Thursday, November 26, 2009

Did Everyone Have A Great Thanksgiving??

Hey Ya'll,

In case you didn't notice, I changed up the colors in my blog in honor of the Christmas spirit!  I love Christmas!!  Let me know if the colors are too loud or hard to read.  I know that some colors don't mesh well & can hurt the eyes to look at too long!

Well, the day started out slow, but gained momentum throughout the day.  I had originally planned on going to my parents house to visit for a while as they were not up to coming to our house.  Unfortunately, since we had agreed to have Thanksgiving Dinner at our house for Walt's side of the family & some friends, we couldn't just leave.

However, like I said, I had intended to go visit my parents early, then come back in time for our guests.  But, things just didn't work out as planned.  For some reason unknown, I just could not get to sleep last night!  It was 4 am before I managed to get to sleep, so I got a late start, & before I could finish & get over there, our guests started to arrive.  So I called my parents instead to wish them well.  My daughter Christa prepared Thanksgiving Dinner for them as she always does if they are not coming to our house, & took it to their house.  She ate with them, as my grandchildren were sick all night with what appears to be the flu.  So they stayed home so as not to get my parents sick.  Then my daughter went home to stay with the kids while Christa's husband went to his families home for Thanksgiving Dinner with them.

We still ended up with a lot of great people to be around.  We had, my DH & I, Walt's kids Kat & Russ, & Kat's BFF, Courtney came with her Fiance Jeremy & his two Daughters, Ari (14) & Leah (9) from a prior marriage & his Mother, Alice.  Then Courtney's Dad & Step-Mom, Don & Debbie came too!  Oh, I forgot to include Carolyn, Walt's Ex-Wife was here as well!!  We have been inviting her to all our gatherings for about 9-10 years I believe.  We joke & call each other Sisters!!  LOL.

Leah went crazy when she saw my painting studio & wanted to ask all kinds of questions.  She also wanted to see all my paintings & sketches that I have done.  She was just so excited talking about it, that I gave her one of my smaller sketch books & a sketching pencil & eraser to sketch with.  So she spent the rest of the day sketching things & showing them to me all day!  Wasn't that sweet?  Then she left me with one of her sketches, so of course, I had to pin it up on the fridge with a magnet.

I am going to post some pictures, but I want to apologize in advance for them not being very good!  I was taking them pretty fast before anyone had time to say no!!  So some are blurry, some are not in total focus, etc.

This is Courtney & Jeremy with Courtney's Dad looking on behind them!  I would like to mention that I HATE the color of the walls in our (green) family room.  Walt picked the color out & to this day, I still don't like it!  He also insisted on painting them in enamel semi-gloss!  So they shine as well!!!

This is Court, Jeremy & his mom, Alice (Courtney's soon to be Mother-In-Law)

Kat, with Leah (9) on her right & Ari (14) on her left.  They were impatiently waiting for the Turkeys to finish cooking!

This is Courtney with her Dad, Don & her Step-Mom, Debbie & her future Mother-In-Law Alice in the white sweater.

Here is Carolyn & I, the sister's!! LOL  But we get along great.

Walt draining off some of the excess liquid out of the corn.  He had spilled it carrying it from the stove area to the counter.

Walt getting more of the dishes on the counter for the buffet line up!

The beginning of the buffet line!  We had two differently prepared Turkeys.  One was rotisseried on the barbecue, the other was deep fried (yum), & a Honey Baked Ham (double yum).

Just a quick shot of the whole line of food.  Everyone was starving by the time the Turkeys were done, & they didn't even want to wait for Walt to clear off the carcass's from the counter!!

And last but not least, a picture of my Step-Son, Russ.  He was already totally drunk by this time!!  He will not drink & drive (thank god), so he had to wait until he had brought Carolyn to the house, then he could start his drinking in earnest!  He made himself some Long Island Ice Tea's!!  I believe he was much more liberal with the alcohol on the second one!!

Sorry about the messy pictures!  Also, sorry that I didn't get any shots of the desserts!  But they were fantastic believe me!  Yes, I did partake of the dinner.  I had two small pieces of Turkey, a small piece of Ham (sliced very thin), a spoonful of Mashed Potatoes & Gravy, a spoonful of Corn & a couple of spoonfuls of the homemade Macaroni & Cheese!!  Then a little bit later, I had a small piece of the Pumpkin Pie & an even smaller piece of the Chocolate Creme Pie with a small amount of Vanilla Ice Cream.  But, I didn't eat the crusts!!  However, I did eat more than I should have, but still didn't eat to the point of hurting, so I hope that I didn't swell out my pouch (that is the only concern I had).  No getting stuck or PB'g thank goodness!!!

Well, I better go for now, hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving!!  Next is Christmas!!!

Aloha My Friends  :) 

6 comments:

Dinnerland said...

Looks like a lovely family celebration-- whether you did perfectly or not this holiday, it appears that your band was there for you b/c you were eating mindfully and carefully. I'll bet this was a change for you and very worthwhile, even as you are recovering from surgery!
Vanessa

Debi said...

Definitely! I was trying to be very aware of how much I ate. And I had to choose what I REALLY wanted to eat as I knew I couldn't eat very much! So it definitely worked!

Anonymous said...

Glad to hear that you had a nice holiday! Ours was small (just four of us), but I dream of big gatherings like you had! Someday, we'll be the house to go to if you don't have anywhere else to go!

Sounds like you did great at dinner time! Even though I'm not banded yet, I took my time and and more mindfully -- dinner was really yummy that way and it didn't take as much to fill me up.

Here's to Christmas!

Debi said...

Thanks! This was a smallish gathering though. We have at times had as many as 20-40 at once! But this year we didn't all get together for one reason or another.

Your dinner sounded really great too! Sometimes it is nice to just be able to relax with a few & really be able to talk together. But your in-laws would be fine I'm sure, if they felt a bit out of it the first time, by the next occasion, they would know everyone & not feel so distanced.

At least this is how it has always gone at our home. It was the first time at our home for several of our guests this year. But next time, they will fit right in!

Amy W. said...

It looks like you guys had a great time and I love the pictures. Also, I hear you about the green walls...semigloss is not a good choice but the color is really hot right now! So just consider that you guys are trendsetters! I think it's cool!

Debi said...

Thanks Amy!! Now my husband will never let me change the color! He reads my blog every day!!