Thanksgiving Weekend!

It was Thanksgiving this past weekend. We don't have any family near us so at first we weren't sure what we'd be doing. But last weekend, I asked my parents if they wanted to come join us & everything worked out for them to do so from Sunday afternoon to Monday afternoon. In the end, there was Jeremy & myself & the kids, my parents, their home-stay student (also named Daniel!) & a friend of my parents who has been staying with them.

Friday night after Jeremy got home from work we went shopping at Costco and had supper there. Gotta love the cheap meals at Costco! Where else can a family of four eat for $15 or less? We did our Thanksgiving meal shopping as well as food for the next week.

Saturday morning Jeremy went out to do some "errands". He had a few things to work on for our anniversary get-away in November. I stayed home & relaxed with the kids. Later we did a little house cleaning, but mostly just relaxed, so much so that Jeremy & I fell asleep on the couch! Later in the day we decided we should probably get out of the house and finish our shopping.

Because of the lazy day, our meals weren't really on schedule. The kids were hungry while we were shopping so we bought them a slice of pizza each. When we got home, I put some salmon in the oven for supper. It was defrosted and needed to be cooked so even though I was the only one hungry, I cooked it anyway.

Sunday morning we headed off to church (it's so nice knowing where we are worshipping now). After church we headed home and had a relaxing afternoon cleaning and doing food prep. My parents were bringing some leftover turkey so we didn't have to worry about that. I made a pumpkin pie, an "apple" dessert (it turned out that I didn't have a second pie or enough apples plate so I had to improvise - thank you, Karen for the recipe suggestion. It was delicious!). Then we made garlic mashed potatoes, mashed yams, steamed cauliflower & broccoli, a "loaded" green salad (we like lots of stuff in our green salads) and our famous stuffing balls. They are so good and really quite easy to make.

My parents arrived just before 6pm and within about 15-20 minutes of them arriving we were ready to sit down and eat - just like I had planned. We enjoyed a wonderful meal and delicious pumpkin pie (did I mention I made the crust; desparation calls for desparate measures). We put the kids to bed shortly after as it was getting late. Then we sat back and watched some good old "Mr. Bean" dvd's. The laughter helped to burn off a few of the calories we ingested earlier!

Monday morning Jeremy & my Dad went to Jeremy's work to put the dropped-off rental vehicles into the yard so they wouldn't get stolen then went out for breakfast. The kids were up early (as usual) watching their cartoons. The rest of us grown-ups slept in to some degree or another. After a relaxing morning and a lunch of left-overs, we played some card games & relaxed. It was so nice to just have time to play together. Usually our time is so rushed that it go-go-go. By the time my parents had to leave, I felt like we had spent some quality time together. Jeremy & I and the kids enjoyed a relaxing evening after we said our good-byes. And that was the end of our Thanksgiving weekend!

I thought I would leave you with a few pictures (most of which were taken as we were saying our good-byes).