Our first hosted Thanksgiving (2008)

In addition to having a new house, the Dormaiers thought it would be fun to come to Seattle for Thanksgiving...which meant Dave and I hosted (and cooked) our very first Thanksgiving Dinner. "Ahhhhh!!! Ok, ok, we can do this," I thought. We just need to finish unpacking (yes, nearly 6 month later!), clean and figure out how to cook a turkey!! Noooo problem! :)

A friend of mine at work bought me a fancy schmancy meat thermometer and gave me a great turkey tutorial that included a butter massage and a aluminum breast plate (henceforth called the Breastplate of Righteousness"). Dave was pretty much in charge of the sweet potatoes and green bean casserole (yum!) and I discovered that I can cook a turkey and that fresh cranberry sauce is to die for! (and really easy to make). Overall, the night was a success!

We also figured out that we can house 14 (sleeping) bodies if we need to...people were spread out everywhere! Most of the kids were on a huge island of blow up mattresses in the family room while most of the adults were in the main part of the house. Everyone stayed nice and toasty between our wood burning stove and electric heat...talk about hybrid!

Asres and Dan watching a movie...


We didn't have a rack to put in the bottom of the pan for the turkey, so Kelley got to make the foil snake. Yes, lots of jokes were made...

Dave gets into one of the (many) books lying around...

Don't mess with my mother-in-law...she's got a knife!!

The happy turkey after it's butter massage.


Kody and Sam horsing around...

Who knew that chess would be such a big hit this year? Dawson, Jesse, Sam, Dave and Paul were nearly fanatics. Glad our board finally got some use!


Thanks to David who utilized his budding photography skills for these pictures! :)

Quote of the week

In honor of Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday, a quote from him:

“I don’t think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.”

~Abraham Lincloln

Me neither!

I Found Your Camera!

Ok, I have to blog shortly about this site I just found. If you've every lost a camera (or in my case, all my CF cards) then you know how frustrating it is. Maybe you found a camera with someone's pictures still on it and you'd like to give it back. Pictures are valuable to us because they capture moments in our lives. Who wouldn't want their pictures back from prom or the first birthday of their child or a special trip? I'm dying to get back the pics I took from when we had our house all torn apart...I really want to prove that we didn't just paint the walls!! :)

check out this site...it's the international lost and found for cameras, memory cards and film. www.ifoundyourcamera.com A link is also under our "Friend's Blogs" to the right.