Our First Thanksgiving. :)

Alex and I hosted Thanksgiving for the first time this year. We had his parents and grandmother over for dinner, then Beck, Kevin, and Nora came over for dessert. I made the turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, butternut squash soup, a pecan pie, and homemade pumpkin ice cream. Alex's mom brought creamed onions, green bean casserole, cranberry relish, and chocolate chip cookies. His grandmother brought a lemon meringue and a pumpkin pie. Needless to say, we had a lot of food!

I started cooking on Wednesday after work. I made the pumpkin ice cream first - a recipe from my "Ben and Jerry's Cookbook". I used my Kitchenaid mixer ice cream maker attachment and the ice cream was super easy to make and turned out delicious! It tasted like liquid pumpkin pie with whipped cream. I made my pecan pie next, which turned out deliciously, even if it didn't set right. I had Alex help me as my sous-chef that night and he did a lot of the chopping of veggies for me to use in my stuffing and gravy the next day. I roasted my butternut squash and started the soup preparation then stuck the mixture in the crock pot and then fell into bed.

Thursday morning, I got up at 7:30 and took the turkey out of the fridge to rest and come up to room temperature. I reviewed all my recipes and then started to try and tidy up the apartment. I can't tell you where the morning went. I missed all the parades. It took longer than I expected it to make the stuffing (even with prepping all the veggies the night before!). The turkey went into the oven around 11am - about an hour and a half after I wanted it to go in. D'oh! Alex's parents and grandmother showed up around 1pm, just as I was finished getting dressed after a light-speed shower. Patty helped me peel potatoes while Grammy, Keene, and Alex watched the first Harry Potter movie in the living room. The turkey came out of the oven around 4:30pm.


The turkey looked picture perfect!! Martha Stewart did right by me. I used her "Perfect Roast Turkey" recipe as well as her Chestnut stuffing recipe and they turned out perfectly. We reheated the sides as the turkey rested and then Alex carved the turkey. The table was overflowing with food and our new china and crystal. It looked great!


We all enjoyed stuffing ourselves with Thanksgiving dinner. Afterwards, Patty led the charge in the kitchen to clean and put away. I was very thankful for her motivation because otherwise, Alex and I probably would still have dirty Thanksgiving dishes. ;) Beck, Kevin, and Nora came for dessert and we indulged ourselves with 4 different pies, cookies, and ice cream. Nora is almost 4 months old now and can almost sit up on her own and is starting to grab things. She can grab her nuk from Kevin and almost put it in her mouth herself! Alex is more interested in Nora now that she is starting to interact more with people and he spent some time holding her and playing with her. VERY cute! :) Nora is almost starting to crawl now. She's going to be trouble pretty soon! Probably just in time for Christmas. ;)


We had a great Thanksgiving. It was very different from in the past, but even though we had to do a lot of cooking and cleaning, it was somehow less stressful. I guess that was because we weren't trying to hit two different places for dinner and dessert and all that jazz. I really enjoyed cooking and Alex keeps telling me how proud he is of me and how great Thanksgiving was. Yeah! :)

Last Day at Disney Recap

I hate the last day of vacation. Even when it's only a mini-break. I woke up pretty early on Sunday and was able to get Alex motivated relatively early. We packed, he arranged a town car to pick us up at 5pm and bring us to the airport and then called bell services to come get our bags. We were checked out and on our way to the Magic Kingdom by 10:30am.

For some reason, we decided to take the bus to the Magic Kingdom rather than walk through Epcot and catch the monorail as we'd usually go. The bus was pretty crowded and we had to stand, but the trip wasn't that long. A little girl got on the bus wearing a Princess gown. The bus driver flipped a switch and an announcement started that sounded at first like one of the regular recorded announcements... "Ladies and Gentlemen, please remember to be on your best royal behavior in the coach, we're traveling with a Disney Princess today!" It was so cute! :)

We started our day with a "breakfast" of corn dog nuggets and french fries with plenty of cheese sauce at Casey's on the corner at the end of Main Street. Eating at Casey's on our last day is a sort of tradition for us. We've been doing it since we first went together in 2004. We watched some kids feed the ducks that were surrounding the outdoor tables. Right next to the kids was a sign that said, "Please do not feed the birds" but their parents seemed to not care. After we were finished eating, we headed over to Adventureland. I took a picture of Alex in front of the entrance because I'd taken one of him there on our first day in the Magic Kingdom in 04:

Heading to Adventureland in 2004 and in 2007.

Alex was suffering from his lack of planning in the shoe department - he'd only brought shoes for the conference and nothing comfortable to walk around the parks in. He ended up breaking down and buying a pair of Disney Crocs. I was laughing soooo hard at him. He's not exactly the type of guy that would wear Crocs on a normal basis, and here he was buying Disney Crocs with Mickey Mouse heads on them. Hilarious. I had to snap a couple of pictures of him in his crocks. ;)

Comfy, but really gay shoes.

We didn't have much time in the Magic Kingdom and it was pretty crowded, but we were able to hit a lot of things in a short amount of time because we knew how to work the FastPasses. We got one for the Jungle Cruise and then headed over to Fantasyland to see Mickey's PhilharMagic (again), which was just about a walk on. We waited in line for the Haunted Mansion, which was about a 30 minute wait. We were entertained by the bust on the gravestone of Madame Leota that periodically opened it's eyes and looked around. After the Haunted Mansion, we were able to get another FastPass, which we did for Splash Mountain.

We rode the Jungle Cruise and then went and took some pictures in the hub in front of the Castle and browsed some shops. Then it was time to ride Splash Mountain! This would be the 3rd time for me this trip and both previous times I was in a barely filled boat sitting in the front row. Well, this time we were placed in the front row again but the boat was packed. Yeah, that made a difference. We got soaked! Every single little dip the boat took caused water to splash over the front and all over us. We took a picture afterwards to commemorate our big Splash:

Soaking Wet after Splash Mountain

We headed over to Epcot next where we had a late lunch/early dinner at the Biergarten. We drank Beck's Dark from humongous mugs and were entertained by the band while we ate plenty of tasty German food. When we were finished there, we headed over to "France" where we watched some street performers doing a show where they stacked and climbed chairs. Then it was time to head back to the hotel to meet our town car. :( We took one last picture on the way out of Epcot:

Our "Farewell to Disney" picture on the way out of Epcot.

Our trip back home was uneventful. We arrived back in Albany about 20 minutes early (go Southwest!) and came home and fell into bed. It was a great trip and a welcome break. I've been so stressed with work and working so much that I didn't realize until we were there that I really needed a break. Alex said at dinner one night, "This has been great! You haven't talked about work once during this trip!" Unfortunately, when I got back to work this week, I immediately fell back into the cycle of working until 7pm and being exhausted and stressed... Not sure what to do about that...

Time to Go Home :(

We're packing up the room this morning. :( Our flight isn't until 8pm tonight, so we have some time to wonder around the parks. I hate going home. Waa. Depressing. :(