Thanksgiving

I hope everyone's Thanksgiving was as blessed as mine was. This year due to a couple turn of events we decided to host Thanksgiving at our house and I volunteered to make my first Thanksgiving meal as an adult.

I started Wednesday night preparing cheesecakes and other goodies. Then Thursday I got started with Tank the Turkey after I gave him a spa bath, butter massage, salt and pepper rub I popped him into the sauna. I went to set the timer and realized he was in over an hour early yikes I pulled the pan back out, did you know a pan can get to nearly burning hot in less then a minute OUCH! Finally at the right time I popped Tank into the sauna to steam for an hour, then out to rest for 20 minutes while I changed temperatures then back into the sauna. When he was done I LET HIM REST AGAIN FOR THE FINAL NAP OF HIS LIFETIME. Tank was a very handsome bird, and tasty too!
While preparing meals I had the lap top out to help with a few pressing questions like "Which red blob is the liver I am supposed to throw out?" "Which herb is in my hand?" a friend gave me two and I was not positive which was which. "How hot is a turkey when it is done?" Thank goodness for my friend Google who helped me with everything! About an hour before dinner my wonderful sister and brother in-law came over and helped set the food out pretty, Tom was good for getting the high stuff out of the cabinets. When Dad arrived I finally confessed that I had no idea how to carve my pretty bird and he set to work. Thanks Daddy! My hubby was very helpful throughout the day and most importantly I left the camera out and he took tons of pictures to preserve my memories!

I love this picture of my daddy and I working together in the kitchen.
Finally it was time for everyone to dig in. We decided to do a buffet since our table was not big enough to hold the food. It was fabulous to have enough counter space for this to be an option.
After a wonderful dinner of food, and conversations The Hood's and Max cleaned the kitchen!!! Even Sydney helped out by drying spoons. It was nice to sit back and watch the mess disappear.


I loved having a small thanks giving this year with my parents, the Hood's (Chrissy Sydney, and Tom), Max and I, and my wonderful Auntie Pattie who lives in CA this is the first time in 46 years she did not cook the meal. My brother Billy was missed but we will see him Tomorrow when he comes home for a few days before leaving for work in Dubai again. My mom and Aunt were so cute they dressed in matching outfits.
After dinner we had a family porker tournament I was out the second hand Tom out played me! It was a very aggressive game with lots of bidding and came down to My Dad and Max. Max won in the end.

After my parent left for the evening Max and Tom went back to their Tiger Woods game on the Wii they started before dinner while Chrissy and I were prepping and chatting, while Chrissy and I checked out the adds and plotted our shopping strategies for the next morning. IN the mean time Sydney was having a great time dipping carrots into ranch and sucking off the ranch until.....she dropped her carrot and went after it. She was very upset when her mean Aunt Lu Lu carried her to the sink to clean up. She had ranch everywhere arms, hair, clothes and not just her but the same places on me.

I have to say while I missed the bigger Thanksgiving with lots of friends and family the intimate meal was wonderful for this year, and made for many wonderful memories.