That Time We Talked About Thanksgiving

This is episode number sixty-five of the Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and happy Thanksgiving week to everybody. We're glad that you could join us in this fun and festive holiday season. It's one of my favorite holidays, man.

Absolutely.

Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble. Oh. So we're, we're, we're test driving this. We're gonna, we're gonna ask for the, uh, the, the follows and the, uh, the, what, what, how do you, how do you follow a podcast? What do you subscribe?

Is that the—

Yeah, you subscribe. Is that typically what the button says?

Yes.

Yes. So hit the subscribe button. Yes. Like us, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all that fun stuff. Send us a message at info@homeownersshow.com. We're, we're testing this out. We're doing it at the beginning of the show. Last week we did it at the end of the show.

Yeah.

We're gonna see which one gets us more followers.

Probably neither.

And then—

I hope a lot though.

And then test again.

Yeah, well, next time we'll do mid-roll.

Mid-roll? All right. We've never done a mid-roll.

We never have.

So we'll have to— we need to test drive that one next week.

Either way, we really do hope that, uh, you enjoy our show and that you want to subscribe. Yeah.

It's fun. Because it's good stuff.

It's absolutely good stuff if you own a home. Even if you don't, there's a lot of people out there that don't own a home, but they're thinking, man, do I want to own a home?

You could be a good steward of somebody else's home. That's true.

Yeah. Absolutely. Or, you could just give people advice on owning their home.

Yeah. I tell you what, man, I actually have a lot of people tell me that they listen to this show to listen to other business owners. Oh, well, that makes sense. They want to hear about how they run their business and how they do things. There's a lot of business owners listening to this show.

OK.

Because we have a lot of business owners on the show. Almost every episode. Except for this week.

Not this one.

Aha!

We fooled you!

Take that, entrepreneurs!

Well, that's just because we have something special we want to talk about. But before we get there, I'm pretty excited to hear a little bit more about what y'all did. Was it last night?

When the show comes out, it will have been a week ago.

OK.

Yeah, so last night.

OK. Yeah.

We are members of the Houston Zoo. Which is an awesome zoo.

zoo, by the way.

It's a fantastic zoo.

Yeah.

And with that membership comes perks and privileges. There's lots of special events and things that they do that we get access to.

Yeah.

One of the cool things that we get access to is the early preview of the, what they call Zoo Lights.

Okay.

And so what it is, it's an evening event that the zoo puts on. They shut down the traditional zoo, so there's no animals.

Well, they're there.

They're there. They're just blocked off where you can't get to them.

Okay.

But the rest of the entire park, which I forget how big the Houston Zoo is, it's massive.

Big.

Um, but anyway, it's all set up with different areas of Christmas lights.

Okay.

Um, and each area has like its own corporate sponsor. And so like there's, you know, gobs of money being put in these Christmas lights.

Sure.

And they do a really, really good job.

Does Exxon have a—

Uh, you know, I think it was Chevron that had one there. And then like Memorial Hermann.

Okay.

There were some companies, I don't even know what they do.

Sure.

But they, you know, they had a spot.

Yeah.

You know, but, and honestly, one of the ones I didn't know, I can't remember the name of the company. They had my favorite one. They had like an enchanted forest. It was actually really cool. They had a bubble machine hooked up to a smoke machine.

Who doesn't love bubbles and smoke?

And so, and then behind it, they had colored lights that would change.

Oh, cool.

And so what, the way the machine was rigged, that as it made bubbles, the bubbles actually captured the smoke. And so when the kids were all dancing around popping bubbles, the bubbles would let off this puff of smoke.

Oh, wow.

So, and then because they had the colored lights behind it, the smoke was whatever color the lights were at that time. It was really, really neat.

That's awesome.

The kids had a blast. You know, if you're in the Houston area, I imagine lots of zoos do this as a nighttime event. But, you know, the lights were all hooked up to the sound. So they, you know, they changed and they moved with the music and they had like s'more stations and food and—

Did you say s'more stations?

I thought it was like a German s'more. A schmores of s'mores.

Okay, just checking.

