Thanksgiving!

What a wonderful Thanksgiving! Hudson was my pre-Thanksgiving prep helper.  I learned one thing from him and Easton, I should cook more meat around this house...or at least show it to them!  Hudson was very curious about this turkey we had in our fridge.  As he helped me cut off the packaging and revealed our 23lb little friend he decided he needed a name.  Well, ok I thought by all means, let's do it!  I gave Hudson the sole responsibility of naming him....Nixon Rudolph!  He also informed me that his birthday would be the next day, Thanksgiving!  Easton thought it was not quite right that his birthday be the day we eat him.  When Easton saw our little friend, Nixon, he looked at me with his curious eyes and furrowed eyebrows and said, "Is that a REAL turkey?".  I laughed and said, "yes Easton, did you think we would eat a fake one?" at which he replied, "like someone shot him?"  Oh boy!

We had 2 of Ray's brothers and 1 of his sisters here with their families.  This was the first year we have cooked Thanksgiving dinner here.  I have cooked a turkey before but never had the pressure of it being the Thanksgiving Turkey!  Well, I did some research and decided to brine our turkey.  I didn't anticipate the work/mess this brine was going to make!  On Tuesday when I made the brine  Ray was helping me by holding the bowl while I was pouring it from the pan, well with a combined effort (neither is admitting fault) I managed to pour part of the brine down his pants, onto his shoes, and all over the floor!  Woowee!  But boy does it get better.  On Thanksgiving morning, I had planned to go running (calorie deficit baby), so I figured I better get up early get the turkey all ready so I could come home and put it in the oven.  I realized that with our 23lb turkey in the bag and all the liquid it got rather heavy, so at 5am I softly whispered in Ray's face that I needed his assistance in getting the turkey out of the fridge.  To my surprise he quickly found his way to the garage fridge.  As I stood on the steps to the garage I felt a little uneasy about the tugging on the bag he was doing.   And my fears were soon put into reality as the bag ripped and turkey brine (now with a raw turkey juices!) came pouring onto Ray and all over our garage.  Nasty!  All I could do was ask how I could help.  I thought it was bad the first time, but now to have it happen again...what are the odds!?!?

Ray was a trooper, we managed to get the turkey into the house so I could get it ready and then he hosed off the garage floor at 5am on a 30 degree November morning.  Needless to say I don't know if the tasty turkey was quite worth the effort.

I always love Thanksgiving weekend, no pressures, just home with the family and lots of food!  Today, Sunday, when we got up Easton announced that he was going to have a busy day, he had to watch Spiderman 2 and Football.  Man the life of a 7 year old.  I also had to remind him he had 3 hours of church to fit in there too!

Well, bring on December we are ready for the season to begin!