and she joked back "Congrats! We're happy to have you here." ;) Sassy pants.

The boot store was having a ton of sales, but this one was my favorite. I had to snap a photograph because I laughed out loud when I read it.

Nick tried on some alligator boots for fun. I think they're ridiculous, but I'm pretty sure he used the word beautiful to describe them.

Here I am with my new boots (trying not to cry after the traumatic event that occurred when I checked out--more on that in another post after the hurt has worn off).

I clearly am ridiculously excited with my new boots. Now I have to have enough guts to wear them...

And that was my Thanksgiving! What did you guys do?