thanksgiving day

Earlier this month I started to worry about Thanksgiving.  I realized Rachel and Kyle would be on their honeymoon and Roxanne and Jonny would be spending the holiday with his family in California.  This was the first year that we would be missing kids for the holidays.  We actually started gearing ourselves up for this possibility years ago as the kids grew to adulthood.  We've had pretty good luck up until now.  Rachel missed one Christmas Eve a few years ago when she went on a service trip to Mexico, but she was home Christmas morning so we survived.  The kids are ages 19-27 and this is the first year we've really had to deal with an absence, so I can't complain.
Melanie was home from school, Brady is here of course. We invited Dave's niece and her husband, Kirsten and Adam.  My brother Curtis lives nearby this year so he came and had dinner with us. And Brady's girlfriend, Stephanie, came to dinner too. So there were 8 of us for dinner. That makes for a nice group and fun conversation.

We had to take the photo twice.  Melanie took the picture, then Stephanie switched with her and took the second one so we had photographic evidence of everybody.  One of these days, I will invest in a tripod and we can take a picture of a whole group of people.  Until then, this is the best we have.

Dinner was delicious.  Roxanne always makes a spectacular stuffing which I tried to make myself this year.  I felt like it was a make it or break it recipe for the success of our Thanksgiving meal. The local scout troop roasted our turkey overnight in a deep pit roasting set up of some kind.  Actually, I don't know how they cook it.  We bag it up and give it to them on Wednesday night along with a $20 bill for their fundraiser, and we pick it up Thursday morning - hot, tender, and falling off the bone. Delicious!

After we ate, Curtis headed out to another social obligation, Brady and Stefanie left for a second Thanksgiving dinner, and Dave was falling asleep so he laid down for a few minutes.  Melanie, Adam, Kirsten and I took Lexi and drove over to Dreamy Draw Park and went on a little hike.  It was the shortest and easiest hiking trail at Dreamy Draw, so I should probably just call it a walk instead of a hike, but it felt good anyway.

  

When we got back we played some sort of RedNeck board game.  During the course of the game, it was impossible to not be in debt, have a lot of kids, and loose some teeth. You had to buy a car to tote around your "young 'ens", but the vehicle choices were crazy.  Most of us ended the game with a dozen teeth missing and less than $100 total cash value to our lives.  Anyway, funny game.

We ended the evening dipping caramel apples.  Yum.