Texas - Thanksgiving - November 2013

The Family at Thanksgiving Lunch

We alternate Thanksgivings between Texas and Louisiana and this year was back to Texas.  To avoid the Wednesday night chaos (and expensive flights), we got a flight on Thursday morning to Dallas.  Keith's Dad picked us up and we drove to the house to unload before we headed out to the Intercontinental Hotel Dallas for a buffet lunch.  We ate in the Crystal Ballroom, which used to be called the Malachite room when the hotel was run by Grand Kempinski.  Graham, Lily, Boone, Margaret, Owen, and Josie all met us at the hotel where we enjoyed a terrific buffet lunch.  It was a particularly good place for the kids to eat because they were able to be pretty independent and go to the buffets themselves.  There were no meltdowns for the entire lunch - with the only drama being Owen announcing the code to Lily's diary, to which Lily announced "you are ruining my life!".  We all parted ways after lunch, with us heading to see Philomema at the Angelica theater with Keith's parents.  It was a really cute movie.

Us with Lily and Josie

On Friday we met up with Rebecca, Thad, and Tucker for lunch at Legal Grounds.  We had not seen Tucker in a year and she is much bigger and super-cute.  She's the same age as Boone.  We found that they had been to Rome earlier this year so were thrilled that we could get some restaurant ideas from them for our pending trip.  Following lunch, we headed out shopping - yes, on black Friday - though it was not actually that bad.  We then went over to see Marissa and Boone for a couple of hours (Graham was at work) before heading back to the house.  Dinner was a delicious home made salmon with goat cheese and sun-dried tomato, which we inhaled before leaving to see The Book Thief at Grapevine Tinseltown. 

Keith and Shawna at Hibiscus

Saturday was a pretty relaxing day - Keith did some work while Shawna read and we headed over to Margaret's for an hour or so to play with the kids in the local park.  The big event this day was dinner at Graham's latest restaurant Hibiscus.  We started off with a Jaded Mule cocktail (delicious) and the wine of the evening was a Patz and Hall Chardonnay.  Graham sent a round of appetizers out to the table, including Crab Dip, Tuna Tartare, Crispy Lamb Ribs, and a Charcuterie plate.  We split the Oxtail for our main course and had sides for the table of carrots (these were oddly good!), mushrooms, and roasted marble potatoes.  For dessert, we shared the caramelized pineapple bread pudding for the table.  It was a delicious dinner!

On Sunday, we relaxed again and had lunch (cheese that we had bought and timed to send to Keith's parents house just in time for our visit) followed by a quick visit with Peter, Jen, Jordan and Michael.  When we arrived, it was only Peter and Michael there so we chatted and then played soccer outside.  Jen and Jordan came home so we got to spend a little time with them before we went back to Keith's parents house to pack up and head to the airport.