Thanksgiving 2013

When you don't live way close to family, some holidays can get lonely.  To try to minimize that feeling,  we really like to get together with other people whose families are elsewhere, too.  We have enjoyed many holidays with amazing people this way.  This year we were new to the area, and a lot more people seem to have family in the area.  Who would we have Thanksgiving with?  Fortunately, one of Jared's co-residents, who was a year under him in training, would be out in this area with his wife and two kids over the holiday and they had no family coming, so we invited them:)  Unfortunately, they got sick right before Thanksgiving:(

 While I love cooking for my family (sometimes), making that big of a dinner just for us felt a bit like a waste of energy.  Jared knew I may be disappointed!  I felt like I would be disappointed, too, unless we could bring their Thanksgiving dinner to them.  That would be worth the time and energy in my mind!

 So, we worked hard and scheduled out our cooking!

 The result was my favorite turkey I've ever made!

 This "Good Eats Turkey" is true to its name!!!

 We had a lovely dinner, of Turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, crescent rolls, stuffing, corn, pecan pie, and strawberry pie.  This may be the biggest meal I have ever made by *myself!

*Correction - NOT BY MYSELF, since Jared was so sweet and helped so much!!!  There is no way I could have pulled it off without him!  Love you, Hub!!!!!

 We enjoyed the dinner as a family!!!

...a really silly family!

 Check out that bird!  I'm sorry, but I am not shy about being really proud of it, because it took a lot of prep work, and I was thrilled that all of the work was worth it:o)

After we ate, we boxed everything up and headed in the car to deliver the dinner to the Farrahs!

Why does Addie look sad?  Well, the Farrah's are on the same rotation we were on last summer.  So, Addie was sad that I was not going to allow her to go inside and see the apartment that was our humble abode for two months.  Since they were sick, we brought in the meal chatted a bit outside and let the kids run around outside, which put the smile back on Addie's face.

We got to have them come over the weekend afterward for a much simpler meal...PIZZA, and we had a great time!

It turned out to be a GREAT THANKSGIVING!!!