Gobble, gobble

There's nothing like a great turkey, with all the trimmings, and fun people to celebrate with. My sister's family came down from Seattle to be with us which was especially exciting for me since I haven't spent Thanksgiving with anyone in my family for about 6 years. Wally's sister and her family also came down from Idaho to play games with us the night before Thanksgiving. We had lot of fun and decided to bake the pies Kelsie helped me make for everyone that night. We all enjoyed some good homemade apple, pumpkin, and chocolate velvet pies and played an exciting game of Killer Bunnies.

We started our holiday morning participating in our family's 3rd annual Turkey Trot 1-mile fun run. We were lucky enough to talk Ben and Whitney into running with us. As we all got ready to go, Brandon insisted on wearing his boots during the run and was a little put out when we told him there was no room in the stroller for him. It was a cold morning, but once the race started we were able to stay warm. I pushed Caleb and my niece, Lydia, in the double jogger while Kelsie ran with me and Brandon ran (more like walked) with Wally. Kelsie and I finished in14:49 while Brandon and Wally crossed the finish line at 24:41. We were proud of our kids for running and finishing the race. Kelsie mostly enjoyed the race and Brandon informed us that he does not want to do that again, ever (maybe the boots had something to do with it?). We'll see how he feels about it next year.

Upon returning home from the big race, the major cooking operations began. We marinated our turkey overnight in a salt-water solution (1 c salt and 1/2 c brown sugar per 1 gallon of water) and then stuffed it with fruit (apples, oranges, pears, and limes), an onion, and some garlic. We then seared it for half an hour in a 550-degree oven with a homemade tin-foil hat, and then let it cook at 350 for the next 3 hours. In the meantime we set to work mashing potatoes, making candied yams, roasting green beans, cooking the rolls and stuffing, and finishing off with a nice crisp mandarin salad. (Nothing says Thanksgiving like a mandarin salad.) When everything was ready, we all sat down and enjoyed the ever popular Thanksgiving dinner. All the food turned out great, especially the turkey, if I do say so myself. We went around the table and said what we were thankful for, stuffed our faces and our bellies, and then retired to the couch for a long winter's....oh wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.

The rest of our weekend was pretty quiet. Whitney and I braved "black friday" shopping and were able to get a couple good deals. Here's a tip: I will forever and ever shop at Target if I ever shop on black friday again. They had plenty of their great deals there when we went at 9 a.m. which proves that you DO NOT need to get up at insane hours of the morning to get the deal. I was so happy about that, I even let one of those nice people in a red shirt know. Also, there was NO LINE when we went to the check out. We just walked up and paid and walked out. It can't get any better than that.

OK, 1 more tip: check online. We found some some deals online that were just as good as going to the store, except we didn't have to get up early or wait in line for 45 minutes.

Wally and Ben took Kelsie and Brandon out shooting rockets (one apparently blew up which made the excursion that much more exciting) and we enjoyed kicking off the holiday season with music and movies.


We also made this cool "Thanksgiving Garland" out of tissue paper and glue. I got the idea from a friend's friend's blog and thought we would try it out. (It's a lot like making a pinata. Kendra, this should make you proud.) It was super fun to make and maybe next year we'll add what we're thankful for around it.