Yeah, so, um, but yeah, it was, it was, it was really cool. We had it, we had a really, really good time, and the kids had a blast. Uh, they were a little confused as to why we were at the zoo not looking at animals.

Um, understandably so. But they eventually got on with the program and Yeah, man, one of my family's favorite things to do is go look at lights. Yeah, it's, it's fun.

And there's, there's some neighborhoods we have around here that, I mean, like, they are really into it, like street-themed.

Yes, like, like turn to a radio station that plays certain— yeah, music or certain things whenever you go through.

It gets intense. Yeah, the, the, the, the Christmas light game around here is, is legit.

Yes, it absolutely is. Like, there's, there's one around here that's Whoville.

Uh-huh.

So everything, every, every house has something related to, you know, the Grinch and—

Right.

The Whos and all that kind of stuff. There's Candy Cane, the Candy Cane area. Every house has some sort of candy cane.

Yeah.

And that's just a couple. I mean, there's so many.

Yeah.

It's awesome.

I can— I, I kind of feel bad for people that like buy these houses in like the springtime, not realizing what they've actually bought into.

Yeah, but Some of them, I think it's like built into the—

The HOA.

Yes.

It is, yeah.

So it's like you're required—

You are.

To do something.

Yeah, and you can tell the people that begrudgingly do it because they put like a sign in the yard or something. Right, right, right.

That's like one theme. I was like, come on, just play along. You know, but really on the same token, it's like you have thousands of cars that come by your house every single night for like a solid month.

Oh yeah.

And that can be annoying, I would assume.

Oh, absolutely. So, but anyway, tonight's show.

Yeah.

What we're talking— we're going to talk about the big old Turkey Day.

Yeah, I, you know, we were, we were thinking about this and, uh, you know, we had both thought that we'd done one last year. I don't know, we just— maybe we talk about it amongst ourselves but never really recorded anything.

We dropped the ball, man.

Yeah, we just thought, you know, it'd be really kind of cool to just talk about our Thanksgiving traditions and what we do with our families, not because we wanna promote ourselves or anything. We just think that—

It's cool to hear about other people's traditions.

Absolutely. There's stuff that people do that's different than what you do.

Right.

And I mean, I don't know about you, Craig, but this week I've been asking people regularly, it's like, hey, what are you doing for Thanksgiving? What are you doing for Thanksgiving? And, you know, almost everybody is out of school and, you know, either all week or at least partial, partial week, and people get off work for it. And it's a big deal. It's one of the most major holidays, um, in our calendar year. So, uh, we're just gonna spend some time talking about that.

I think people, I, I think I read this, that like statistically more people travel for Thanksgiving than they do for Christmas.

Really?

I think so. Yeah. It's like one of the biggest travel days of the year.

I, do you know what? Like on some level that would surprise me, but on the other level, it's like a lot of people want to be at their house on Christmas Day, right? You know, for Santa, for just, you know, those sorts of things. Uh, and, and Thanksgiving, you don't really have a— at your house, you have to have it in order to have that.

It's more difficult to transport presents than it is like run down to the grocery store and make a dish.

Yeah, it's like, how are you gonna— I mean, and Santa gets overloaded whenever you do that too. It's like, you special request people, surely he gets like frustrated, you know?

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, I would.

So, but we, we, we chatted about it.

Yeah. Oh, okay.

Y'all talked about it. We, we had a talk.

Okay, cool. So, so yeah, well, uh, why don't you just kick us off? Talk, talk about a little bit about what y'all do and—

Well, so ours are, and I, I don't know if ours is different or not because both, both of our parents live close by.

Yeah.

So, and, and we have not negotiated the year on, year off.

Oh, okay.

So we do 2. Okay. So now where we negotiate the flip is sometimes somebody gets the lunch hour and somebody gets the dinner hour. And that tends to be where we flip it.

Okay. Because inevitably one of them wants lunch or dinner. That's the bigger day.

And honestly, no matter which one you give them, No one's ultimately happy.

OK, let's just take a moment here to recognize the elephant in the room. That is, that family is super difficult. It can be.

