A Horne Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year down here at the Gray Center was a special occasion: all of the Hornes would be present. Yes, that’s right. Mom, Dad, Will, Andrea, Carolyn, Richard, John, Aunt Dotty, Russell(her husband), and I were in Canton AT THE SAME TIME from Wednesday to Saturday. It was great to spend time with everyone together, and it makes me look forward to next summer’s beach vacation in North Carolina that much more. Highlights of my break can be found below…

I flew in Tuesday night around 10:45. My plane was only delayed 50 minutes, but it could have been MUCH worse.

On Wednesday, Will and I(being the only Horne boys present at the house) hit the Gray Center links for some disc golf action. Will had not played since last Christmas, so I figured my advantage would be enormous; I was WAY off. We both played well, but Will edged me out of the first game +1 to +2. Damn him, haha. We played another round of 18 holes; however, I was feeling good midway through this match. I had a THREE stroke lead on Mr. Horne, yet I somehow lost it towards the end, and we finished tied at even par.

A surprise was in store for us on Wednesday; Carolyn discovered that she had an extra vacation day that she did not know about, so she and Richard left a day early to arrive in Canton on Wednesday! The couple arrived around 7pm that night. Aunt Dotty and her husband also arrived Wednesday, bringing extra goodies for our Thanksgiving meal.

Richard, being the great brother that he is, brought some awesome gifts for me. The first was a simple model plane(we’re talking 4 pieces people, haha) of the P51 Mustang used in WWII. Quite the important plane, in case you don’t know. Check it out HERE. Anyways, we had a styrofoam plane last Thanksgiving, and we all had a ball just trying to make the darn thing fly farther. Richard remembered that, so he bought me this simple plane kit. More on this gift later, haha. For the second gift, Richard gave me an old old balsa wood plane kit that his father had given to him at a young age. Richard never built the plane, so he decided to give it to me to build. This thing will be awesome once it is built; it has a span of 32 inches!! I am going to build this baby next semester while at school, and we will definitely record the maiden flight with video footage. I am now accepting names for the plane. If you have ideas, shoot them my way. Finally, as the 3^rd gift, Richard really outdid himself. See, Rich visited Cape Canaveral in 1979(waaaay before I was born), and while he was there, he bought a sheet that had stickers of patches of all the manned Apollo missions on it. It is awesome!! Better yet, on the back, there is a description of each patch and what the emblems depict or represent. I really want to somehow transfer the stickers to a nice glossy posterboard material and include the description underneath each patch. Then, I want to frame it somehow. I think I could make a really nice display for these. Definitely one of the best gifts I have ever gotten.

Wednesday was capped off with Dad’s grilling of his world famous burgers, TWENTY ONE in total. There are still some left in the refrigerator. They wont last long, haha.

So Turkey Day finally rolled around. We traditionally eat around noon, but since Andrea’s plane didn’t arrive until 11:45 am, we had to put it off a little bit. No matter, as that allowed Will and I more time to play some golf. This match was better played, and we even had Carolyn follow along as a photographer. Will beat me once again, -2 to -1.

Today also marked the beginning of the “who can fly the plane the farthest” contest. This competition was waged throughout the weekend. *pictures to come later*

John arrived a few hours after Andrea, and we were ready to eat. This Thanksgiving meal was quite possibly one of the BEST ever done by my mom. Here’s a rundown of the major offerings:

-21 lb. turkey
-two trays of turkey dressing
-homemade turkey gravy
-two trays of sweet potato casserole topped with marshmallows(the Horne children’s favorite)
-a pot of green beans
-two trays of Sister Shubert’s rolls(another Horne child favorite)
-fruit salad
-a first: mom’s homemade zucchini casserole
- several bottles of Ruffino Chianti red wine(the kind I WANTED to get for the dinner party but couldn’t)
- homemade apple cake and pound cake

Needless to say, we were stuffed after all of this. We continued to devour the leftovers each day.

Unforunately, after dinner, Mom became very ill with flu-like symptoms, which decommissioned her for a day. Luckily, she didn’t miss much in the way of fun, as we were all business on Friday. Richard assembled his and Carolyn’s Christmas present to the parents: a completely homemade wooden chop block counter top for the kitchen island. This wasn’t an ordinary top either. It was a combination of some of the most exotic wood you will ever find. *pictures plus listing of wood to be posted later*

In addition to the counter installation on Friday, John, Will, and Dad began the momentous process of installing high-speed internet in our household. Yes, you are reading this correctly. The Horne house, which is in the middle of 750 acres of woods, is getting a high-speed DSL wireless network. How can it be done, you ask? Simple. By Cantennas! They sure do look like Pringles cans, but they are far more useful in the technical world than the chip holders we are used to seeing. Basically, the wireless signal at the Center(which has had high-speed for several months now) is beamed over to our house, translated into a wire signal, transported via Ethernet cable to a wireless router, which then drops a nice, cozy wireless cloud on our house. That means we will be able to access the internet anywhere in our house, be it on mom’s desktop(it has a wireless card) or on the Horne boys’ laptops. Truly a great occasion. Hooray for high speed!!

Somehow there was time left on Friday to play some more golf. John played with us this time, and that maybe helped me a bit. I was finally able to destroy the Will Horne dynasty by coming away victorious with a final score of even par. Will followed with +1, and John +2. There was much rejoicing.

Friday night was spent watching the first 6 episodes from Season One of Arrested Development. Will bought the first season dvd set and had it sent to the house for the holidays. I will admit that I did not find the first few episodes funny, but this Emmy-winning and soon-to-be-cancelled comedy series has really pulled me in now. I cannot help but emit endless streams of laughter during a viewing of one of the episodes. I finally understand what Trevor has been talking about forever.

Saturday included more eating of leftovers, more cursing over which network card goes with which router, and more overall laziness. But this IS the holidays, right? My thoughts too; that’s why the excessive eating, lounging, and yes, even the badmouthing of computer hardware was allowed. We concluded the day like Friday, with everyone piled into the den(even the dogs)watching Arrested Development. Will bought mom and dad a dvd player in a Best Buy run we made earlier that day, as they were the last 2 people in the country without one.We viewed the next 8 or so episodes, and they just seem to get funnier. Please, FOX, please don’t cancel this show. It’s TOO GOOD.

At approximately 11:21pm on Saturday evening, Will and John Horne finally announced that our house was wirelessly covered. Had there been champagne, it would have been drunk. We were all elated with the accomplishment, and Mom was most thrilled with the prospect of using the internet without a crank handle.

Well, I leave tomorrow around 4pm. This Thanksgiving has involved so much, and it has probably been much more than any of you care to read. Then again, if you are at this point on my post, you HAVE read it, therefore you actually DO care. Anyways…don’t expect another post from me for a loooong time. This was my longest post to date, so I might relish in that fact. I hope everyone has/had a safe trip home and are ready to lose all that weight we gained the last few days, haha.

Programming Note: I am going to update my blog over the next few days with the pictures of my Thanksgiving. You’ll just have to deal with only the post for now. Pictures are on their way, I promise...

-H