Turkey Day.

There's my bird!! Victoria named him Fred. I suggested Ebeneezer so I think we added a hyphen. I had never stuffed a turkey before. You can fit quite a lot in there!

We had an amazing Thanksgiving celebration! When I got back from Belgium on Monday, Kimberly and I went grocery shopping for our big dinner. We only spent about 110 pounds. Yes, it's quite a lot of money but considering that it fed 14 people Thanksgiving dinner AND I still have leftovers to show for it -- it wasn't bad. I spent the next three days cooking. Literally. It's a good thing you can make so much of it ahead of time. There's no way I could have done all of that ON the actual day!

(Like my new apron?? I was quite proud of that turkey. I look rather flushed. Hmm... I get my pink cheeks from Grammi : ) I had been in that kitchen since I woke up at 7am.)

It was such great fun too because I got to make LOADS of things that I had never made before. This was my first turkey and I baked a ham as well. I looked up some recipes for that and then just sort of created my own glaze based off of what I had read. It was beautiful. I found a WONDERFUL sweet potato recipe, which I will probably use for the rest of my life -- you bake the sweet potatoes and then split them open and pour in a mixture of butter, brown sugar, flour, baby marshmallows, cinnamon and pecans. I wish I had taken a picture of them. They were divine!! I thought we'd have loads of them leftover because they were so huge but there was only one left. I ate it.

I just LOVE cooking for people!!!!! Seriously. It's one of my most favorite things to do. I talked to Steven's mom to wish her a Happy Thanksgiving and she said that she thought I was so brave for cooking Thanksgiving dinner for all those people by myself. She told me that when she was my age and she had to do Thanksgiving dinner she was terrified. I think that's why I'm a decently good cook -- I'm not afraid of the kitchen! I get excited about finding recipes and trying new things and I truly do enjoy taking the time to make really good food that I know people will love.

I made our traditional things like mashed potatoes and pink salad and cheesy cauliflower. I found a new recipe and made my own cranberry sauce. That was pretty exciting. I also made a HUGE green salad, which didn't really get eaten and is still in the fridge, and Kimberly made a bean/rice salad and Brussels sprouts with bacon. So good! I quite like Brussels sprouts. I made pumpkin bread and cheese dip for the crackers and a pecan pie, and a pumpkin pie (with home-smooshed pumpkin!!!) and some whipped cream as well.

I didn't take many pictures because I was so busy and then once everything was finally on the table, it was too dark in there to get any really good pictures anyway. I was too embarrassed to turn the flash on. I felt a little silly taking pictures at that point.

Have I mentioned that our heat has been broken since last Tuesday? Yeah, true story. We're getting a new boiler in a few days though, so that will be good. On Thursday, while Kimberly and I were bustling around getting things ready, we brought all of the space heaters out of the bed rooms and tried to place them strategically around the entryway and dining room to help take the chill off. Kimberly and Curtis had moved the kitchen and dining tables into the big room and at one point while Kimberly was decorating the tables I heard her shout "Do you think the candles will give off any heat???" I laughed but then I realized she was serious -- we were SO COLD! She went ahead and lit the candles anyway just in case that tiny amount of extra energy was going to do us any good. We got the gas fireplace going and rocked out to some Jackson 5 (interesting choice of Thanksgiving music...), all the while counting down until our guests were due to arrive.

At 5pm I took the potatoes over to the next door neighbor's house to put them in her oven -- couldn't have done it without her!! -- and everyone showed up at 7pm. There were 14 of us all together and it was fantastic! Everyone was so complementary. It's a good thing it was dark in there because I'm pretty sure I was blushing the whole time. Curtis had introduced me to everyone when they came in and he kept telling people that I pretty much run his life -- which made me feel really important and needed -- and Kimberly kept telling everyone how we wouldn't even be having Thanksgiving if it wasn't for me. All throughout dinner they were all imploring me to change my mind about staying in Seattle after Christmas and Curtis made a few comments about how there was a chance my passport might go missing in the next couple of weeks : ) Kimberly told Curtis that as long as they're married, she's quite certain this will have been the best meal he's ever eaten. I thought that was quite funny. Deb (the woman with the blond hair sitting next to Curtis) was particularly thankful as she usually likes to do Thanksgiving (she's American) for her family but has gone back to school full-time and knew she wasn't going to be able to pull it off this year. I spent quite a bit of time talking with her husband, Chris, who I was sitting next to. It turns out that the two of them used to own property in Woodinville and Juanita!! How random is that??

After dinner we went around the table and everyone said one thing they were thankful for. We laughed a lot and it was just such a happy time. I missed being at home so very much but since there was no way that I could really just pop over for a long weekend -- I know I couldn't have found a better alternative.