Thanksgiving weekend

Here's Fred carving up the pig.

Wow! I must have gained 10 pounds this weekend. I swear all I did was eat.

My brother got in around 2:30 a.m. Thanksgiving Day after being in South Florida for a former colleague's funeral Tuesday and Wednesday.

He slept a few hours and then put the pig on to roast. Oh, yeah. He bought a 70-plus pound pig to roast. Has he ever done that before? Nope. But now he knows how to do it.

Besides all the pork, we had two fried turkeys and a smoked turkey. We had a ham and a pork roast. I lost count of all the sides and desserts we had.

There was a lot of food, but there were at least 40 of us.

There was one injury. Little Emily Wilder, one of Cheryl's great-nieces, fell in the living room and hit her head Wednesday night. Thursday, she woke up vomiting. Of course, the first thought is a concussion, so her parents, John and Heather, took her to the emergency room. They got back to Fred and Cheryl's house late in the afternoon. Emily had a little butterfly bandage on her head and was subdued. It turned out she had a stomach virus, which explained the vomiting.

Friday morning, very early Friday morning, some of us headed out to the the Black Friday sales. My mother asked if I was going. I told her I had to work. And I did. I interviewed a bunch of people who were out shopping.

For dinner Friday night, Dorothy and I went back out to Fred and Cheryl's, while my mother decided to stay home.

We ate even more.

We repeated that Saturday night. I noticed that there was definitely a dent in the amount of meat that was left over.

This morning, as Dorothy was getting ready to go home to Charleston, we got a call from Fred. It turned out that he, Cheryl and Jessica all caught whatever Emily had. You know, that stomach bug. He wanted Dorothy to get some Pepto-Bismol and Immodium.

Dorothy, our mother and I had limited interaction with Emily, so we're fine.

Jess had to work today in Gainesville, where she's at the University of Florida, at 1 p.m., but had to call in sick. She felt well enough to let Scott drive her to Valdosta, where he's stationed. He has to be at work at midnight. (Fred picked him up on his way home from Hollywood.)

I'm not sure if she's spending the night with him or if she drove the 90 minutes or so back home.

I guess when you've got that many people, someone is going to get hurt and someone is going to get sick. It turned out that one little girl got hurt and sick!

We really did have a great time.