Thanksgiving!!!

Thanksgiving this year was with Christian's family. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays....OK, let me rephrase that, I love Thanksgiving, but only because of Black Friday Deals!!! Ever since I was 18 years old I would go shopping with my Mom and Sister on Black Friday normally sometime around 4am! I know some of you think I am crazy, but when you hear the deals you will understand!

So, this year we ate at Christian's sister's house. On our way there we drove past a house that still had the paper on their driveway. Well, anybody who actually looks at the ads starts early in the moring, so I convinced Christian to stop so I could take the newspaper. Yes, I guess technically I stole the paper, but I did knock on their door and was fully prepared to ask them if I could have it, but nobody answered....so I just took it! HAHA!

So, I spent most of my time at Tiff's house looking through the ads. And we ended up getting a great deal on a Nikon D3000! An awesome camera I have wanted forever! With an additional zoom lens, and Nikon carry bag! I was super excited! We were able to order it on BestBuy.com, without having to go to the store super early!

Our Thanksgiving dinner was excellent! Yummy rolls, potatoes, gravy, stuffing, yams, and of course turkey! We had two! John made a special one that apparently he cooked upside down! AMAZING! It was so moist! We were all super stuffed so we waited a bit to eat dessert and while we waited we listened to Adam, our nephew, play the piano. He is an amazing player! He even writes his own songs!

It was a great Thanksgiving, and at the end we took a family picture. Great shot Dev! Thanks for a great meal and a fabulous time!

SHOPPING!!!!

So, since I got my Office Manager position 4 years ago I haven't been able to go shopping on Black Friday because I have had to work at 5am. So, I check out the ads and then tell my mom what to get me, and hope that it happens. Well, this year my friends and I decided we wanted to go out at midnight. So, after we left Tiff's house I slept on the way home, and slept for about 4 hours until it was time to go shopping! Mind you, this meant I wouldn't get anymore sleep because I would have to go to work! Good part about that though, two of the girl's that came with me also had to work. So, I met up at the mall with Mandy, Ally, and Tiff. Mandy told us when she got there that Troy had told her of secret midnight deals at Walmart! so we headed there instead of standing in line at the mall. So, the three of us met up with Kaycee and Meghann and Ashlee at Walmart. When the clock struck midnight the associates ripped open the pallets of deals and we started filling our carts! We got DVD's for $2 and $7, pyrex dishes for $9, Video games for $10, and I got a new bedset for $35 bucks! (normally $80) We got everything we wanted and had a blast!

After Walmart, we headed to Toys R US, but it was an hour wait just to get into the store so we bagged that idea and headed to Fashion Place mall. It was about 2:00am at this point. We shopped around a little bit there, but decided we wanted to go back to Southtowne Mall. When we got to Southtowne we shopped in most of the stores, but there weren't any crazy good deals so just played around with the camera and tried on the ugliest things we could find! It was great! At around 3:30am we were all starving so we decided to go to Denny's for dinner/breakfast. After sitting for about 15 minutes we all realized how tired we really were. But oh well, we had to go to work!

That day at work was interesting, but a lot of fun! I'm just glad I had my friends there to be loopy with me!

Good Times!

Weekend Off!

This weekend I was able to take some time off before the crazy rush. However, I didn't take it off for no reason. I'm sure most girls know why. It was for New Moon! Thursday night we were going to go to the movie at midnight, which meant there was no way I was going to work at 7 the next day! So, I took Friday off! Thursday and Sunday are my normal days off. Then since the Front End got Deparment of the Month I won a free day. So, I took Saturday! I was super excited to have 4 days off in a row!

We were all very excited for New Moon! We all read the books, and really liked the first movie. So one of our friend's company rented out a bunch of theaters so we said sure! Send out Cards is the company and because they rented out so many theatres The District gave her an advanced screening at 8:00. So we got to go at 8, instead of midnight! Jackpot! BTW I am on Team Jacob!

To start it off, my friend Kaycee and I wanted to do some shopping. We had Aeropostale coupons so we started there. I bought some cute clothes for Christmas gifts, and of course one for me! She bought some cute shirts too. It was fun shopping with her, and very funny! Apparently the employees that work there are drilled about customer service. We probably got asked if we needed help 25 times, seriously like every 3 minutes! "Can I find a size for you, Are you doing ok, are you still doing ok, are you finding everything ok, can I help you find anything, are you still finding everything ok." I mean I am all about service, but WOW! We couldn't help but laugh about it! However I ended up getting a killer deal! $69 worth of stuff for $27! SWEET!