Totally worth it, but can be difficult.

Absolutely. Everybody has that one family member that you know you're going to see, and you know you're going to have to talk to, and you're going to wish that you could avoid them.

Right.

It doesn't matter It doesn't matter if you have the best family in the world or if you wish you never had to see your family again. Anywhere on that spectrum, there's always that one person you're like, OK, I like them, but there's something about them that I just don't— that person and me, we do not see eye to eye.

Yeah. This is why I say nobody's ultimately happy, because there's pluses and minuses to both. when you don't have the other one, you always look at the negatives. So if we're going to the lunch hour, whoever's got the dinner hour— let me see if I can get this right. Whoever has the dinner hour is happy because they have the dinner hour, because that's the more appropriate meal, I suppose, for Thanksgiving.

Okay.

However, the dinner people are upset because we came from lunch where there was a big meal and are not as hungry as we might have been had we not had a previous turkey dinner.

And you leave earlier.

Right.

Because you gotta get kids in bed.

So there's all sorts of, man, negotiations that happen there.

Sure.

We almost always have a lunch and a dinner. They are very different, no matter who has what.

OK.

With my folks, and I think this is— my wife and I were actually talking about this today because she was like, well, with your folks, just us. And that's true. And I think that's more of a product of us not really having any other family here.

Right.

Extended family beyond just like my mom and dad and my sister.

Right.

I mean, like, we're all here, but like all the rest of our family is in other parts of the country.

Right.

And so, like, so Thanksgiving dinner with my folks tends to be a sit-down, multiple fork, kind of a meal.

Okay.

You know, like it's a dinner.

It's an event.

Even if we're doing lunch, it's, we're gonna, there's, you know, gonna be multiple courses. Right. And not, I mean, like it's a traditional meal. And what I mean by that is like, you know, there's like actual plates and layers of silverware and wine glasses and, you know, It's more of a formal kind of a deal. And I think my parents have cultivated that a bit just because we've been able to keep it small because we don't really have anybody else to have over. Right.

But it's very special and formal.

Absolutely, yeah. And it's a long meal almost always, which is great. I love long meals. I love sitting around the table and just having a conversation with lots of different people. So it's a really, really— That's one of my favorite times to sit around with my family and just have a good long meal. With my wife's family, it is very informal.

Hmm.

And I'm not like characterizing one as better than the other. What's cool about my wife's family is like you never know who's gonna be there and who's gonna show up. So we just prepare for like 100 people. And you know, it's kind of like, Come get what you want when you want it. Paper plates, plastic forks and spoons, and we're all just gonna— you know, you can go sit over there and eat, and kids can go over there and eat, and you can throw mashed potatoes at one another. And, you know, good luck whoever's hosting it.

Yeah.

Which we've done many, many times.

Sure.

We just happen to have the space to hold that many people. But you literally never know who's coming.

Yeah.

And they'll show up, they might not show up, But we'll have plenty of food and lots of different dishes and preparations and usually different, 'cause with my folks, there's gonna be a turkey, right?

Okay, yeah.

With my in-laws, there's probably gonna be 3 or 4 different kinds of turkey. Sure.

Is there ever other meat like ham or pork or anything else?

I think there's—

Which ham is pork, but like a pork loin? Sure.

No, I think in the past we have had ham there, but I mean, usually it's turkey.

Okay.

So, and then there's, and most of my wife's family is not from the South. And so like there's sometimes just different dishes than what I'm used to, 'cause we have a very Southern Thanksgiving meal at my folks' house.

Okay.

So that's probably the big distinction there. I know you guys have like a, Like a pretty special Thanksgiving tradition that you guys—

Yeah, it's very different from most people's, I think. So when I grew up, my folks, both of their parents lived in the same place. And so we would go and we were kind of similar to you. We would spend a little bit of time at one, a little bit of time at the other. And inevitably, it wasn't even. Right.

