Thanksgiving Weekend

Ah, Thanksgiving. It conjures images of toasty mornings and rich foods. Naturally, thanksgiving last year was just that. 

Yes, I am posting my Thanksgiving post in October... I was looking at my blog which I obviously neglect, and realized I never posted this bad boy. It would be horrible to let a whole year pass, so here it is. Just, um... 11 months late. 

I had nowhere to go for Thanksgiving. Well, let me rephrase, I had everywhere to go for Thanksgiving, but neither the time or the money.  Hope was in the same boat, so we made a plan. A food plan. I found this bread pudding recipe in Real Simple and determined that it must be ours: 

And it was

We had my apartment to ourselves, and while we were eating breakfast, coloring Christmas sheets, and listening to Christmas music,

I got a picture from my family and their Thanksgiving day hike. 

SO. Cute.  I loved it. 

Later Hope and I had to prepare the dishes we would bring to the mass Thanksgiving dinner held at one of the Branch Presidency's homes. While we were there, I got another awesome home pic. 

Keep 'em coming, I love it! 

The next day Hope's friend Mel came in to town. And did you know that she served her mission with Abe Garza? 

The Magnolia Bakery recently opened up on State Street (it's a big deal in New York),  so we went to partake of the deliciousness. 

We had fun, and it was cute, but soooo overrated. Seriously, they use paper plates? And plastic forks?Are you kidding me? There are a million bakeries in Chicago, and their presentation is a hundred times better. Sorry Magnolia. 

I love love love when people visit Chicago, even if they aren't my people! Because we get to see Chicago, and I love to see Chicago. This time we decided to see the trees. 

Macy's tree:

Macy's old-timey water fountain:

Bloomingdale's tree on Michigan Avenue:

Christkindlemarket tree: 

The water features at Millennium Park:

Chicago Cultural Center (cause we can never get enough) Possibly there was a wedding that night?

More baking! There were so many holiday flavors we needed to taste!

And another great pic from home!

Aww, I love it! I can't wait for Thanksgiving 2012!

Thanks to the Giving

Hi! Happy Thanksgiving! This year I was able to visit my aunt, uncle and cousin in Missouri.

Let me introduce you to the humans and animals. This is my cousin Laura and Snazzy. I like him. Not only is he snazzy, but also rather sassy, and I happen to love alliteration.

Snazz was being mentored by Howdy. Right now they are looking at Rudy, who was doing something crazy.

And here we have Rudy. She wouldn't do anything crazy when I got out my camera. She just wanted to look pretty. But let me tell you, once I put my camera away, she went simply wild! That's basically how I roll too, so I could understand that. The family does have another horse, Jerry, but I couldn't get a good picture of him.

 

This is Zobal. He looks precious in this picture, I know. He's in my room, and he was trying to get me to let him stay and sleep there. Everyone said that he wouldn't jump up on the bed, but he's done it before, and I certainly didn't trust him.

To distract him from his idea of sleeping in my room, I fed him. it worked out pretty well.

Uncle Pat and the Green Egg. I think that is what it is called. I kept asking, and I kept forgetting. But this Green Egg is where Thanksgiving Turkey Glory is made. The turkey was quite delicious.

For those of you who don't know, this is the aunt who is the daughter of the infamous Grandma, so later that night we skyped with the family in California. No matter how much we try and explain what Skype is, I'm pretty sure Grandma will never understand.

Yes, I know you want to see a close up of the mantle decoration, so here it is:

Perhaps one of the best parts of this visit was being able to tour the town. I saw the Walmart, and the grocery store. I saw the feed shop, and even went in. We had to get grain or something. I'm not really sure, I don't usually feed horses. But what I am certain about is that while I was waiting in the feed store, I looked at the bulletin board and found this little gem: 

 I wonder if the internet exists for these people in southern Missouri. Obviously, they didn't want to go on the InterWebs, which is why they chose to dig this little paper out of the bottom of the purse, write a plea for housing and stick it up on the feed store bulletin board, but I figured I would share it on the InterWebs anyway. Maybe you could help.

 Also, we went into this fine establishment:

Who doesn't love a nice taxidermy and bead shop? Bucks and Beads. There's that alliteration again. I'm sold.

Happy November!

Tonight we made turkeys!

Yeah, you are looking at that turkey and thinking how labor intensive it must have been. Well, it was a bit time consuming, but well worth the effort. Not only was it cute, it was delicious.

People who saw me making my turkey later asked me where it was. I told them I ate it. Never before have I seen so many shocked faces. What else was I suppose to do with it? Stare at it? Try and transport it home? Keep it forever? Yeah right. Take a picture and move on, people. Specifically, move on to eating your turkey. You will be glad you did.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This picture was taken on Tara's camera, and she just now posted it on her blog, so I just swiped it. Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving! Woot woot!

Okay, so maybe I'm over-doing the "woot." I don't know.


Thanksgiving morning started in a great rush of confusion, excitement and happiness. For the first time in the memory of my existence our TV was tuned into the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Usually the TV shows only football. I have tried to switch it a few times in my youth, but was always denied. So, the appearance of the Parade was a true Thanksgiving miracle.

In this wonder and awe I looked at the table.

There was food on it. Breakfast food.

Father got it in his head that we were to partake of a wonderful Thanksgiving breakfast this year. It was simply marvelous, and a tradition I hope will continue. Or, I hope that it will turn into a tradition. Yeah, that's better.

Mom was so excited about the morning-time feast that she urged me to take a picture of it and blog about it.

Apparently, she didn't mean take a picture of her.

I'm not generally a huge fan of whipped cream, but I have found that I usually get the desired amount if I make it the shape of my first initial.
Please notice the amount of butter on the left waffle. Even as I am looking at it right now, I'm a bit creeped out. Sorry about that. I should have edited that.

Later, after some Apples to Apples, Father brought in the turkey. It was huge. We ate maybe 1/16th of that bird.

All the turkey and the consequent leftovers reminded me of my time in Idaho where I would meet guys who had entire elks in their freezers and plan on living on it for the year. That thought also led me to remember how I firmly decided that I would never be a wife of an Elk Man. Imagine having to cook with elk for an entire year. And those guys don't think it's a meal if there isn't any meat present. Crazy. And, that last bit reminded me of the time some of those Elk Men invited me over for chili. Sure, it had the standard "chili" stuff, but it also had elk from Idaho, deer from Colorado, and wild boar from Texas. There may have been some sort of fowl in there, but I can't remember. I'm only assuming there might have been some because those Elk Men had the most precious birding dog ever.


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I'm obsessed with table decorations. I don't know how it happened, or why it happened, but all I know is that I love setting a pretty table. Thankfully, Mom and Mary are on board with my judgment, and Mom is willing to be the financial backer for most of my table decorating endeavors.






I hope you noticed the turkeys on the candles.

Thanksgiving?

I have kind of forgotten about Thanksgiving. I don't really know how it happened, but suddenly people are going out of town and people are coming into town and I was looking around wondering why. And then it hit me, "Oh.. Thanksgiving is this week. Duh."

So how come I spaced on Thanksgiving this year? Is it because I am no longer on a school oriented time table?

Wait... that doesn't make sense, I was out of school last Thanksgiving, too. Does anyone have any ideas? How did I not realize Thanksgiving was upon us?

Is it the lack of Thanksgiving themed decor in my home?

Probably.