Happy Thanksgiving!

Things are winding down from a happy Thanksgiving. Opa is playing solitaire on the other computer, Micah is watching football downstairs, and I am here updating the blog. Tomorrow we are going to Clint Shellaberger's birthday party in the afternoon, and then back to real life on Monday, but with Christmas music playing in the background.

Thanksgiving was fun. I had wanted to brine the turkey, and so I bought a brine mix when I picked up the turkey. But when I opened it up to prepare it, I took a whiff of the open bag and realized it had sage in it. Opa does not do sage. Fortunately Micah came home about then, and immediately got to work concocting his own custom mix. Then it was into the brine for Mr. Turkey, to spend the night. The brining bags are a huge improvement over trying to do it in a 5 gallon bucket, by the way. Below you see Mr. Turkey surrounded by herbs and ice cubes, ready for the fridge.

Anna and Jim came early Wednesday evening, while Opa and I were at church. Shortly after we got home Clark's delivered our Thanksgiving Eve pizza. Soon after we finished the pizza Joshua arrived. We watched TV and talked, and I finished up a few cooking chores for Thursday. Everyone wandered off to bed around 11:30.

Everyone pitched in to help with the cooking Thursday morning. As you can see from the picture at the right, Anna is starting to definitely look a little maternal.

Andrew and Amie arrived with the kids later in the morning. Grant and Jordan were all dressed up in spiffy new clothes to go over the river and through the woods to grandma's house. But grandkids would be cute if they were dressed in Kroger bags.

Below you see the feast. I don't know if Andrew and Amie ever got to put any food in their own mouths. They were always feeding the little birds beside them. Andrew manfully washed one pot after dinner (I had taken pity and used disposable table ware.) I felt so bad, since I wasn't sure he had ever even got to eat, that I told him to vamoose and leave the pots to me. I didn't have to tell him twice. Joshua, the other baby-gender loser, had vanished long before the Palmolive appeared.
It has taken all my available brain cells to get these pictures added in, so I think it is time for Oma to head for bed. But before I go, Matthew and Melissa came Friday afternoon (with a big pot of coffee, some pumpkin spice creamer and some really yummy Amish bread.) We had a nice evening chatting with them, and then Saturday morning we fixed ham, sweet potatoes, biscuits and cranberries for lunch. They had to head back to Circleville soon after we ate, because Matthew had his first basketball game this evening. He said this may be one of those character building years for his team. Go Lady Vikings!