You know, someone's here. It's great and it's exhausting.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Um, and then I met my wife, and the first Thanksgiving that I went to Thanksgiving with her, she kind of tried to prepare me a little bit. She's like, by the way, first of all, you really kind of only bring people to Thanksgiving that are going to eventually be part of the family. Well, at this point we were already engaged, so there was that, but it's not just a day, it's a full week.

Yeah.

And we go to a lake, it's Caddo Lake. We just call it Caddo. We go to Caddo. And our family has a little lake house on Caddo. And it's a little— they own a little peninsula of land. And when I say it's a lake house, it's a very loosely defined. Um, it's a fishing house is what it is. I mean, underneath there's kind of like a second story, but the first story, the ground level, is, is very, um, it's very rustic down there because it floods. And whenever it floods, um, you know, you don't want all your most valuable things, um, in the flood area. So upstairs is where like the kitchen is, and there's a living area. A bathroom, and a bunk room. The bunk room

has 5 double bunk beds and 1 twin bunk bed. You can sleep 22 people in that one room.

Wow!

It's always full. During Thanksgiving, that room is full. There's 1 bathroom upstairs. Up until last year, there was only a tub. There's no shower. But just before I started going, uh, to Caddo, which at this point this will be year 13 for me, um, at that point, I think it was just 2 years before that, there is also a bathroom downstairs, but it also only had a— it was a clawfoot tub. That's all they had down there. Uh, but some of the cousins rigged up a shower in there.

Okay.

So we did have a shower downstairs. Um, but one of the cool things was that, um, back whenever the great-aunts and uncles were still alive— many of them have passed on at this point— but, um, they— a lot of them owned campers and motorhomes and those sorts of things. And so they would bring them to Caddo, and they wanted a place to hook up. So right now we have 5 hookups. full hookups for, uh, electric and water for campers. And we can actually— we have a 6th that we can put up. And we've even considered— we've got more land, we've considered putting more out there, but we're gonna have to draw more electricity from the pole in order to be able to do that. Uh, but so we, we have a camper,

my wife and I, we have a camper just because of Caddo. Now, we use it other times. We love it and we enjoy it other times, but the reason we got a camper was because of Caddo. And so we haul our camper down and we're there for, you know, 5 or 6 days.

Yeah.

And every year there's about 30 to 40 people, depending on the, the year, that are there all week. And then, uh, on Thursday, other family will come in and It depends. There's anywhere between 60 and 80 or 90 people on Thursday.

Wow.

So it's very big. It's a big deal. It's kind of like a big family reunion. Well, we made a decision back before we even got married, just based on some things and the way our families do holidays, that we would do Thanksgiving with my wife's family and we would do Christmas with my family. So, uh, this will be the 13th year that I've not been to my family's Thanksgiving.

Yeah.

Which is really tough for my family. I mean, my, specifically my mom and dad. Um, it, it's hard for them because, you know, they, they want their family together at Thanksgiving.

Sure.

Yeah. Um, but they kind of, where we've fallen on that is, well, you get us for Christmas.

Yeah.

Um, and we don't flip-flop.

Mm-hmm.

Partly because it is such a big deal for my wife and, and, um, My wife doesn't remember a single Thanksgiving that she wasn't at Caddo. Her mom, I think she told me that she can only remember 2 in her 60-plus years of life that she's not been at Caddo. Those were for pretty big, important things. And so it's a big, big deal. So what's very different about our situation is we're with our family for a full week. And so we plan meals out. well in advance. We kind of know that, you know, when, uh, so Wednesday night, it's— there's gonna be a hot dog roast. There's a fire going 24 hours a day while you're there. So we're all roasting hot dogs on, on Wednesday.

Thursday, we don't really, we don't really do much stuff for breakfast. You bring muffins and things that you don't have to heat up because the ovens are all being used in the campers. And there's, you know, a couple of different ovens in the house. And so those are all being used to cook things. Um, and so we have a big, big lunch. When I say big lunch, I mean, like, we typically have 4 or 5, 6-foot tables full of food. 6. I mean, that, that's a lot of food. It's a lot of food. And we kind of got smart a few years back and stopped using plates. And now we use those Styrofoam trays.

