Thanksgiving Weekend

On the night before Thanksgiving,

Maya hung out with me while I made cranberry chutney

and the pumpkin pie for our very first solo Thanksgiving in history.

We enjoyed an amazingly beautiful sunset...

this was probably the prettiest one I've seen since we moved

to North Carolina.

 After I prepared what I could ahead of time,

Steven took all of us out to dinner

and then to see "New Moon".

Maya was way excited.

This is my near perfect pie crust. I'm so good. :)

This is Wing 1. (Yeah...he had a name.)

My first ever turkey! I found a great recipe and

realized that the prep for this bird was much easier

than I thought it would be.

Oh, yummy! Wing 1 was a tasty, tasty bird.

Thanksgiving Day was a beautiful one. It was breezy but clear

with a bright blue sky and temps in the low 60's.

We ate about 4:30 and everything was great...

except for the cranberries.

Woooo...they were way tart. Gotta do something different for them next year.

On Friday, the kids and I decorated the house for Christmas.

We've done this every year except for the last two...

Nutcracker dress rehearsal threw our decorating tradition out the window,

but we are back to our norm this year.

This is a great Christmas house.

We watched all three of Tim Allen's Santa Clause movies

while we decorated. Very fun.

On Saturday, I worked on calendars for grandparents for Christmas.

(Gotta get them in the mail here in a week or so...better get on it!)

We did stuff around the house

and Trevor came to spend the night with us.

On Sunday, Steven did some serious raking.

In a few days, the Town of Cary will have a big truck out here.

Attached to this truck is a vacuum hose that sucks up all the leaves

along the curb. Hey...it's better than bagging,

and, like I've mentioned in a previous post,

it's kind of entertaining to watch.

We are thankful...

We had a wonderful holiday.

We are thankful for our lives here in North Carolina.

We are thankful that we have such beautiful,

intelligent, healthy, sweet, wonderful children.

We are thankful for our almost fifteen years of marriage.

We are thankful to be healthy and strong.

We are thankful for our family.

We hope you had a beautiful Thanksgiving, too.