Thanksgiving Weekend

Mom and Melody came up to spend Thanksgiving with us. We had a great time. I spent Wednesday preparing all the baked goods I could ahead of time. I made Pecan pie, carrot cake for Dwayne's birthday cake and then I made butternut squash soup. As I was adding the last bit of cream into the soup and then letting it heat up, it started splattering all over the place. I go running into the kitchen to turn the soup down and pull it off the heat and a freak splatter managed to get past my big cheeks, up under my glasses and hit me in the eye! Luckily, my eyelid closed in time or it would have hit me directly in the eye. The soup was hot enough to scald the first layer of skin from my eyelid and just underneith my eye. The soup wasn't really really hot yet and if it had hit me anywhere else on my body, I think I would have just had a little pink spot. But because the tissue around the eye is so sensitive and soft, it scalded immediately. So now I have a nice red scabby patch under my eye and on my eyelid. But at least I have a great story to tell. The soup tasted great too!

Thursday morning, I got the turkey in the oven and started to prepare Thanksgiving dinner. One thing I always run into is the lack of oven and oventop space to heat and prepare all the variety of dishes I want to prepare. I ran across a couple of tips that made my life a little easier this time around. I prepared the mashed potatoes a couple hours ahead of time and then put them in my crockpot on the warm setting to keep them fresh for dinner. It worked out great! The potatoes didn't dry up or anything and tasted like I had just made them. I also, like I said, made many things ahead of time on Wednesday. The turkey has to sit a little anyway after cooking before carving, which leaves me just enough time to throw the dressing and rolls in the oven to bake for half an hour. I made sure the rolls and dressing were in their pans ready to toss in the oven the minute the turkey came out to help minimize the wait time for the hungry folks waiting on dinner. While those are cooking, I whipped up the gravy and then we were set. It was fun to cook for my mom and show her that I was paying attention sometimes when she tried to show me the fine art of cooking. :)

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I had to work. As most of you know, it is the biggest shopping weekend of the year for many retailers so I had no option on whether I had to work or not. Luckily, I didn't have to go in until noon on Friday so I got to visit a little before taking off. They spent most of the time letting the kids fight/play and braved the crowds to do a little shopping at Walmart. It sounds like Mom and Melody got some of their Christmas shopping done and Dwayne got the kids their first Santa picture. I don't think it turned out very well at all. They weren't very interested in sitting on some strange man's lap and I can't blame them.

So now I'm tired after working hard all weekend. I'm glad I got to see Mom and Melody and Aiden as little as I did but I really really wished I had more time with them. However, I am extremely grateful to have the job and it is so wonderful to have most of my Christmas shopping done and the money to be able to get them. Overall, I would say it was a nice weekend, and I look forward to heading down to Oregon around Christmas to see all the family again.