Will Travel For Pies – Thanksgiving (Part 2)

Black Friday turned out to be “Buy Nothing Friday” for me.

I’ve done the crazy bargain hunting and shopping before. When I lived in San Diego, I used to do Thanksgiving Day midnight shopping at the Carlsbad Factory Outlets. It was a crazy shopping experience.

I remember standing in line for 15 minutes to get into Banana Republic outlet store. I would shop and then wait another 15 minutes in order to use the fitting rooms. Another 45 minute line to get to the registers to pay for my items.

I got my sisters involved too. We would map the mall and picked out the stores we wanted to shop in. We would play tag team and teamed up in pairs. One sister would go in and start shopping while the other sister would stand in line to pay. Since the lines were so long to pay, it gave us an hour of shopping time. By the time we are done shopping, we join my sister in line and pay for our goodies.

Why I thought that was fun….I have no clue. It was exciting and exhilarating to be part of the madness, but those feelings quickly wore off after the first few stores you go into.

So been there…done that! I’ve lived to tell crazy Black Friday stories 🙂

I finally left the house in the afternoon and headed to Marshall’s to browse thru their Christmas decorations.

Window shopping for shoes. I love sparkles.

I walked out of Marshall’s empty handed. Their decoration displays were not that great, it was slim picking. I’ll go back next week when they are more stocked.

My second and last stop of the day was Ikea.

We are shopping for a new couch so I checked out their sales (none) but they did have a promotion where you get 15% back of the purchase price thru a gift card.

I’m leaning towards purchasing the one on the bottom right, Kivik couch. I like it because the chaise lounge is detachable and can be free standing if you want.

Thanksgiving – Part 2

 (You can see Thanksgiving – Part 1 –> here)

After our Thanksgiving lunch at my sister’s house, Chris and I headed to the hills for our 2nd stop of the day.

Chris’s side of the family met up in Chino Hills at his aunt’s house for their Thanksgiving feast.

Having just eaten a few hours before, my stomach was still full (but not stuffed). I couldn’t resist eating again because there were so many delicious food on the table. I grabbed a small salad plate and used it to sample different dishes.

First round, I ate blueberry muffin, cinnamon chip muffin, spinach salad and fried rice with brown rice.

My second plate included eggs, yams, stuffing, brussels sprouts and more fried rice.

Then it was time for desserts.

Chris’s family was in charged of bringing desserts for the party. Chris and I brought pumpkin pies.

His sister made blueberry pies.

This is Chris’s favorite pie. It’s light and not too sweet. I got the recipe and will be making it at home soon.

Look at this beauty. Layers of cream, chocolate and crushed heath bar.

And here’s my plate.

I tasted all 3 pies and hit my limit. I just didn’t have room to try the other desserts.

Around 7:30, we left the party with our full bellies and rolled out the door and headed for our 3rd Thanksgiving meal of the day at my dad’s house.

We arrived at my dad’s house and was welcomed with another delicious feast. There was a mix of traditional Thanksgiving food (turkey, ham & mashed potatoes) and also traditional filipino food (Ube –> {purple yam cake}, fresh egg rolls and sweet and sour fish dish).

But before diving into more food, my sister Hazel and I played Wii and got our groove on playing Just Dance 3.

Dancing to California Girls by Katy Perry.

Then it was time for a good challenge (the song was marked “challenging”) and dance to LMFAO’s Party Rock!

I got all into it and actually broke a little sweat after dancing continuously.

My dad knew that we had eaten twice already so he just packed some food for us to take home. Our refrigerator is full of leftover food right now.

After we had tea and desserts, it was time to head home.

Picture taken from my sister’s camera. P.S. You can see my childhood bedroom in the background.

It was great a Thanksgiving day. For me, it’s less about the food (although, they were all delicious and made with love) and more about spending time with family.

We are so lucky to be surrounded with loving families and that we are able to celebrate with them during the holidays.

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What did you do Black Friday? Did you see some crazy shoppers? Want to brag about your bargain hunting?