Yeah.

And, and, and they get full, you know? Uh, and then the food, we just leave the food out. and graze the rest of the day. If you want dinner, it's there. Um, and, you know, different than being very formal, I mean, we just, we're with each other all week.

Yeah.

So we, we set up chairs and sit around the fire, or we'll, you know, wherever we can find a place, we sit. Uh, we also rig up, this is, uh, something that, you know, the, the older people are thankful for, but they're like, we never had that back in our day at Caddo. Uh, we, we rigged up, we rig up a, uh, a projector And we watch football. And so we'll have football going on Thursday and those sorts of things. But the other thing that we've been doing recently is we like to smoke meat while we're down there.

Yeah.

And so one of the cousins started bringing a smoker down. And we had an old refrigerator, like a 1950s old icebox-type refrigerator that had been down at Caddo for years and years and years, and it worked up until about 5 or 6 years ago. And so we're kind of like, what are we going to do with this thing? Well, the whole thing's metal, and so we're like, let's make a smoker out of this thing. And so we, we did. We made a smoker out of this thing. It's a hilarious story. I'm not going to get into it today about kind of how we went about that, that process, But we built a smoker out of this refrigerator so we can smoke a large

amount of meat. So Friday night is always like meat night.

Nice.

And so we, yeah, we're smoking all day on Friday. And, um, you know, we, we always have turkey on Thanksgiving. Uh, there's always a ham, at least a lot of times there's brisket. Um, but the big thing for food is sweet potatoes.

Sweet potatoes.

Okay. My wife's family is in the history books at Texas A&M for yam farms.

OK.

They, at one point, owned the largest yam farms in Texas.

OK.

Forever, there's sweet potato stuff. I never really liked sweet potatoes all that much, but I think I just didn't ever have it cooked correctly. You get there, There's all kinds of dishes.

Yeah.

Every, every way you can think about cooking sweet potatoes, they have it there. I've had, I've had like regular sweet potato casserole, like a lot of people do. I've had sweet potato pie and it's very good. I've, I've had sweet potato muffins. I've had sweet potato chips. I've had sweet potato, like cornbread type, type stuff.

Yeah.

there's constantly sweet potato stuff everywhere.

Yeah.

Um, but man, we just eat a lot and we sit around a lot and just talk. We catch up with people. It's like a big family reunion. And you know, it's something that I look forward to every single year. Um, when I say it's like family, I mean, it is family, but it's like, I mean, it's like these people are some of the best people in the world. And I love my family to death, my side of the family. But I'm very partial to our Thanksgiving tradition for our family. My kids will grow up doing this and it'll be a big deal to them.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, very different than what most people do for Thanksgiving, but it's a blast.

So when you're up there, what are— other than the sweet potatoes and some smoked meats, what are some dishes that you're kind of zeroed in on? What are you hoping's on the table?

Okay, well, this doesn't come out at Thanksgiving, mainly because when you put stuff out at Thanksgiving, you may or may not get it. So a lot of times stuff is made that sometimes is served on Friday or something, whenever, you know, a lot of the people are not there. But one of the things that is my favorite is, um, one of the cousins makes, uh, every year is a banana pudding. And she, she always says, oh, it's so easy. I'm like, I don't really care how easy it is, it tastes amazing.

And you're talking my wife's language right now. That's her favorite.

And I, man, it's it's perfectly made because it's made the night before.

Mm-hmm.

And I know there's a lot of, there's a lot of opinions out there, but like, I'm the type of guy that if I go to a restaurant and I want banana pudding, I'll ask them, was it made today or was it made yesterday? And, you know, a lot of times they're like, oh, don't worry, it was made fresh today. And I'm like, I don't want it then. I want the, I want the soggy cookies. That's what I like. And so Um, you know, a lot of people like the crispy cookies. I prefer the soggy cookies.

Yeah.

