Thanksgiving in Washington

We had a great weekend - the whole week we spent in Bremerton was full of activities!!  We got there on Tuesday, did pre-Turkey 'stuff' on Wednesday.  I took the bigger girls to Wally's for boots.  Boy have they got BIG feet!  At 12 and 13 both of them have surpassed my size - and my feet are way bigger than my Mom's were!  They are both tall and slender - and certainly - their foundations are excellent! LOL

We spent most of the day on Turkey day cooking, after the Macy's Parade of course!  I've been watching that for almost all of my life!  I really don't remember when we didn't have it~~  Being the big help that thy always are~~ the girls assisted with all of the chopping, grating, and stuffing of the eggs and fruits for the salads. Peeling potatos fell to Brayana while I assembled the stuffing mixture and we got that all ready to go!  The relish trays also ended up being one of Brayana's fortes ~~ even if we did forget the celery and carrots... LOL

 We made 2 sets of each so that we'd have a non-dairy sample of everything.  Even the gravy had two types!  Mak helped out with his 'neviled' eggs and did an excellent job.  Jaleel helped get wood in for the stove and showed up in time to help clean the dishes... 

Rod has an 'infra-red' or oil-less turkey fryer that he used to do the Turkey this year. As always, we didn't get our timing quite right and the bird was done a bit before the rest.  It was quite a bit smaller than the birds he has done in the past so it looks really puny in comparison - but guess what!!  There was plenty and lots of leftover too!  Enough for turkey sandwiches and even some turkey ramen noodles!

We gathered around a very full table and gave our Thanks to the Lord, our fighting Men and Women, and the first settlers that made all of this possible.  Then we DUG IN!!   It was all good and we all ate until we couldn't eat-no-more! 

After dinner was over, we relaxed and watched some Christmas shows... thats when it starts - right??? LOL

Friday was spent getting ready for S'te's first craft show.  She spent much time getting all of her bows and tutu's ready.  What a crafty woman she is!!  I helped a little and got a few hats done.  Then the boys and I braved the 'Black Friday' crowd and went to Wally's for boots.  I was amazed!  Totally and completely amazed!!  We still got 'door opener' prices on their boots and there was still stacks of 'while supplies last' items in several areas of the store.  There were only 2 checkers open and we only went thru the line 3 times!!  We had just gotten thru the first time when  something else was 'remembered', got into line again, and got another call, but the 3rd time - we made it thru and out the door!!  We had to to get some leftovers onto the table so that Rod and S'te could go start setting up for the show.  They worked into the night doing set up and finishing touches on all of the 'stuff', while we (me and the kids) had our own "Smarter than a 5th Grader" contest.  The older 4 came out quite closely while Tetee guessed a lot! Hehee!!

We have some really smart kids around!!