Thanksgiving 2007, Texas Style

We made our annual trip to Sherman, Texas again this Thanksgiving to visit with Ed and Paula Meacham. This is the second year we traveled there to attend the Cowboys game on Thanksgiving day, I smoked a turkey and we cooked all the usual side dishes for the traditional dinner at Texas Stadium.

Since we arrived a day early we were looking for something to do on Wednesday night when I found out the Dallas Stars were playing the Anaheim Mighty Ducks at the AA Center. Ed was all in so we jumped in the vehicle and headed to Dallas. We had a hard time finding tickets which was rather surprising, but then again the Stars were playing last year's Stanley Cup champions. We scored tickets just before opening faceoff, we were worried about what kind of tickets we got when we found that we were about 10 rows back from the ice even with the goal! About the time we sat down the house lights were dimmed and they rolled a carpet onto center ice. We then discovered that it was a special recognition ceremony for Mike Modano for being the NHL's all-time scoring leader for an American born player, not to mentionthe Stars' all-time leading scorer.

The Ducks jumped out and scored the first goal early in the first period and there was no score in the second. Then a few minutes into the third period, who else but Modano slaps a goal from the left wing. A few minutes later Hagman scored to put the Stars up 2-1. They hung on to win and Modano was named player of the game. As the Ducks were exiting the ice up the tunnel just two seats away, Paige was looking over the rail at the players when one of the security guards said something to her. I wondered if she had done something wrong when she turned around to show us that he had given her a puck! Ed said he'd been to lots of games and had never seen them do that before. We were all pretty stoked over it.

The next day we headed back to Irving to go to the football game. We had the smoked turkey, dressing, lots of other dishes as well as lots of delicious beverages. Last year I think it was around 85 degrees, this year the high was 38 degrees with a 20mph wind. There's nothing like entering the stadium, it's complete bedlam. We had just entered the stadium when we heard a loud cheer. We looked up and saw the Cowboy Cheerleaders entering the stadium just above us.

The game got underway and the Cowboys jumped out to an early lead. The strange thing was that early in the 2nd quarter Crystal said she thought she saw snow falling. It was obviously cold, but I would never imagine that it was cold enough to snow. A few minutes later I saw a few flakes fall and then it really started falling hard. It snowed almost the entire 2nd quarter and they just stayed cold the rest of the game. The Cowboys held on to defeat the Jets 34-3, but there still nothing like a live NFL game.