How We Celebrated Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving preparations began the day before Thanksgiving. See, I had a little problem this year. I found too many yummy pie recipes online!!! So I had to make four of them. Well, five, really, because I always make 2 pumpkin pies, so there is one just for Adam. It's one of his favorites. Fortunately, while I enjoy cooking very much, I LOVE baking, so the task wasn't daunting at all. Wednesday, I pulled out nearly every baking item in my arsenal and got going. Oh...yeah.

I ended up with the two pumpkin pies {the beloved standby}, one pumpkin cream pie {it's like eating pumpkin flavored whipping cream in a graham cracker crust--quite literally}, one dreamy apple pie {it's not just a catchy name} and one chocolate bourbon pecan pie {I had to call my sister and ask if "bourbon whiskey" was just the long name for "bourbon"}. The answer is yes. And don't worry if you think I'm going rouge-Mormon, it's cooked after you add the bourbon, so the alcohol all cooks out. And I even made my own deeeeelicious crusts. I don't usually like crust, so I eat the pie filling and leave the crust, but this crust was too good to leave behind!

Thursday morning we woke to a crisp 10 degrees and after only a few degrees of warm-up we headed out for one Trot and one Bowl of the Turkey variety. Ben and I ran the Turkey Trot together, with Tommy riding in the jogger. Well, we were supposed to run together, but I had to go back to start with the stroller group--nearly in the very back, just walkers behind us--but Ben wanted to start with the 9-minute-mile pace group. While Tommy and I waited with the other strollers, the channel 5 News came and interviewed me. I'm not cut out for a life of fame; I felt very awkward the entire time. :) Just for you, Mom, you can see the clip here. My 10 seconds of fame are right in the middle of the 2 minute clip.

It was a big race with 2,500 runners, so it took a couple of minutes to get to the starting line once they yelled, "GO!" The race went quickly because the entire time I was just trying to catch up to Ben, which I finally did just a bit before mile 3. Ben's shoe chip didn't work, so he didn't get his name on the results list, which bummed him out terribly. But he finished just in front of me, and only two others in his age group, 0 to 8, finished before me, so he would have placed third. After a pep-talk and the discovery that the top finishers in each age group didn't get medals, only the top three overall men, overall women and stroller finishers got awards, he felt much better. Amazingly, and thanks to Ben, who I was desperately trying to catch up to, I placed second in the stroller group and got a nice gift certificate to the Boulder Running Company, which I will spend happily.

Adam, Zach, Josh and Luke spent the morning at our ward's Turkey Bowl. Adam and Zach played, while Josh and Luke sat shivering and cheering on the side-lines. Well, Josh was cheering. Luke started whining about 30 minutes in because he was cold and didn't let up until he was back in the warm car. I had bought Josh and Luke hand warmers just for the occasion, and they were bundled like Eskimos, but that didn't seem to be enough. I think for Luke, just the idea of being cold is too much to handle sometimes! But Adam and Zach had a blast playing. Neither of them came home injured at all, but of the two plays Josh tried to get in on, the second did him in. Josh has a lovely raspberry on his side from an accidental tackle. Also, one of the other men playing ended up with a broken nose and a cut that needed stitches from a collision with another player. Thankfully, the boy he crashed into was mostly OK! That's the Turkey Bowl for you!

We spent the rest of the morning cleaning the house and getting ready for dinner. Last year we met up with our wonderful family down in Arizona, but this year we stayed put and shared our day with a couple other friends and their families who were staying here in The Springs for the holiday. So many of us out here in Colorado are transplants and don't have family near, so we've become kind of a "Springs family." It makes spending holidays and birthdays here much easier to know we are going to be with some of our favorite people.

After brining the turkey all night, it smelled SO good cooking. I've only made turkey a few other times and it always seems to take much longer to cook than planned, so I got up at 6am to put it in the oven. Well, it was done an hour and a half earlier than I planned on, I think my convection oven helped that along, so it got to "rest" for a nice long time, but we kept it covered and it stayed warm so it worked out just fine. Adam got tips from Iron Chef Bobby Flay on how to cut it to keep it nice and moist. And oooooh, boy! It was so-oh-oh good! I LOVE home-roasted turkey. Not kidding at all, I had a bad dream last night that the leftovers were all gone. I felt so sad! I was happy to wake up and find it was just a dream! I also made sage stuffing, which is to-die-for {probably because of the 1.5 pounds of butter in it}, and roasted Brussels sprouts and carrots. Oh my dear, sweet Thanksgiving dinner, you are the best dinner of the entire year!

Our friends Vern and Jen joined us with their four kids, Spencer (one of Zach's favorite buddies), Rachel, Anna and Heber; as well as our friends Dave and Paula, and their four kids, Emily, Samuel, Michael and Ian (who is just a teensy newborn), as well as Dave's parents. It was a crowd, but the kids got along so well, and we grown-ups all had a wonderful time talking and just hanging out together. And everyone brought such tasty food to share! After dinner we turned on a football game and relaxed while the kids played...and then we ate pie...and then cleaned up a bit...and then ate some more pie. I didn't take any pictures other than the two below of everyone who was at our house for the celebration, and they aren't great photos and are missing people (Dave, Paula, Ian, Tommy and me). But I was so busy eating and chatting and enjoying the company, I forgot to take pictures, darn! But at least the excuse is a good one. :)

While we missed our families, spending the day with our fantastic friends really made it a wonderful Thanksgiving we will not soon forget!