So, um, anyway, I look forward to that. Um, there's always, uh, one of the, uh, one of the guys makes, uh, it's like a, a green chili, uh, salad type of thing. It's spicy, but it's, man, it's good. Um, But yeah, man, there's always, there's always— and, and the biggest thing that, that I think we really look forward to is Friday night, the meat night. I mean, we're smoking ribs, we're smoking pork loins, we're smoking, um, we're smoking like jalapeño poppers wrapped in bacon. Um, we've smoked everything from elk to quail to, uh, I mean, all kinds of stuff. And it's always an adventure. Yeah, it's fun. We just sit around talking and man, it's great.

And quail, I think, is like one of the most underrated birds. Yeah, so good. It is really, really good.

The problem with quail is there— it's, it's a hassle to cut up and, and prepare, and every once in a while you might get buckshot. Yeah, in, you know, but It is very tasty. Yeah, it's so good.

Probably my favorite poultry.

Yeah, man, it's very, very good.

Yeah.

So yeah, so that's probably a couple of things for me, and I'm sure I'm missing something. I mean, there's always, there's always something. One, one morning it's, it's, it's pancakes and bacon, and, and the guys get up early and, uh, make pancakes and bacon, and, uh, it's just like turn the smoke detector off, please, because there's gonna be so much smoke from the bacon and everything. But man, it's just, it's great. What about y'all? Is there, is there a specific dish for y'all?

I know for like my folks, there is a pretty extensive, uh, dressing. Oh, that is prepared.

Okay.

So, and we're cornbread folks. Yeah. And so it's a cornbread dressing. Yeah. Which I, I know for some people that's like That's a big deal.

Oh yes.

Like some people are very particular about their stuffings and their dressings and all those kind of things. But ours is, mine's always been cornbread, always has been. And like, it's like, and I don't know how other people make it, but like my mom has always made like a full pan of cornbread.

Yeah.

And then that gets mashed up into the actual mix of what actually becomes the stuffing.

Yeah.

It's like one of my absolute favorite things. We only have it once a year.

Yeah.

Um, and it takes a long time for her to make it. Um, but man, is it good.

Yeah. Well, one of the things that's hilarious about the dressing at, um, at my mom's mom's house is my granny would always make it. She had to make it, so she made it. And every year it was like, all right, somebody distract her. And so they'd say, hey, Granny, we need, we need to talk to you about something over here. So she'd go out of the kitchen for a minute and my mom and her sister would get in there and just doctor it up. She never made it quite good enough. And she always said, man, I make the best dressing. But it's only because my mom and her sister would get in there and fix it, you

know, which is pretty hilarious.

So, so yeah, so that, that's, that's a big one for us. I mean, other than that, I mean, uh, like probably one of my favorites is green bean casserole.

Oh yeah.

If I don't have that at Thanksgiving, it's just, it hasn't been Thanksgiving.

Lots of brown sugar and bacon. Is that how you like it?

No, I actually don't put brown sugar in mine. I mean, mine's, you know, it's mushrooms and those crispy onions that you put on top. I mean, if I've got those 2 things going on, I'm a happy man.

Okay. All right.

But I've seen people do the brown sugar and bacon. Yeah.

So, but they're sweet that way.

Oh yeah. So I'm, and I've never been a big sweets guy anyway. But one of the other things that our family does, and we don't always do this, and we will sometimes break it out for special occasions, even though it's not a complicated dish, but it's bacon-wrapped watermelon rind.

Yeah, you've told me about this.

Yeah.

Isn't it pickled watermelon rind?

Yes, sir, it's pickled watermelon rind.

Okay.

Which, I mean, like, if, again, if you've never had it and that just sounds completely odd and weird. It is. Yeah, it's so delicious.

Well, I like pickled things personally, but I mean, eating watermelon rind is— I mean, you wrap anything in bacon, surely it's gonna be good.

Yeah, I would recommend people try pickled watermelon rind just on its own.

Okay.

It's really, really sweet. Like, it's way sweeter than a bread and butter pickle.

Okay.

And so you get like a really, really sweet hit with a really, really savory piece of bacon. Mm-hmm. It's crispy and then the inside's gushy and, uh, and, and all that kind of stuff. So it's, uh, it, it's, it's delicious.

