thanksgiving week '10

*gasp* what? three posts in three days?!? where did my life go?

anyway...we had a nice thanksgiving. we had our traditional feast potluck-style with some good friends on sunday. i made cranberry sauce, a brussels sprout salad (it was awesome. i'm tweaking it a bit and will post the recipe on that other blog of mine that i never do anything with...) and a chocolate-pumpkin trifle (same as salad. yum!). everything was delish and the company was excellent. monday was a regular day, tuesday was our road trip, wednesday we ended up at the grocery store (bad idea. duh.) to get ingredients for cranberry cheesecake (i did a graham cracker crust and baked it in an 8" spring-form pan) and cinnamon pear galette (i used whole wheat flour and "made" my own oat flour and almond flour). thursday morning we woke (way too early) and headed to the galleria:

for the turkey trot 10k (along with just about everyone else in houston):

including santa:

he did the 5k. grant asked hazel if she thought he was the real santa. she said yes. he was very authentic looking: real beard, quality suit, waving and chatting with all of the children. the kids were troopers while we waited for the race to begin:

most of the wait anyway:

lucy was doing fine until grant took away the pump to fill the tires and optimize his speed:

here we are before:

and after:

the race was . . . ok. grant hung back for the first mile (mostly because he couldn't get the stroller through the crowd very easily) but then i had to shoo him away. he was messin' with my pace. i made it to about 3 1/2 miles before my foot started hurting and from there on i split between walking and running. i have no idea of my time (at mile 5 someone yelled out "gun time: 68 minutes"). grant said he thought the clock said 1:07 when he crossed the finish line. we left after gorging ourselves on the danish pastries but before our times were posted. i figured they'd be posted online. no luck so far. oh well. 

lucy enjoyed herself. we limped back to the car and stopped at this bench:

i asked them to smile and that's what i got. stinkers. once home, i made the cheesecake, took a nap, then made the pear galette. we took those over to our friends' home, enjoyed more excellent company and games. when we left, mother nature had a wonderful gift in store: the weather was 30 degrees cooler. heaven! today i got to finally wear my new sweater and in just a minute we're heading to pick up grant and going to the zoo. maybe this blog-athon will extend into four posts in four days... 

ps. my foot feels 99% normal today so no damage done. my biggest issue stemmed from the fact that i hadn't run more than two miles at a time for the past three weeks. time to get back on track or come february, i'm in trouble.

we {heart} turkeys

especially these ones:

happy thanksgiving everyone!

roadtrippin'

we began our thanksgiving vacation early and went on a short road trip. it started out rainy but as we kept heading north we saw peeks of blue sky and sunshine. the best sight? fall colors: 

 finally! (that's a cardboard box, not a deer.) a bit further on we saw that we were close to our first stop:

we made it to the blue bell ice cream factory and had 30 minutes until the next tour. just enough time for pictures: 

headlocks are, of course, included.

after the tour finished (it was very cool [ha! no pun intended.] and interesting) and our scoop of ice cream consumed, we continued on our way:  

i found it somewhat ironic that we were listening to rocky mountain high wilst driving through hill country. still, i'd take hills over houston's flat or cement landscape:

a couple of hours later we made it to our final destination: mckinney falls state park (i saw some pictures on our friends' blog and decided it would make a  fun day trip):

we were greeted by several friendly ladybugs:

hazel managed to pick one up with a stick:

ms. bug quickly climbed her way up hazel's arm:

it then flew from her arm to her shirt and, sadly, from there to lucy's ear. lucy squealed and quickly swatted. the ladybug didn't make it. we walked around a little trying to find the falls and a nice place to wade in the water. unfortunately the water was really low:

so we wandered some more:

soon we headed for the upper falls with hopes that it would be more waterfall-y. we parked by the trail and were greeted by more ladybugs: 

if you look closely you can see half a dozen or so crawling around on the fence. a very short walk brought us to the water: 

which was, once again, low:

thinking we were in the wrong place, we headed up a pathway:

eventually we realized that we'd had it right the first time so we turned back. the girls chased some butterflies:  

then hurried back to the water  and took their shoes and socks off:

it was a crazy-hot day. the humidity was out of control but the water was lovely and cold:

both girls ended up sopping wet, riding home in their skivvies and happy (at least, as happy as you can be having skipped your nap...)

signs of the season

while grant was gone, the girls and i all caught colds.  hazel started it and passed it to me.  lucy seemed to be immune to it at first but then she got it worse than either of us.  i took some pictures of the kids a couple days after thanksgiving (when i realized that i didn't take any pictures of people during dinner).  here they are enjoying a snack of marshmallows and animal crackers:

this is hazel's new favorite seat.  she turns it so that she can watch tv. it's as close as she can get without being told to back up.  here's a close up of lucy's face:

look at those sad little puffy eyes!  poor thing.  she looks much better now.  her happy personality wasn't too marred by the sickness.  she was ham enough to run around with two binkies in her mouth.  this was the best picture i got:

anyway, on a different note, we got our christmas tree last night.  i had grand plans and was super excited to have a real live (well, not really alive, but you know what i mean) tree, but grant talked me out of it (i'm really just happy to have a tree to put up.  we didn't do any decorations last year since we went to utah for most of december).  so we got a nice, small artifical one from target.  it was love at first sight for hazel:

she kept talking about her "chwistmas twee".  she helped grant open the box:

and that's about as helpful as she got:

so grant put it together by himself while hazel played in the box and i took pictures:

hazel is over the moon to have her very own ("but woocy can share with me") christmas tree:

when i got lucy out of her crib this morning, i put the lights on for the full effect.  sure enough, she pointed at the lights and said, "wow!" and then some gibberish, ending with "okay?"  both the girls have been pretty good about not touching it too much. we'll be decorating tonight or as soon as we are able to make the decorations.  in a fit of saintliness, i gave our old tree and all our decorations to my brother and sister-in-law when we moved to houston.  i know, what was i thinking?!?  i'd better be their favorite sibling, seriously.  i am, right?  mark? alicia? right?? loved that tree.....but i am excited that this new one takes up less space and will be easier to decorate.  and like i said earlier, i'm just glad to have one.

the first thanksgiving...

...that i cooked anyway.  since i'm so proud of myself for making our fancy dinner and since it all tasted so good (well, except for the peas, but those are never yummy), i'm going to blog about it.  i picked up a small turkey and thanks to the pioneer woman i figured out how to roast it.  i used her brine recipe:

luckily, my turkey didn't come with legs or wings (note to self: read the packaging so there is no confusion about missing half the turkey) so it fit into a gallon ziplock bag.  it roasted beautifully, was so moist and yummy.

   

i made  pw's cranberry sauce as well and it was also delish.

there was also some of my creamy jalapeno dip.  so good.  then there were the usual: stove top stuffing, peas (only there for lucy), frozen rolls with this seasoning:

and pioneer woman's roasted garlic and new potatoes (with chicken broth instead of the wine).  finally, for dessert, i made mini pumpkin cheesecakes:

don't mind the misplaced dollop, i forgot to stop squeezing the pastry bag...  we had a great thanksgiving even though the girls and i were sick, and we didn't have any family here.  we did have a good friend, thanks for coming kandice. we hope you all had a nice holiday too.