Thanksgiving with Hunters

Boy oh boy! How was everyone's thanksgiving? Pleasant I hope, as was ours down in the southern region of Indiana. Spent 5 days with Joe's wonderful family and had three big Thanksgiving meals! You gotta love family get togethers around the holidays cause it usually means great food and good conversation. At least on our ends of things it is. Thanksgiving in Bedford is planned a little differently from Thanksgiving in Chicago.  Well, I guess it isn't much different except for the fact that we plan to eat after dark vs.early to late afternoon.  The reason for this is because it is hunting season and most hunters will hunt early in the morning, come home for a few hours and head back out until they can barely see their way out of the woods. Dinner's aren't planned to start until dark, but we are usually not serving up until more like 7pm or sometimes later depending on whether someone killed a deer or not. Joe ended up getting a couple of doe around 4:15pm on Saturday and we didn't start eating until 7pm that night due to having to gut, clean, check in and hang them before we could all eat. I had my very first hunting experience Friday afternoon with Joe. We didn't see anything the first two hours. I was freezing cold by the time we spotted our first doe and unfortunately we sat there watching them walk further away from us giving us no possible chance of adding them to our deep freezer. It was nice to be back in the woods with Joe regardless of the lack of action.
Thanksgiving in Chicago... well, we have at least one hunter in the family but he is married to my cousin so he has only been in the family for about 5 years so we usually gather together for meals early in the afternoon, eat til we are sick, lay around like pathetic stuffed turkey's and then eat some more.
Coming home is always nice, sometimes... I usually miss my bed, but I can't say the same for all the endless things I have been wanting to get done stare me in the face day after day. First thing that gave me the death stare was my empty fridge. NO FOOD! It is always nice to leave the house for a few days knowing the fridge is not full of food that will be spoiled by the time of your return, but once you return the last thing you want to do is get right back into the car and shop for an hour as did I yesterday evening while Joe was out hunting for a third deer.
I managed to avoid going out on Black Friday. My sister-in-law worked hard to get me to go out toWalmart at Mid-night. Knowing I probably wouldn't get to bed until 2am or later I politely refused and headed to bed early, trying to kick a cough and sore throat I had been fighting all week last week. Black Friday can be somewhat exciting for me knowing how many good deals stores throw at you so you will buy more. I tend to only like going if there is something specific that I really need. I would rather avoid large crowds of greedy people and waiting in extra long check-out lines and spend a few more bucks on the few items that I would have bought anyway. I am not much of a shopper! I kind of wish I was better at bargain shopping, but alas, I hate wasting my time running from store to store just to find the cheapest price.
All in all, thanksgiving was more than relaxing. I only wish Jake could have spend more time with grandparents and cousins than he did. He is the only Wisley cousin that doesn't live within 45 min of each other. I pray he grows up to be pretty good buds with them regardless of the distance.
Below are some pictures from the weekend gatherings.

All 10 Wisley side cousins

 Jake's cousin closet in age

Papaw and Grandma Wisley