After Aero we headed over to Ross. Didn't find very many cute clothes, but we found a ton of hideous clothes that we made fun of! Kaycee even found a bodysuit! Yikes! I ended up buying towels, and she got a cute picture frame. We met up with our friend Meghann at Target where we looked around for a bit, but then decided we were hungry and it was time for dinner. We headed over to Training Table, which was quite tasty! (always is) And we really enjoyed ourselves, and ate way too much! (always do)

Then it was time.......for the show! The three of us met up with Angela, Ashlee, and Leann, to watch New Moon. They set us up with little gift bags when we walked in. Also they were doing prizes! We didn't win any, but it was fun. There was only one preview and it was for a new movie that Robert Pattinson (Edward) is in. Looks good. It was pretty funny throughout the movie though, almost every scene all the girls would hoot and hollar. When they saw Edward, screams! When they saw Jacob, screams! There was even a scream for Bella's dad! It was hilarious, but made it that much more fun! So, we had a great time and YES! The movie was also great!

Kaycee and I were super excited after the show! Why? Because we had tickets for the show again the next day! This time it was during the day, at the Gateway. So, we met up with My mom Karen, Sister Jamie, cousins Stephanie and Shara, and friends Enoch and Christina at Applebees. The food was excellent! And it was fun getting together before the show to talk, especially talking about the movie! After lunch Marie met us at the theater to watch the movie again! And yes! The movie was just as great the second time!

So, I had a great couple of days. Really enjoyed the movie! And LOVED hanging out with all the awesome people! Thanks guys! Now I get to look forward to Saturday night! Game Night at the Thorpe home! We LOVE game nights! I will blog about that soon! But so far great weekend off!

Christmas is everywhere at the Thorpe home!

I know, I know, many of you may think I'm crazy. But I am so obsessed with Christmas! Every year on November 1st the Christmas decorations go up! We have two Christmas trees, lights all over the front of the house, and lots of decorations all over the house. We LOVE decorating.


This is one of our decorations. It is cinnamon scented pine cones in a basket with holly berries, and some snowman decor. It sits on our kitchen counter.

We have some great Christmas traditions. Every year with Christian's family we do a name drawing, gift exchange. We get together for a good dinner, exchange gifts, and have a great time!

Here is our tree! It's funny every year my mom would have what we called a "pretty tree" and I always thought it was so boring without fun kid decorations. And would you look at that, now I have one!

We get together with my family every year too. It is with my Grandpa, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, second cousins, the whole shibang! There is about 40 people there, sounds crazy, but that is why it is so fun! We have the tradition of the kids doing the nativity, making and decorating cookies for Santa, each family singing, playing the piano, telling stories, whatever they choose to do, So cute to see the kids sing! Then we have a white elephant pass around story with some pretty funny gifts afterwards. Santa always comes and gives us all pajamas for us to wear on Christmas Eve. We eat, we mingle, but we always have a great time! I LOVE Christmas!

Here is Christian putting up the lights. Apparently he thinks they go in his mouth instead of on the house. For being scared of hieghts he sure does tough it out to get the lights hung for me! Luv ya dear! Thanks!

A new tradition we started last year was to go to Layton on Christmas Eve. Since we don't have kids yet, Christmas day can get very boring. So, we sleep over at my sister's house so we are there when her kids wake up to Santa! My parents come over in the morning so we can all open our gifts. And every year my step dad makes this AWESOME breakfast with eggs, potatoes, sausage, cheese, and a little piece of heaven!

Here is another decoration, new this year. Gotta love Tai Pan! I Love Josh Groban's song believe! what a better sying during Christmas than "we still believe"

So, I would say, ya! I love Christmas! I just love this time of the year. The people all buying gifts, the Christmas music! All of it! And, just to let you know we are not the only crazy ones, two other families on our street put their lights up the day after we did! That's how we do it on Gullane!!! Hopefully you and your family have a marvelous Christmas! Oh and I guess, Happy Thanksgiving as well! But really, it's just a day to eat lots of food.

Happy Halloween!!!

Our October was full of Halloween festivities. It took us awhile to figure out what we wanted to dress up as, but this was definitely a good choice! I told Christian "We should be something together, and you should be the girl." So, this is what we came up with! With the help of my mom and her sewing machine, we were able to make his cheer top. We found his skirt and leggings at Walmart ,(thanks to Miley Cyrus) and the rest of his costume and mine we had at home. We got some great reactions out of it! We were pretty happy with our choice!

