Thanksgiving 2021

Thanksgiving this year felt a little too much like last year--we were scheduled to have my sister Rosalind's family, my parents, and my grandma come visit us, but the weekend before we got sick...and just got sicker and sicker. It was a monster cold that went through our whole family and totally knocked us out, and not one we wanted to share. Rosalind, Chris, and their kids went up to Michigan to wait for us to recover...and we just kept getting sicker! Then we discovered that our cats had brought home fleas and so basically we were living in a plague house (if you've never vacuumed and deep-cleaned your entire house and washed every single washable thing while you have a fever, well, my friend, you are missing out on nothing). 

Anyway...we ended up having Thanksgiving with our little family. And we have another turkey in the freezer. :-( 

Matty brought home this cute little (very honest) paper from preschool. Pepperoni sandwiches are a big part of his life. 



Neil's birthday was on Tuesday...we were in no shape to go out and celebrate, so I made a fun charcuterie board and baked some baguettes and we had a good time. 



And by Wednesday the little boys were feeling good enough to get their second Covid shots! Hurray!!



We went on a long walk one afternoon to see the decorations downtown. 



And then started baking when we got home! 

Here's Isaac working on making my grandma's Jello while Jules stirs up a chocolate pudding pie. 

Neil working some turkey magic (we brined and spatchcocked it again this year with herb butter). 

Luke making cranberry sauce...




Jules just basically making a mess. And a pie.



Luke working on the herb butter for the turkey

Luke is always always my baking helper...he is getting so darn good at these rolls! I'm so glad Neil grabbed a picture of us together because this is one of my favorite things to share with Luke. 

Little boys setting the table...

I really loved how this came together this year; Mary Beth sent me home with the vases from their reception and I bought the floating candles in Toronto. 

Missing some people I love, but grateful to be together with people I love so dearly. 

I'm writing this on December 1st and we STILL have leftovers (that nobody is going to eat so I need to toss them). I had made quite a bit of stuff ahead of time and planned for 16 people rather than 8. Yikes! 

Time for pie and the annual Lord of the Rings marathon, which we always start after getting pie servings!



Thankfully by Thanksgiving I was recovered enough that I could do some low-effort endurance work. I still felt too weak to do any strength training, but running is basically second nature to me so I usually feel worse without it. On Thanksgiving I had to skip our friends' turkey trot (my whole family was still asleep!) so I went for a solo 10k by myself and had a pretty good cry on my run. The next day I met up with my friend Kelsey, who was visiting from Utah, and we got in 8 miles despite the cold and wind. 

Then later that day we ended up driving up to Michigan to pick some things up (like a car!) from my parents and to say goodbye to my grandma, who is moving to Utah this week. Honestly this day just wrecked me. I was so tired by the end of it (Neil and I drove up together and then drove home separately) and it was so incredibly emotionally devastating for me to see my extended family for such a short period of time and not know when I would see them again. 

But I'm still glad we were able to go and spend an hour with my grandma. 

 

And that I was able to take a picture of this plaque in the hall honoring my grandpa. 




I'm really excited for her move to Utah--I think it will be SO amazing for her!!!!--but gosh it's going to be weird knowing that she's 24 hours away instead of 3! I'm so grateful for technology that makes it easier to stay close. 

Thanksgiving 2020

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!!

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

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.