Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Ours was a blast. My brother Scott smoked a turkey, which was wonderful, and made a red wine and mushroom gravy from scratch. To say that was amazing is an understatement--just ask Scott, whose first words to me were, "This gravy is amazing--you'll never replicate it. NEVER!"
I tried to answer that I wouldn't even try, but he cut me short with another "NEVER!"
Our turkey day was everything it should be--lots of family, lots of kids running around all crazy, great food. Mari made a wonderful cornbread stuffing, her mom brought her signature cheeseball, and Kathleen made an awesome corn soufflé. My mom made all the other traditional carb dishes--mashed potatoes, yams, rolls, etc. My contribution was providing the house, and washing the dishes. (Just for the record--no one lets me cook. Honestly--they don't even put up the pretense of assigning me a dish. They just ask if I've ordered the pies yet!)
Friday we caravaned up to Scott and Mari's cabin. We stopped off for lunch, and Mark promptly left his sweatshirt there--a sweatshirt which Scott had just given him back, along with a full bag of other belongings Mark had left at their house.
There was no traffic along the curvy road, so we felt like we had the whole mountain to ourselves. But it was cold once we got up there. We unloaded the cars (I brought a cooler full of leftovers) while Scott started up a big fire. He also fired up the giant projection screen, so we spent the afternoon by the fire, watching an 8-foot-tall version of Planet of the Apes. That was very fun, since Mark, my two nieces and my nephew, piped in a question at five second intervals.
"Where are the apes?" Gabi asked right after the opening credits.
"Is that a monkey?" Grant asked 30 seconds later. I told him there were no monkeys, just apes. ("It's called Planet of the Apes, not Planet of the Monkeys.")
"Apes are monkeys," Nathalie said, and I told her no, they're different. "Monkeys are the same as apes," Grant reiterated, and again, I said, "No, they're different--they're both simians, but they aren't the same."
"What's wrong with that lady?" Mark asked one minute later.
"They're apes, not monkeys; there are no apes yet; the glass on her chamber broke and let the air out. She's dead," Scott answered in one fell swoop.
But that didn't slow down the children's questions at all. They went into a full discussion of why the lady died. ("The gas broke," Grant explained. "No, the glass broke!" Nathalie corrected.) Then the scary music started and freaked them all out.
"Is this an appropriate movie?" Nathalie asked, while Mark proclaimed, "I'm not afraid of monkeys!"
"I see a monkey!" Grant yelled, pointing at the screen.
I just looked at Scott, who sighed. "They do the same thing at the movie theater!" he told me. "They never stop talking." Ten minutes and a hundred questions later, he flipped on Star Wars instead. The questions stopped immediately, since the kids have all seen that movie about a hundred times.
Saturday we went on a "hike," which consisted of a nice path around a little lake bay. The kids ran off the path immediately, grabbing up every rock they saw, and promptly tossing it into the lake. Within seconds, they had chased away every duck in the lake.
Grant stood on top of a sewage pipe jutting out of the sand, and said, "Look at this big shell!" Mari and I just laughed; it did kind of look like a shell.
Mari reminded the kids to stay away from the water, since we didn't have any extra clothes for them. "Remember how you lost your shoe last time, Grant?" she asked. "We had to wait an hour and a half for it to float across the bay." He nodded somberly. ("You waited for it?" I asked, and she said, "They were his favorite shoes!")
The only thing more tempting than throwing rocks in the lake was climbing the rocks in the lake. Giant rocks, in fact. We scurried across the inlet to climb some monstrous sized boulders. Mark, Nathalie and Gabi flung themselves up and down the rocks, while I tried not to envision them tumbling down the cliffs into the lake, or into the busy street. They had a great time; I had a better time when we finally climbed down.
We left the mountain late in the afternoon. Mark and I met up for dinner and a movie with Edra and Kathleen. We saw Bolt, which was kinda sad, but very funny.
And now, we still have one day of vacation left! We haven't done much with it yet, except clean the house, but later this afternoon, we're going to help the Cub Scouts pack mistletoe, which we'll sell next week as a fundraiser. And tonight we're going to a Christmas tree lighting in the park.
Thanksgiving was great; and now, as we spend our afternoon with the mistletoe, it just reminds me that the next season (Christmas--my favorite) is upon us. So let the yuletide begin!
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