Gobble Gobble!

This year our Thanksgiving was extra special! Ever since we moved to WA, we have missed out on celebrating Thanksgiving with family. We had made the best of it in years past by often celebrating with close friends and enjoyed great feasts with fabulous company. :) We stay here by choice as traveling over this holiday is just too stressful and hectic. As much as I miss our families, I do enjoy having the long weekend here at home and continuing favorite traditions such as getting our Christmas tree, decorating it and putting out the rest of the holiday decorations throughout the weekend.

But THIS year, we got to celebrate with family here in WA! Tara, Dave and the kids trekked out here from the Tri-Cities in eastern WA and made Thanksgiving complete. Earlier this week I was worried about their travel through the pass as we got walloped with quite a storm. But they picked the perfect time to travel and arrived on Wednesday evening in great time. :)

Luckily, our TG menu was pretty easy. There wasn't too much to do in the way of cooking, so we had lots of time to relax and enjoy the day. For dinner, we had:

• Honeybaked ham
• Sweet potatoes with Marshmallows
• Muffin Stuffin'
• Salad
• Rolls
• Cranberry sauce (in a can-per Brian)

 And of course in my house, dessert is just as important as the meal. We had quite a bit to choose from:

• Sweet Potato Pie with Struessel Topping (one of this month's baking project recipes)
• Elegant apple tartlets
• Brownies
• Caramel Pie (a last minute addition that I couldn't resist making thanks to my friend Karen V)

 We sat down to feast at 4:30 (only half an hour later than I'd planned....not too shabby!), and stuffed ourselves silly. It seems like everyone enjoyed the meal, and I was just so excited to share this holiday with family. Plus it is so much more fun to cook and bake for someone other than ourselves.

The other big highlight of the day was Skyping with the rest of our family. I feel like I can't quite convey just how amazing it is to be able to talk to everyone "face to face" over the computer. It truly shrinks the world down and makes it seem like we are just a little bit geographically closer to our loved ones. We started our day by Skyping with Cathy and Bryan. Then later we hooked up with my mom who hosted dinner for my sister Karla, my brother and their families. After that we got to Skype with B's family - Rusti and Amanda (we were sad to miss seeing Larry, but B caught up with him the old fashioned way - by phone!). And later that evening we Skyped with B's grandparents (the most technologically advanced pair of 90 year-olds that I have ever met!) and aunt and uncle. We even set up the camera on the TV and hooked up a microphone so that we didn't have to all try and crowd around the laptop. These calls truly made my day. I can't wait to do it again at Christmas!

After stuffing ourselves again with dessert and then cleaning up, we rounded out the night by playing Apples to Apples. All in all, it was a fabulous day made all the better having spent it with family both in person and on Skype. :)