News from the White House: Thanksgiving and beyond 2010

Hi all! I am doing well getting back into the swing of things- but already looking forward to Christmas! This year I will be going with John to his side of the family in the Tampa area. I know it will be a lot of fun, but I am just a little bit nostalgic about not waking in our own bed with our own tree and our pups. (They'll be having lots of fun and contraband food with their wonderful grandma though!). And I tell myself they have no idea it's Christmas :)

So- this is how our holiday weekend went- I had just enough time off to really forget about work.

Thursday- We went over to my grandma's about 11:30. My mom came over too and brought wonderful food! I think we all showed a lot of restraint- not even sure anyone had seconds! And we didn't dig into dessert til 3pm! After lunch we drug out the tree and a few Christmas decorations to put up for my grandma. She's too elderly to do any heavy lifting anymore. I so meant to take a pic of the tree- but forgot. I cut up some of her silk red poinsettias and stuck those in for some color bursts. I think it turned out well. Mom kept the grandpups out of the way while we strung lights and hung ornaments. And we did it all in shorts because in stupid Florida style- it was 80 degrees!


Mashed taters, gravy, turkey, macaroni casserole, green bean casserole, dressing, squash casserole and sweet potatoes

Mom made a delish dry-rub turkey with a Southern Living recipe

I made a brie en croute, just for my baby. It was tasty!

Someone just has to be a jokester. We got no decent pics!

Thanksgiving clean-up crew

So as you can see- it was a casserole Thanksgiving. Lol. For real. I will post recipes for the 3 dishes I made. I did not like the green bean casserole recipe, but it was fairly low cal, and mom and John pretty much liked it. But it does NOT involve french fried onions! My grandma said: "Well I've never heard of such." Lol.
The macaroni casserole was pretty tasty- but the amount of breadcrumbs it calls for is about triple what you need. The brie- oh- it was yum! especially when hot.
We also had two fabulous desserts from mom that I somehow forgot to take a pic of: Southern Living apple pie with crumb topping and a somewhat re-created version of Piccadilly's pumpkin struesel cheesecake. My fave!

Later that evening we went over to a family friend's house for leftovers, games and talking. Had a great time. In fact- one member of this family has a blog that can be found here.
We got home quite late. I had fallen asleep on their couch :)

So- our aim Friday was to sleep til noon. Of course we didn't make it. I think I first woke at 8ish. But I did manage to keep going back to sleep til 10:45. But the real shocker- even though we were both awake- we stayed in bed til 1pm! Reading, surfing the web, being lazy. So no black Friday madness and deals for us. The only things we want are not within our budget :) But- we did make one trip to the mall about 3pm. To my fave store- Ross. :) We got like 6 items for $40. To be honest I don't think we did anything Friday night but watch TV and continue our laziness. It was fabulous!

Saturday- we went YSLing. There were only 4 on craigslist. We went to about 8 and got NOTHING. It was a failure. At the very last one, I got 2 Avon nail polishes and some hand cream for $3. We would have been better off sleeping. And when we got home- that's what we did. Napped. Did house stuff.

Then we finally decorated our tree and the rest of the house. I did not go Christmas crazy this year. Though I miss it a little :) Get this- after we put all 4 strands of lights on the tree- they ALL went out! What the heck! After testing- we found the first and last strands were blown. So we had to redo those. But anyway- it's done now! Then that evening we met out-of-town and in-town friends for coffee and chit chat. We had a really nice time catching up. And it was cold outside and fabulous! Darn it- no one took any pics of that :( Oh well. I so desperately need a camera again!!!!!

Don't mind our "special" topper

The newly painted table with it's double runner and home-made centerpiece

I think the mantle needs more- gotta track down some garland

The reindeer on the corners have been in our family since I was a child. They were actually a Burger King promotion :) But we love em

I think the entrance is my favorite

Cute, but they blow over almost every day : (

Yes, I bought a door cover. I am that kitchy :)

Sunday we had a guest speaker from Israel at church. It was nice. Then we came home to lunch waiting in the crockpot. The rain had gone and the cold had settled in- so we decided to go ahead and pack-up to head out to Bear Lake, about an hour away from us, to go overnight camping. We took the dogs- probably a little more of a pain than it was worth. Eby is a bad traveler. She whines in the car. Ernie bears his afflictions in silence, thank God. Even though it was colder than we expected, the dogs were and pain, and we didn't have enough firewood- we still had a good time.

We were freezing when we went to sleep- it was 36. We were boiling when we woke up- it was 51! Poor Eby, who was stuffed down in John's sleeping bag to keep his feet warm, got so over-heated that she threw up on John's new sleeping bag. Fun. Thankfully I had Ernie as a foot-warmer who holds his stomach contents better : ) To the dogs' credit- I realized when we got home that we didn't give them any water while we were gone! Only food. Poor pups. Anyway, we finally got out of the tent about 8 am, had breakfast, then took a 2.5 mile trail walk through the woods. It was a nice time. I'd like to go again- we'll be wiser about what to do and bring next time.

Father and son bonding on the way there

Can you tell who HATES the car? Notice Ernie the underling bearing it in silence :) Her face kills me: "drop dead camera"

Pristine Bear Lake

Out campsite and new tent hubby bought

You had to sit 12 inches from it to keep warm, but it was decent enough to cook food :)

After a rough night of sleep

Along the trail

Kiddos hiking and sniffing

We finished off our work-free weekend with a get-together for our ladies' group. We were allowed to bring the hubbies this week! Such a great time, I love this group!