Sam's Blog

Whew...!!!

Well...another Thanksgiving dinner complete. This year, we had Lisa's family come over to the house. We got started with the prep at around 11:00. People started arriving at noon. Dinner was at 2:00. It was a great feast (as usual, I didn't think there was enough food but there was more than enough...). Lisa kicked everyone out by 5:30.

There are numerous advantages to having Thanksgiving dinner at your house: you don't have to pack up the kids to go anywhere, you get to keep most of the leftovers, if you choose to *partake*, you can partake as much as you want (just don't make a fool of yourself...), the kids can go down for their nap in their own bed, and many other reasons...

There are really only a couple of disadvantages - but boy are they doozies: the preparation and the clean-up. The prep wasn't bad this year because everyone had a part in bringing something. Lisa purchased pre-cooked turkeys at Raleys that only took a couple of hours to cook. Lisa also made the mashed potatoes. I slaved over the rice cooker... We provided a couple bottles of wine and beer - seems like everyone else came with a bottle too... The prep was easy. The cleanup started right after dinner - about 2:45. Lisa and I cleaned as we attempted to socialize. We even sat down for five-minutes a couple of times (or was it 2-minutes?). We continued cleaning and socializing until it was time to bring Aly and Mitch in for dinner (this is about the time Lisa decided we had enough socializing...). We cleaned through their dinner and kept cleaning until after 6:00. Done! Our backs were aching! How do people do this year-in and year-out?

Some Highlights
One of the best things about the Holidays is getting the family together - especially, the kids and grandkids. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see Adrienna because she was spending the holiday with her mom. However, we did get to see Matias and little-Bricker (Adam, Jr.). What a blast!

Aly and Mitch got to play with their twin cousins all afternoon. They loved it! It was a non-stop funfest with the only casualty (that we know about) being one of the plants in the back yard.

Most of our (Lisa and I) highlights occurred in the kitchen. The funniest were right before dinner. Lisa's mom was a livesaver - helping out with the final preparations. Like, draining the boiling water so Lisa could mash the potatoes. Or, picking up the roasting pans with the turkey in it and draining the turkey juice thus enabling me to straighten out the towel on the counter where the hot roasting pan was. Probably the most help was that she was able to operate the turkey baster. She could fill it up and distribute the juices on the turkey where it belonged. When I tried it, I could fill it a quarter of the way. When I tried to transport the juices by turning the baster upside-down, the juices heated the air in the baster causing the air to expand and shoot the juices about 3 feet.....cleanup!!

Of course there's football... Atlanta won easily over Detroit while Dallas lost a heartbreaker in overtime vs. Denver. The missed field goal in the 4th could have been the winner....

I'm sure there were many more highlights that I missed. There were family and friends that I missed too: mom, dad, dad, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, the Landrum family, nanny, Jessica and Nick, and many, many more!!!

Something's wrong with the ability to post pics. Will post some later.

posted by Sam @ 7:26 AM