Our first extravaganza was with Christian's family. Bricker and Bridgett had us all over. We had our first costume party with them this year and it was GREAT! Tons of fun, great costumes and yummy chili! We had a couple games for the kids, and then the adults played Pictionary while the kids watched Corpse Bride.

Jeremy, Angela, and Kaitlyn

All the cute kids!


This is Christian's mom playing. Pictionary is a perfect party game! It was so fun! And hilarious to see what people would draw! It was a great party! We had a ton of fun, and laughed a bunch!

Every year at work we have a costume contest and a pot luck party! This year went just as great! We had some EXCELLENT food! Homemade chicken noodle soup from Meghann, Chili, rolls, salads, drinks, and lots of desserts! It was very tasty! This year a bunch of people dressed up! There were quite a few good ideas and really cute costumes. It is so great that we are able to have so much fun at work. Everybody seemed to have a great time and a great day!

On Halloween night we had a party to go to. Our friends Joe and Jessica hosted, and they always go all out! It was super fun! Wii zombie killing, dancing, TONS of great food, bobbing for apples, caramel apple making, mingling, and more great costumes! They set their house up with black lights, fog machines, halloween lights, and lots of other decor. It was really cool, and lots of fun!

Wayne and Garth

Baker's with a bun in the oven

Me and Kellie (Kip)

Nick and Richard, killing Zombies

So, Halloween was great fun! Now we are just super excited for Christmas!
**53 shopping days left!

Round 2!!!

Well, in my previous post I talked about how we traded in one car for a newer nicer one with a better payment.
So, we thought why not do it again?!?! So we did just that! We were driving what we called, "The Crappy Car" a 2002 Hyundai Accent with 100,000 miles, back windows that were taped up because the gears broke so they couldn't roll down or up, but would frequently fall down. No guts, AT ALL. It struggled to go up the slightest hill. OK, so I guess we were lucky because we never had huge engine problems, but come on. That good news can only go so far. So, anyway this car lead us to go back to the dealership for round two!

Round two brought us back to the dealership for more test drives and more calculating from Doug Smith Dodge. We knew we were a little upside down in our crappy car, but they were so awesome and gave us way more than we thought we would get! We only had to pay $72 bucks to get out of our car! Awesome! So, they were able to get us into a car that would have been $8,900. We ended up getting it for just under $6,000! And again, lower payments than we had on our crappy car! Just kept getting better and better!

The car they found for us is a Dodge Stratus. 2005, only 61,000 miles, and definitely NOT a crappy car! We got lucky again! They gave us a great amount for our trade, lowered the amount of this car almost $3,000 bucks, and we were able to get a newer, less miles, WAY better car. We are super excited, and can't believe how lucky we are! Everything fell into place for us! We are so grateful! We have been blessed!

A trip to the car dealership!

Well, it is sad day for the Thorpe Home, Our Dodge Caliber's lease is up! Which means on halloween we have to go give this car back to Doug Smith Dodge. This has been the best car we have ever had! It is just the basic model, but we loved it! It is spacious, awesome color, great gas mileage, and I love the hatchback trunk space! This car would be a perfect family car, could fit three car seats if I needed to (would most likely get a bigger car with three kids though) Plus, it is blue, for the cougars!!! All in all it has been the perfect car! I sound like I could be in a commercial huh! Ha!

Anyway~So, Last Thursday we headed down to Doug's to start the process of finding a new car. We only work with Doug, no other car dealerships EVER again! Too much hassle. Plus, since it is a family business we always get the Smith Family Hookup, very nice! So, for the last few days they have been searching for a new car for us. Yesterday, they found it!!!!

Our Pretty New Car!!!

That's right, we got another Caliber! Told ya we loved it! However this is a newer model, with tons of extras! It is an R/T, Sunroof, Leather seats, heated seats, alloy rims, chrome accents, cruise control, radio controls on steering wheel, ESP, which means Electronic Stability Program - is accident avoidance, power everything, night vision rear view mirror, Homelink - garage door opener built in to the car, subwoofer in back that pulls out for tailgating, chill zone drink cooler, low mileage, excellent exterior and interior. This car has everything! We love it! Best part of all! Our payments will be cheaper than with our other Caliber! We are super excited for this car and for the payment! Gotta love the Smith Family Hookup!