Yeah. Right. Well, so, um, yeah, so, you know, one of the things that I think happens, uh, at our, at our Thanksgiving every year is like, There's always something when you spend 5 or 6 days with people. There's always something that's like, you remember that year when this happened?

Right.

Maybe that happens with a lot of people, but like, I remember, uh, one year we've just gotten the camper that we currently have, and, um, kind of a long story, but there was on the way in, it's, it's a very small, narrow not paved well road. And, um, I mean, it's, it's probably only about a mile, but it takes you like 5 minutes to get down.

Yeah.

And there was this one point where a tree had fallen over and the root system had completely gone with it. And so there's a big hole in my— in our— the left tires, the driver's side tires on our camper fell in the hole. And so I was like, That was the year that our camper got stuck in the hole. There was another year that another rotted tree had fallen, but it wasn't quite done, completely over, and we're like, we got to get that out of the way. So that was the year that the kids chopped up the tree. There was a year that my wife got knocked into the lake by my dog. He turned around and his back

end pushed her into the water. So there was that day that year. Then there was the year that the lake was completely covered with this plant called salvinia. It looked like you could walk on the lake because it was just completely covered. You couldn't even tell there was a lake there.

Is that like an invasive?

It's an invasive species of plant. It was there for 3 or 4 years. And last year, it was gone, and they had a really, really hard freeze. I think they think that that combined with— I mean, it's the only natural lake in Texas.

Right.

So, it's conserved in a lot of ways. They were trying to figure out ways to kill this stuff. I mean, it was bad. Between the process that they went through to kill it and the hard freeze, it finally went away. You know, a couple years ago we had to rebuild a pier. We got a long pier that you can walk out on. So I mean, there's always kind of that thing. It's like, you remember that was the year the refrigerator went out and we didn't have a refrigerator anymore. And so, um, so that's kind of fun to kind of look back and, and kind of mark years by things that happen.

Yeah.

When you're together. So I don't know, man, like Thanksgiving for me is something that I, I just so look forward to.

Yeah.

I enjoy while I'm there. There's nothing— there's no cell signal out there. There's no Wi-Fi out there. We're lucky to be able to get over-the-air football. But it's simple. It's just simple living.

I think that's part of what makes Thanksgiving great, is everybody celebrates it in a different way. I think most everybody, if you're lucky enough to have a good family, you're looking forward to that time where you can get together with them. and celebrate whatever weird and wacky traditions you have. Yeah.

And that's why we wanted to do this episode, right? Like, just the idea that, listen, the way you do Thanksgiving is perfect.

Yeah.

Because at the end of the day, we all have stuff to be thankful for.

Yep.

And, you know, it doesn't matter how bad your year has gone or how good your year has gone, there's always something that we can be thankful for. I mean, I I was telling Craig just before the show that I came upon a fatal accident the other day. And I was just thinking, man, what a tragic morning.

Yeah.

What a tragic morning. I mean, someone's just on their way to work and a fatal accident happened. And it's like, I'm so sad for that family and I've been thinking about them a lot. But at the same time, I can be thankful that my family's safe today.

Yeah.

And that we woke up and that we had a blanket on our bed whenever we woke up. There's always something for us to be thankful for. At the end of the day, our encouragement to you out there, everyone listening to this episode, is find something to be thankful for, enjoy your Thanksgiving, and celebrate in your own way and make it special. Find something to make it special. And, uh, relish in the time that you get.

Absolutely. So it's gonna be a great Turkey Day, everybody.

Yeah, absolutely.

So enjoy it. Eat lots of food. Have lots of coffee.

That's right.

Maybe an adult cocktail.

Maybe.

Or a piece of pie.

Absolutely.

Behave yourselves.

Probably.

Be kind to one another.

Always.

Love on one another.

Yes.

Just have a good time.

Absolutely. Do it.

So, anything else, Kev?

Man, that's it.

Oh, hope everybody has a great holiday. We really, really do. Thank you guys for listening. Thank you guys for downloading. What else, Kev?

Till then, we'll see you next time, next Tuesday.

See you then.