Happy Thanksgiving!

Man....what a crazy week!  Jarrod was off work for a long weekend, which was so nice.  But, when he's off, I'm not on the computer much, so that played into big gap of posts that so many of you have brought to my attention.  Nope, I'm not giving up on my blog.  Riley gave all of us a cold, so we spent the four day weekend wiping snotty noses and napping.  But, we also were trying to take advantage of the shopping deals going on and I was frantically trying to get holiday gifts and cards made on Shutterfly.  Enough excuses...

So, Thanksgiving was definitely different this year.  We made the most of it, but it wasn't the same.  I did, however, accomplish two of my 30 Things!  I made my first ever turkey, and made an apple pie (though Jarrod says that doesn't count because I chickened out and ended up not making the crust from scratch!)  The pie was ok...not great, but that didn't stop me from eating half of it!  The turkey turned out pretty good.  It definitely wasn't as hard as I was thinking it would be.  Nor did it make as much as I was expecting!  We made a 9lb turkey and didn't have nearly as many leftovers as I was expecting.  If I had to make a turkey again, I'd probably just do a turkey breast.  But, it did turn out pretty!

To make it all feel like Thanksgiving, we made the traditional dishes.  Grandma's cole slaw and Mom's pea salad were non-negotiables.  It's not the holidays without them.  Jarrod knows that I love to play Rummy when we're back in Ohio, so we spent Wednesday night preparing the apple pie and then played Rummy, and he kicked my butt!  Grandma would've been pretty disappointed in me!  Haha...I didn't even get 200 points.  Sorry, Libby!  I know you taught me better.

Thursday morning we went out for a family walk because the weather was pretty nice.  Then it was time to watch the parade and prepare dinner.  After nap, it was dinner time!  And the kids ate well!

It wouldn't be a holiday in the Pate house if I didn't get a family photo!  So, we set up the camera and used the self timer to get a few shots.  Our heads are nearly cut off, but surprisingly everyone is smiling and I'm really happy with how it turned out!  

Thank goodness for Skype!  It was so nice to see our families on the computer after eating our Thanksgiving dinner.  I think the hardest part for me was not being there to go shopping with my mom and aunt.  But...there's always next year!