Turkey & T-shirts...

I spent this Thanksgiving with Brad and his family... the "future in-laws". :o) They live in Boerne which is where Brad went to high school. It is about 2 hours Southwest of Austin. After spending Wednesday night cooking and then Thursday morning finishing the food and packing up the car, we hit the road, but we weren't alone...

His parents live off a country road and have some land which means Cheyenne has accompanied us there a couple of times. However, this would be the first time out there with both dogs. We laughed a lot during the drive at Samson and Cheyenne. Cheyenne has always been a window dog- she LOVES the wind in her face and smelling the world. Even though we would have both windows open in the back, they never seemed to master the concept of having their own window- they "shared".

Once we were on the highway and the wind was too strong, they settled in for their naps. Every now and then, one of them would pop their heads in the front, stand on the center console and check on us. After they would check for any dangers ahead and lick one or both of our faces, they usually returned to their respective naps. At one point, Samson was standing on the console when Brad had to unexpectedly hit the breaks. We aren't sure if he was startled or couldn't get up (or both) but he ended up staying on the console for a long time, leaning against Brad. It was REALLY funny.

Once we arrived at the Becker house, the dogs jumped out and explored the land. In the past Cheyenne has been known to chase off deer so there are lots of things to smell! We were also greeted by Irina, Brad's 5 year old niece.

After playing in the leaves, I went inside and helped in the kitchen. Once Brad's brother, Doug and his wife, Gina had arrived we sat down and stuffed our faces! Over lunch we officially announced our wedding date!!! No... I am not saying it here just yet. :o) More details on that to come! We had a nice lunch and then retired to the living room- we had a full day of football ahead!!

My two favorite NFL teams are the Saints and the Cowboys. They just so happened to be playing each other that day!! I couldn't decide who to cheer for, so I figured I would split up the game. The first half of the game, I wore a Cowboys t-shirt and rooted for them! Since Brad doesn't like the Cowboys, he chose to be on the Saints side the entire game. ANYTHING to support ANY team playing against the Cowboys!

First Half...

Second Half...

The dogs LOVE football...

As soon as we watched the Cowboys lose (luckily I was cheering for the Saints for the second half!), we switched over to watch the big Texas rivalry... UT vs. Texas A&M. Now you all know where my loyalty stands with this game!!! However, both Brad and his brother went to Texas Tech and their dad went to Iowa State. So, this made for some fun banter during the game! Of course, I had switched to my UT shirt so Brad had to wear his Tech shirt. Not to be left out, Brad's father, Larry went and changed too...

The game was was a letdown for the Longhorns (24 - 17) and ended their not-so-great season on an even more depressing note.... this loss meant no Bowl game for the Horns since 1997. Ugh. It is being called a "rebuilding year"... we will see!!One funny note... at the beginning of the game, I pretended to "call" the game and I said the score would be 24 - 17 with the Longhorns winning. Strangely, I hda the score right- just the wrong team winning!

Regardless of the final scores, we had a great day as a family and I felt warmly welcomed into my first Becker Thanksgiving!