Thanksgiving and Christmas updates

I know a lot of you faithful readers have been asking to post something about our first Thanksgiving, so here it is:
Eric and I had a wonderful Thanksgiving! There were five of us total to partake in our feast (we had SO much food!) I was in charge of the mashed potatoes and I made too many, but our turkey was very yummy! We only ran into one small disaster with the cooking of the bird, and I'm sure you will here something different if you talk to the other eye witnesses, but let me tell you my story... So the turkey was done after soaking in it's own grease all day and we were ready to carve it, so Eric gets a knife and starts hacking away. Seconds later he says, "Eww, I just cut a vein or something" and when I walked over to check it out all I see is blood dripping from part of the turkey. I immediately walk straight into the bathroom, thinking I might throw up, but it doesn't happen. So we put the bird back in the roaster to cook it more... About an hour later Eric tries again to cut up the turkey and this time I am standing right next to him. The first cut he makes is followed by a squishing sound and more blood errupting like a fountain (EWWWW!!!!! I make a gagging sound and leave the room again....) Turns out, SOMEONE (they shall remain nameless) remembered to take out the nasty bag of I don't even want to know what's in there from one part of the turkey, but forgot about the head part. It was taken care of and we still had plenty of turkey to eat. We had five pies that day... and five people... that's a 1:1 pie ratio (and I probably ate that much.) We even went around the table before we ate so that everyone could say what they were thankful for. Oh, and we weaved place mats out of construction paper and laminated them.

Then last weekend Eric and I went to pick out our Christmas tree. We chose a smaller one because a) we have a tiny apartment and b) because we're actually housesitting for some friends starting today until Christmas eve and they had mentioned that they didn't put up a tree this year. Did we decorate it right away when we got home? You bet! Are we going to take all the ornaments off to haul the tree to our temporary home and decorate it there? Of course. I only partially broke one our or ornaments, a small green glass gummy bear ornament that we got in Florida on our honeymoon. Eric chose a tree topper that was just like the one that he had as a child, only the story goes when Eric was very small he tried to take a bit out of the glass tree topper because he thought it was candy and had to go to the emergency room.


So we aren't traveling anywhere for Christmas, but we do get to go down to California to celebrate the new year with Eric's parents. I am really looking forward to spending time with our family and I am also looking forward to the SUNSHINE! I love palm trees and I love the beach... it will be very hard to return to this yucky Oregon winter. I know, I used to say that I love the rain, but this cold is kind of getting to me. Is a move to California in our future????? Only if God makes it possible for Eric to get a job transfer down there. And if I don't post until later have a MERRY CHRISTMAS!