Thanksgiving 2012

I was super excited for Thanksgiving this year. Mostly to see my family, but also to cook and eat! It was weird not seeing Erika all summer and then not being able to see her at school so I was super excited to see her! Plus, being busy with school I don't get to cook fun things as much as I would like to so I was excited to make a feast! I gave my mom a grocery list and hit the ground running..err cooking...as soon as I got to and my parents house.

I drove over Wednesday afternoon after spending the morning in lab. I think Ojiichan was a little sad/nervous about me leaving since he wasn't leaving for Japan until the next day. All was well though, he made it back to Japan just fine :) Bret was already in AZ for work so I drove over with Mia in tow. After catching up and eating dinner I started cooking to prepare for the next day :)

Thursday morning we (as in Me, Erika, Jonah, my Dad, and Jonah's friend Brian...Bret and my Mom watched) did the Mesa 10K Turkey Trot. There were literally thousands of people there! I knew any race result would be a let down after last years race success  , plus my hip bursitis has been bugging me lately so I tried not to set any goals and just run for fun and feel good. I figured as long as I finished under an hour I would be fine, but I had the silent goal of finishing under 50 minutes. When we got there me and Erika really had to go to the bathroom but the line was an eternity long. Instead we found some bushes where no one could *hopefully* see us and took care of our business. We found the rest of our group in the masses and we were off! It was really hard to get going since there were so many people so my first mile was SLOW. Luckily, I ran into Beth and her sister and chatter with her for a while. I ended up finishing in 51:24 and 19th out of 140 in my division. I didn't meet mt "silent" goal, but I did have fun which was my overall goal. I'm going to blame the extra 1:24 on my first mile being slow from the large crowd ;) Jonah and Brian beat the turkey and got a certificate. In our group Brian came in first, then Jonah, Me, Erika, and my Dad.

After the race we went home and got to cooking! On the menu was:

Turkey with roasted potatoes, carrots, and parsnips

Cornbread stuffing

Mashed potatoes with Gravy

Farro and roasted vegetable salad

Salad with pomegranate, pears, candied walnuts, and gorgonzola cheese

Fruit :)

Green chile corn bread

Sweet potato knots

Brandied sweet potatoes

My grandma made the pies which were delicious! She made:

Pumpkin pie

Blackberry pie (My absolute favorite!!!)

Rhubarb pie

Tar Heel pie

Everything was delicious! My Grandparents came as well as Mark and Sherri from New Mexico. Our friend Garrett was also in town so he joined in on the festivities as well. We had a great time!

After dinner we went on a walk to a park in my parents neighborhood and played vball on the tennis court. Mia was going crazy watching the ball go back and forth and ended up catching it a few times when someone didn't get to it in time. I had to admit, it was pretty hilarious watching Mia run around with a giant volleyball. 

On Saturday we spent the afternoon with Bret's family (those who could make it at least). We played a game of Bang! and chatted and caught up. For dinner we ditched the kiddos and went to Charlestons with just the adults. I love how big Bret's family is, but sometimes its nice to break it down into smaller groups so you can actually talk to everyone. It was a lot of fun and I'm glad we got to spend some time with them :) Susan was in town as well and it was great to see her.

 We also took family pictures while we were there. I seriously love my family so much!

I spend a lot of my break grading, which was kind of lame. Erika had a lot of homework to do as well so it worked out. It was pretty hard to focus and get things done though. We also did some shopping and, of course, more eating. I drove back with Mia on Sunday and then it was back to school. This is the last week of classes and then finals and then winter break! I will have survived my first quarter of grad school (baby steps people) and I couldn't be more excited :)