Thanksgiving Recap

Happy Saturday all! I hope everyone is recovering from their turkey coma and Black Friday shopping. I thought I'd stop by quickly and share our Thanksgiving. And to make things easy on myself, I thought I'd just share the photos we took via Instagram.

We left off on Tuesday, so I'll start with Wednesday. Dan got to have Wednesday off (I swear, this past week has been crazy in terms of his work), so we slept in a little bit. The original plan was for me to ride into Orlando with him, drop him off at work, then go to my mom's house to start prepping food for Thursday. But, sleeping in sounded like a much better idea. We eventually made our way to Orlando around lunch time. And we were welcomed by this:

Yep, you counted right. Seven. Seven turkeys thawing out. And yes, they are on a towel sitting on the floor. How else do you thaw out seven turkeys? Why seven turkeys? Well, only 2 were actually used at the dinner at my mom's house. The other 5 were cooked at our place and then taken to other people's homes. Mom baked two (one for us and one for the VFW) and my stepdad smoked four (one for the VFW, one for my sister, one for us, and one for a family friend). The last turkey was saved in the fridge for my stepbrother to come pick up and cook at his house. I should also mention that my brother-in-law works for a grocery store and can get turkeys really, really cheap. 

Once Dan got over the rafter of turkeys (did you know that a group of turkeys is called a rafter? we didn't - learned something new!), we settled in and started prepping food. Of course potatoes had to be peeled...

....onions and celery had to be chopped, and boiled eggs had to be peeled. Basically anything that we could do to make mom's job easier on Turkey Day. At some point we had to stop our prepping and run an 8th turkey up to my mom's office for a colleague. And when we got back, my sister and her family were at the house and my niece wanted to help prep food too. Her "help" consisted of watching me chop onions and laughing at how badly the tears were streaming down my cheeks.

After we said our goodbyes...

...Dan and I ran out to the mall to pick up a couple Christmas gifts. I packed our bags for this trip and forgot to pack the Hubby a jacket. I did, however, remember to pack myself two jackets. So he ended up with my purple hoodie. Needless to say, Dan wasn't thrilled by the color, but was thankful for the warmth.

When we got home, I helped mom clean up a little around the house while Dan watched t.v. and played on my iPad.

Thursday morning we woke up, got dressed, and had a small breakfast. My brother-in-law was already over and helping my stepdad smoke the turkeys. We headed over to my in-laws to have an early Thanksgiving lunch with them. Dan had fun visiting with the cats.

And the cats had fun sniffing the turkey...

After lunch at their house, we headed back over to my parents' house. We still had to cook the macaroni & cheese dishes. As those were cooking, the rest of my mom's family arrived. Mom pulled out the deviled eggs that I had made up the day before. They are my annual contribution to the Thanksgiving dinner. 

And within a couple minutes dinner was served. There was so much food, it was on 3 different countertops!

If this picture of Dan is any indication, the food was good!

To help him shake off the turkey coma, my niece asked him if he could start a fire for her. She wanted to roast marshmallows. So Uncle Danny's boy scout skills were put to the test. He didn't disappoint. 

While the fire was getting started, my niece caught the smallest frog I have ever seen.

She named him Fred the Jumper. Pretty appropriate, don't you think? My nephew wanted nothing to do with the frog or the fire. He was pretty content playing with toys and making up songs.

After dinner, dessert, and fire roasting, the Hubby and I headed back to our little apartment. We fed the cats their "Thanksgiving dinner" and called it a night. We thought about going out for Black Friday shopping, but Dan got called into work Friday. So, I spent a lazy day around the apartment catching up on t.v. shows and hanging out with the cats.


I hope everyone else enjoyed the holidays! Any fun stories to share?