Other Festivities

While the inlaws were here, there were a few other things we did besides just stuff ourselves full of Thanksgiving Turkey! We were able to spend an evening swimming at the hotel my mother-in-law and father-in-law stayed in for one night while they were here, and BOY was that freezing! It was an indoor pool, but it definately took some getting used to!

Also, during the month of November, Freedom Station is doing a food drive thing where if you come in on Thursday you can donate food to the food drive in exchange for a free round of golf! It was awesome! We all got in for free, minus the peanut butter and peaches we raided from the pantry :)

Morgan riding the train. I love this picture, she looks so STINKING CUTE!

The first shot of the day... FOUR!!!!!!

If you want to know the proper way to play mini golf...don't watch Morgan! But, if you want to get a super low score, you could learn a little from her method! It goes something like this:

1. Whack the ball off the start. 2. Pick up the ball wherever it lands and set it within 2 inches of the hole 3. Then putt it in.

She got a hole in 2 shots everytime!

Lining up for the perfect shot :)

Morgan would insist on taking that first shot at the same time as somebody else. And Alex is a putz.

Taking the first shot with Uncle Alex. She had such a fun time with her uncles. She sure loves those guys.


Okay, and this last picture is not mini golfing but its a picture from while they were here. JD and I have kind of turned into minor freakers when it comes to our tiny little snake. It had just been so long since we had handled him that we just assumed he wouldn't like people anymore. Well, Alex was not afraid, and I am so grateful that he reminded us what a cool pet a snake can be. Morgan loves him now, and it really is one of my personal favorite things that happened this trip!

Gobble Gobble 2009!

Because of JD's work schedule, and a few other factors, we weren't going to be able to make it up to Salt Lake for Thanksgiving to see his family. So, his family decided if we couldn't come to them, they would come to us! I could go on and on for a while about how much it means to me that his family is willing to drive the 11 hours plus to see us, but THAT would take forever. Anyhow, because his family needed to be able to get time off of work, it was just easier if they came down earlier in the month than for actual Thanksgiving. SO, we had our Thanksgiving, on Friday the 13th, how often does that happen....ummm I think, NEVER?!?!?

Well, since everybody came to our place, that meant I got to do the cooking. I gotta admit, I was a little intimidated by the turkey! I mean...what if I actually RUINED Thanksgiving by screwing up the turkey? After days of thawing (I cannot believe how long it takes to thaw out an 18 pound turkey) I cut open the bag and was just....appalled... at what was in there! Ummm...did I mention I don't usually cook with anything but chicken breast because I really do not like the idea of bones in poultry? So here's the scene:

I'm standing there over this bird as it sits in my kitchen sink where I hoisted the big ol' sucker and left it there for oh, 10 minutes, as I just sat there staring at it. I pump myself up with a little jog-in-place warm up and some breathing exercises, then plunge my hand into the great unknown: The turkey butt. It wasn't so bad, and that was when I got worried.

I call my mom (who picked up my turkey for me since I was scrambling like a mad man to get my house ready for the in laws), and this is what I say, "Mom? Did you buy a giblet free turkey?" She says, "uhhh, no" I say, "Well, they're not in there." She says, "Hmmm...don't know what to tell you sweetie" I hang up, and curse the stinkin fowl thing in front of me (hehehe cool pun, eh?) Then, I called in reinforcements:

JD was so very chivalrous as to come and stick his hand in the turkey butt for me. So nice of him :) He pulled out the nasty neck, which was enough to make me gag, and then declares, the giblets are indeed missing.

Well, then he flipped the thing over, and what do you know, there's a hole in the other side of the turkey too! There, hiding under this nasty fold of skin, were the giblets. Which, if I thought the fold of skin was nasty.....

And JD, being who he is, proceeded to seriously gross me out with the giblets.

On Good Morning Arizona last year (back in the days when we still had cable...tear) they talked about brining a turkey. It sounded delish, so here is my go at it. The picture above is the brine as its coming to a boil with the salt starting to dissolve and the seasonings just chillin on top.

