Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Thanksgiving, BTW

Now that Bahamas Week, or two, is complete, I find my "untitled folder" on my desktop burgeoning with photos needing to be posted. Things like Thanksgiving, a trip to the lake, good food, really disgusting food, and mini-Ultimate fighting. So here goes:

Our Thanksgiving, 2010



One of the side effects of military life is that you aren't always able to go home for the holidays. As Jerry is in training this fall and his schedule is all over the place, we stayed in town this year and enjoyed Thanksgiving with some of our new Air Force families.

The details that went into this meal were terrific! There were three families and we met at a park on base to enjoy a potluck Thanksgiving dinner on paper plates.

All family meals and friendly gatherings should be on paper plates.

The food at least.



Thanks needs to be expressed to our hostess Lindsay and her husband Ryan, and Liz with her husband Chris. Between those two ladies our night was a huge success!

Lindsay brought tables clothes and centerpieces,


A coffee maker with all of the fixings, champagne and plastic flute toasting glasses,


Flameless votive candles, napkins wrapped in ribbon with leaf and berry decorations,


And she even brought these cute little pumpkins as napkin weights!

And did I mention she brought champagne?


Along with all of those non-food items, Lindsay and Ryan also brought the bird, stuffing, gravy, and a bunch of other stuff like pies and whipped cream.

And champagne.


There's Lindsay! Say, "Hi!" everybody! Poor thing is 38 weeks pregnant and still managed to pull off one heck of a potluck dinner!


Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the giant spread of food we enjoyed. I was too busy stuffing my face!

It goes without saying though that the food was wonderful and we all had a great time.

Jerry had a particularly good time with the green bean casserole.

Get a room!

Ms. Lindsay brought, as one part of her contribution to the festivities, a gingerbread house making station for the kids and dads to enjoy together.

It was really hard to keep the kids away from this table before eating the Thanksgiving dinner.

It was really hard to keep them from putting BACK the candy they tried to hide in their mouths before Thanksgiving dinner.


There we all are working like mad to make the houses. The temperature had just dropped by literally 30 degrees so we were all shivering and shaking while trying to get the graham crackers to stay together.


Mackenzie was really very focused on her artwork. And she did a great job.


Paige took her time and created a masterpiece as you can well imagine. If it involved creating something, or making a mess, Paige is the queen.

Like a messy Martha Stewart. But without the jail time.


Ah, yes. This was Phoebe's house. She's not Martha Stewart.


And when Josh's house collapsed he was thrilled to eat the destruction!


As my nature requires, I had to award an unofficial winner: Congratulations Ryan! Your gingerbread house, I mean Eva's house, was beautifully detailed, arranged, and decorated!


Dinner and dessert was followed by the post-Thanksgiving tradition of playing ball. We brought our bag full of field toys as our non-food contribution. We have lots of balls.

Big balls.

Small balls.



And balls used for retrieving Frisbees trapped on the roof.

Thanks again Lindsay and Liz for making this one of my all time favorite Thanksgivings!

And next year Lindsay I'll step up and bring my "A" game to the potluck dinner.

And our balls.