And Back to It

So, how was everyone's holiday?  Ours was great.  A very relaxing and much needed break from work and normal daily life.
It's kind of unpleasant to head back to work today.  Just being home with the boys has been wonderful.  I feel kind of like we are in a sort of limbo--we haven't decorated for Christmas yet, so it's like it is out there looming, but hasn't crashed on us.
We did enjoy Thanksgiving.  We decided Wednesday night that we needed to brine the bird because we were going to grill it the next morning.  I know most sources say to brine for 24 hours, but we got almost 12 hours for this bird.  Then we set up the bird and got the grill going and Nick watched the temp and how the bird was cooking like a nervous father.  We threw a foil packet of soaked hickory chips on the grill for more flavor and that worked out great.  The turkey we brought in to eat was a lovely golden brown and was flavored with the perfect amount of smoked hickory flavor.  The bird still tastes delicious.  The best turkey I've ever had.
As for the rest of Thanksgiving, well, I was very ready for everyone to go home.  I love my family and Nick's, but they can drive me straight up the wall without even trying.  My tongue was a bit raw from all the biting I had to do and my jaw was sore from gritting it and smiling.  Sigh, family, the reason you move out, right?
nick and I did a small amount of Black Friday shopping.  We did invest in a BlueRay player.  We are slowly moving into the current century.
For the rest of the weekend we really didn't do much.  Nick listened to our college team get sort of stomped on, I baked on Saturday.  Bruiser didn't nap until late, through no lack of trying on my part.  We watched a movie as a family Saturday night.  On the new BlueRay player--not a blueray but a normal disc to see what it looked like.
We went for a drive on Sunday to check out the snow at our favorite, close by, cross country skiing area, there isn't quite enough snow to make for good skiing.  we then came home and were complete bums for the rest of the day.  It was nice.
Now back to the grind.  And I'm looking forward to Christmas, when we get a long break form work.  The university where Nick and I work shuts down for the week between Christmas and New Year's.  Turbo gets the same time off from school so we all get a break together.  Kind of really looking forward to that one.
So how was your Thanksgiving, or weekend?