The next morning, after only 4 hours of sleep....the turkey in a bag! (may I say I got that sucker in there all by myself thank you very much)

Morgan and I were up while everybody else was still snoozing, so I decided, since nothing else needed to be done, to make place mats. It was fun! I definitely enjoy preparing two-year old hand painted turkeys more than the real deal :)

We still had time after the place mats were done, so I took the opportunity to teach Morgan a little about Thanksgiving by making up some place-markers for the table. We made Indian headdresses and pilgrim hats and I told her the Thanksgiving story which, toned down for her level, went, "A long time ago, there were some pilgrims (showed her the hat) and some Indians (showed her the headdress) They fought and fought and were so so so mean to each other-" She didn't like that part much, "But then, one day, they decided to be friends and have tasty dinner together. The end"

Indian Warrior Morgan

And finally, after all my worrying, the turkey didn't turn out so bad, what do ya think?

While we were eating, there were a couple random comments about how tender and juicy the bird was, which is the whole point of brining it the night before :) I sat there and accepted the compliments, silently thanking the cosmos that nothing went wrong and it all turned out according to plan.

And hey, Morgan only ate a whole can of cranberry sauce...that can't be too bad, right?

What do you think?

For months now, some of my friends have been getting involved in this co-op called Bountiful Baskets. Its where you pay 15 dollars and you take a laundry basket to a designated meeting spot on Saturday, and you get it filled with various fruits and veggies at a discounted price. The only draw back is, you get what they give you, so you don't get to pick what kinds of fruits and veggies you get. (Maybe its a bonus because it will force me to eat gross things like cucumbers???) Anyhow, here's our haul this week, for 15 bucks:

I am still debating on whether its a good deal or not. It's a head of green lettuce, one head of spinach, 8 ears of corn, 2 cucumbers, 10 oranges, 2 avocados, 1 cantaloupe, 12 kiwis, 4 onions, 7 tomatoes, and 9 apples. (we already ate two of them before we took the picture)

What do you think?

(but, in all fairness, these are super fresh foods, so they do taste pretty good!)

OR ELSE....

The title of this post is because that's basically the gist of what my Mom said when it was Sunday, the day after Halloween, and I had not posted pictures of Morgan from Halloween yet! So I am doing it pronto, in order to avoid finding out what the end result of the "or else" threat from my Mom might be :)

Halloween for us started at the Mangum's party, it is always so much fun and this year it was a full week before Halloween, so it got us geared up and excited a whole week in advance! There were loads of fun things there, like a pinata and donuts on a string. Morgan and I had to go solo for most of it, because JD was working.

Morgan and I went as Pongo and Cruella DeVille from 101 Dalmatians

Taking her whack at the pinata



Okay, so I felt HORRIBLE playing this game cause I felt like I was just teasing her with the donut! But eventually she got the idea and it was fun...at least I think she had fun!

It was so great because JD had the first Monday night off that he has had in a LONG LONG time so we got to carve pumpkins for family night and it was so much fun to be able to spend a little family time together!

Morgan was just yelling and laughing so hard because of the squishy pumpkin insides!

But then she got down to business!

I love this picture because she was concentrating so hard to paint that little pumpkin :)

JD decided he knew a better way to do this than using our prehistoric tools. He got out the Dremel. (what a man, eh? He's mine ladies...)

And we ended up with pumpkin sawdust!


This folks, is a rarity! An actual documented photograph of my existence!

Our uber-cool pumpkins transformed into jack-o-lanterns!

We went trick or treating with some friends of ours, and Morgan did great! She would say "Trick or Treat" and then she didn't even wait for people to give her candy, she would start grabbing it right out of their bowls! (we tried to squelch -is that even a word?- that behavior, but when everybody thinks it so darn cute its hard to teach her not to do it!) As she walked away she always made sure to say thank you and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

This last picture is just soooo Morgan.

Yep, that's right, she's eating two suckers at once.

And that my friends, is the only way to end your day after having one very, very, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!