This Thanksgiving post is brought to you by end-of-semester grading, wherein I am using the blog post as a motivator. For every 2 projects that I grade, I get to type something here! Woohoo!!
Thanksgiving this year looked very different than last year, when we hosted my grandparents and parents. My grandfather passed away in June, and due to the pandemic we weren't able to be with him when he died or to hold a funeral. It was really hard, and I felt pretty emotional leading up to Thanksgiving and the reminders that not only did we not have him with us this year but the reality of his death still hasn't quite sunk in. But as my grandmother reminded me multiple times that week, the only constant is change, and life goes on. I'm really grateful for the beautiful memories we made with him last year and that I was able to talk with my grandmother & parents several times over the holiday weekend even if we couldn't be together.
Luke had been working on this cool float in class with his two best friends Aaron and Cameron. The three of them were the only ones in the whole fourth grade who had a float that was able to move on its own rather than being carried--way to go little engineers!!
Luke had been working on this cool float in class with his two best friends Aaron and Cameron. The three of them were the only ones in the whole fourth grade who had a float that was able to move on its own rather than being carried--way to go little engineers!!
The kids had Wednesday off (and Neil was working from home interviewing potential new hires for his lab) so we started off the day with a morning library trip to stock up for the weekend...
...cooked down all our pie pumpkins (can you see Matthew's paint job?)...
...then we refinanced our house that afternoon & met the notary in our garage. Ah, COVID, you do some weird things to our normal lives, but this one was actually pretty darn convenient!
We also got some awesome news in the morning that Neil was getting a promotion and a raise--
woo-hoo!!! That was a really fun start to a holiday weekend. We went on a lunchtime run together and it was so fun to have such great news to chat about.
Then we started in on actual holiday prep. One of my favorite favorite parts of any holiday is setting the table. This year, we went with a blue and orange color scheme and I used the felt leaves I'd embroidered the year Matthew was born as place name thingies, then set the table itself with the silver given to me by my Aunt Pam that she sourced from multiple estate sales, the French glasses that Ruth gave me for my birthday two years ago, the solid silver candlesticks my mom gave my grandparents for their silver wedding anniversary that my grandmother gave to me last year, the 100-year-old antique china I found a few years ago while thrifting, and the silver gravy boat I found while antiquing with my friends in Ohio this fall. Just a lot of lovely memories on that table.
We decided weeks ago that each person would be in charge of a pie. Neil and I made an old-fashioned pecan pie from my friend Kelsey's DIVINE recipe plus a Mississippi mud chocolate pie, then called the kids up to make theirs...
Abigail opted for an apple pie with caramel cream sauce and crumble topping
We decided weeks ago that each person would be in charge of a pie. Neil and I made an old-fashioned pecan pie from my friend Kelsey's DIVINE recipe plus a Mississippi mud chocolate pie, then called the kids up to make theirs...
Abigail opted for an apple pie with caramel cream sauce and crumble topping
Nathan and Matthew sort of floated around helping everyone, but mostly Abigail--I think they did all her apples on the twirly thing!
Juliet wove a really beautiful lattice top for her cherry pie.
Neil helped Luke with his fluffy delicious lemon meringue pie.
And Isaac used all the fresh pumpkin we'd baked earlier in his creamy delicious pumpkin pies!
Then Neil heroically took on the task of separating the turkey skin from the turkey so we could rub herb butter under the skin (fresh thyme, rosemary, sage, and chives food-processored together with butter and shallots).
He also spatch-cocked the turkey this year. It was SO moist and flavorful!!
Honestly the whole meal was SOOO good!!! And our Thanksgiving morning was super chill. Neil, Abigail, and I all worked out for a couple hours before we even went anywhere near the kitchen, which is basically my favorite way to do a holiday.
After we cleaned everything up, we watched the extended edition of Fellowship of the Ring. Thanks to those coming out during the holidays when we were newly married it always feels to me like you *should* watch those on Thanksgiving weekend.
The next morning (Friday) I got up bright and early and met a friend who had moved away but was visiting for the holiday weekend. We are both training for spring marathons, so we ran 12 miles around our beautiful city. I snapped this photo as I was stretching--normally this plaza would be set up for the Christkindlmart, but it's still beautiful! (Last Black Friday I was walking around there getting raclette with my parents...sniff sniff.)
Then I went home and we watched The Two Towers after lunch, put Matthew to bed, and watched Return of the King. It was a really great post-run day, haha.
While I was running the kids made these cool K'nex headsets:
And Neil worked on some new built-ins in the basement:
And Neil donned his Elf clothes so it was officially the start of the Christmas season!!
On Sunday we had our first Primary Zoom! I was called as the Primary president in our ward a few months ago so it was exciting to see the culmination of lots of planning and behind-the-scenes effort. No pics of the Zoom for privacy reasons, but here's Isaac with one of the prep things...
Then we went on a 4.5-mile walk with some of the boys and Matthew's glorious hat hair.
A quick pic before Zoom church!
And that night we passed out Christmas pajamas! A lovely end to a really nice weekend.
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