11.23.06

we spent thanksgiving with grandpa everett and grandma mae and their friend lillian. she's 90 years old, and even older i think, but you'd never know it. she seemed more spry and witty at 90 than i am at 24! yikes.

since grandma and grandpa couldn't make it out for dinner and family, we brought dinner and family to them! it was so much fun, and a lot easier than i thought it would be. and we gave thanks that Joe had the day off!! here was our menu:

turkey roast

bbq spare ribs (none of us actually felt much like turkey, so i thought this would be a welcome surprise...granma loves ribs!)

roasted garlic and sausage stuffing

twiced baked sweet potatoes

homemade cranberry sauce

sauteed carrots with nutmeg and fresh-squeezed orange juice

sweet and whole wheat rolls from The Buttery

joes' pumpkin cheesecake w/ chocolate chips (oh, it was awesome, good job honey!)

we had the sounds (some of them rather annoying) of the thanksgiving day parade in the background as joe and i danced around grandma's kitchen trying to find where she kept everything. we told grandma to "have a seat," and she made us make ourselves to home. she was tickled pink that she didn't "get" to do a thing. and two hours later we had a piping hot thanksgving meal on the table. after dinner, we finished the day off with half a game of mexican train (we started with double twelves and made it to double sixes, but joe kept on winning every round, so we all got kind of disenchanted with the whole thing and called it a day).

thanks granma and granpa for a cheerful, yummy thanksgiving! we love you. and we give thanks for you, and for all our family.

lillian

joe's pumpkin cheesecake...doesn't actually look that great here, but don't let looks deceive. :)

yah, so, the teddy bear thing is all granma's idea from last year's train extravaganza...lillian was like "uh, what are the bears for?" and when we explained it to her, she looked at us sideways and didn't say anything. instead of using penneys or another marker of some sort to say "i'm up!", we used the bear. though their looks are slightly disturbing, they proved to be rather practical, and so i think we have started a very silly but authentic peterson train tradition.