Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. We drove down to DC to meet my sister and her husband and then we all drove down to Williamsburg to celebrate turkey day with true colonials. Should I tell you what I'm grateful for?
My husband
Our great family
Car making it to Virginia and back (phew)

and the list could go on and on, you get it though, I'm feel very thankful for all of my many blessings.So from one colonial to another, Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all a good night.

Here is my sister and her husband. You know who she is, she looks just like me, only 5 inches taller. In fact, while looking through some of the pictures, I had to think about who was who.
We had a rousing game of pre-turkey football. I think they were planning the play "turkey stop drop and roll"

Here we are in retaliation. Play was called "the Miracle Whip". Can you see that Bill was kind of laughing at my play? Don't mock, it threw the other team for a turkey stupor.
My don't we look festive in fall colors?

Here was the meal, it was delicious, especially for being made in our hotel kitchen. We also had some mighty fine turkey day bowling, you know, to burn off dinner. After which, everyone but me hit the midnight sales at the outlet malls. I made up for it in the morning. Christmas shopping.....done!

Since we were in Williamsburg, he headed over to Jamestown, the first successful English colony, settled in 1607, 13 years before the Mayflower touched down in Plymouth. The actual Jamestown settlement is quite small, and a corner of it has been consumed by the James river. But here is a church that stood in the fort. It isn't original (it burned down multiple times), but the tower in the back is the oldest part, dating back to the 18th century.

Here we have Pocahontas. Don't worry, the John Smith statue wasn't too far from her. He was a murderer, did you know that?

Here is a portion of the fort, with a replica of the barracks built for the first colonials.

We also hit up Colonial Williamsburg (tourist attraction in Williamsburg), which is where many of the Jamestown colonist spread out to in order to start farms etc. Here we found a million tourist, the college of William and Mary, a drum and fife band and of course, colonials everywhere.

We came, we saw, and we conquered our colonial past.
Happy Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Festivities

Happy late Thanksgiving! We had a great thanksgiving this year. Liz and Derek came out from DC for the holiday and we had a great time together, I'm sad they are gone. The festivities started when they arrived on Wednesday night. I finally got to meet the new cat. The funny thing is that I usually hate cats. Cats are so.........sassy and ridiculous. They almost seem to mock their owners, but not this cat. He was adorable. His name is Teddy as in Teddy Roosevelt and I've fallen in love. My mom's cat Pal is pretty great too. Thus, I think I'm going to need to get a cat very soon. Teddy was not only a hit with me and Bill, but the little kids at thanksgiving shook with joy when they saw him (so did I).

Teddy Roosevelt

Bill made the turkey, I made the stuffing and rolls, and Liz made some delicious pumpkin and apple pies. We also had several families over which made Thanksgiving a big success!
We took a trip into the city on black Friday (was it actually a black Friday?), and the city was full of crazies. We had protesters of all sorts scattered around Michigan Ave. Aren't you glad I posted this picture of Derek pointing to the disgusting posters?
We also made it out to the Frank Lloyd Wright neighborhood in Oak Park. There are quite a few houses that he designed in this city, as was his home and studio which we had the opportunity to tour. His house and studio had various statues around including a few of these (see above) they are supposed to be people breaking free of mediocrity, but all I see is Rodin's Thinker.

Here we have Bill and Frank's heads.

Here we are looking at some incredible houses, it was cold.

Here is one of the incredible houses.

And lucky for us, after the tour, we found a Five Guys! We didn't know there were any in Chicagoland. So we had delicious burgers and fries and might be making more trips out to Oak Park in the very near future. In case you were wondering, there is a Five Guys in Sandy and Midvale, UT, and lots in the DC, area. That's why we are moving to DC................okay, maybe not, but it is a nice perk.
And now the holiday is over, everyone is home, and work starts again tomorrow. Bummer.
Can't holiday's last longer?

Thanksgiving Update- Belated

Forgive me for this long awaited post on Thanksgiving. I don't have much access to Bill's computer since he has been studying for finals since before the great feast. So here is the Thanksgiving update now- only a little more than a week late.
Oh Thanksgiving, so much to say where to start? The feast was great. We had a great turn out with Bill's parents in town and a few friends from the ward and back home. We had tons of food!!! That probably deserves way more explanation points but since this is a blog and not a talk directed to the primary children, I will reserve them for a later date. We had so much food, I don't think anything was even half way gone from delightful green bean casseroles, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn bread, berry pie, lemon meringue, ginger carrots, you name it, we had it. The food turned out fabulous, and we really couldn't have asked for better company.
Bill was in charge of the turkey and did a great job, I made home made rolls and they actually turned out! I also made 2 pumpkin pies and an apple pie- these were not as successful as my rolls. In fact, at 2pm (1 hour before the feast) I got fed up with my pie crusts and ran across the street to Village Foods to buy some crusts. I totally cheated. Oh well, they still tasted good. Anyways- oh yes, and the stuffing. We had more than you can imagine, we probably should have taken it down to the local soup kitchen, we could have fed 50+ people and still had left overs. All in all, it was a great day! Here are the only pictures that were taken with our camera, for more extensive, and I mean way more extensive pictures, email Bill's mom.

Oh the Holidays

In preparation for the great feast tomorrow, I'm posting a little commercial that, unfortunately, I think is really funny, and could add to your holiday feast. Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving

I had a dream last night that Anne Curry from the Today Show was coming to Thanksgiving this year. Why you might ask, I don't know, but she and her family came, and we had a wonderful time. We talked about her trip to the South Pole, and about working on the Today show. It was very interesting. Then I asked her about her religion:

me: "Are you Christian?"
Anne: "No."
Me: "Okay, what about Buddhist?"
Anne: "No, I'm Malaysian."
Anyway, that was the end of our religion conversation, because after she told me she was Malaysian- as in her religion is called Malaysian, I was confused.

So Anne Curry if you are really coming to Thanksgiving, please RSVP ASAP and tell me what you are bringing.

In addition to the upcoming holiday, (and I'm not sure why this is relevant) we got a new shower curtain and curtains for the family room! Hurray! Oh yeah, this is relevant because the Dana and Maggie are coming and we are having people over, so now our apartment looks more complete.

Someone Can't Wait For Thanksgiving!!!

Yum, I... I mean, someone can't wait for Thanksgiving this year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!