This past week has been quite full. In between producing a radio show, shipping cookbooks, packing our suitcase, driving to Memphis (and back again), and eating as much Thanksgiving food as we possibly could, I also managed to host a pretty swank birthday party for my best friend.

That’s right, Tuesday was Drew’s birthday! And at the ripe old age of 26 he is still turning flips and busting out some ninja moves.

Celebrating his birthday has actually been a week long celebration. We started with a family dinner last week at one of our favorite local restaurants, Baja Burrito.

Then we played sand volleyball & frisbee at the park with some friends. That’s Tennessee for you. 70 degree weather the week before Thanksgiving. But we were not complaining.

I made a pretty awesome carrot cake to boot. (You can find the recipe on my Natural Health blog, Laurel of Leaves.)

Thanksgiving was spent in various stages at various places all over the city of Memphis, and ended in Franklin, TN with leftovers and a movie with Drew’s parents.

And really, what is Thanksgiving without some mention of the Black Friday madness? The only nod we gave to the shopping frenzy this year wasn’t really a frenzy at all.

REI was the only place I was interested in visiting since they were giving a $20 gift card to the first 150 people through the doors when they opened.

We were pleasantly surprised to be numbers 10 & 11 in line when we arrived at 6:45a! I expected the line to be far longer at that point. But I came prepared with my mummy bag to wait out the next hour and fifteen minutes in the 35 degree weather (70 to 35 in a matter of…..one day. Nice.)

And, believe it or not, I managed to leave the store without buying anything. As much as we wanted some new Vibram FiveFinger TrekSports for New Zealand, we decided to wait and save our gift cards for the next REI Scratch & Dent sale to see what treasures we can uncover there.

In the meantime, we’ve corralled some items for our trip on our Amazon Wish List.