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! :)

Thanksgiving 2007

In an effort to maintain SOME order, I am posting our Thanksgiving pictures before the Christmas and New Year's shots. These do require a little explaination however. Mom and Dad (Brook's) came over to Seattle to spend Thanksgiving with us this year since everyone else was at in-laws and across the country. The day began with Steph ringing us to ask if we wanted to see the salmon spawning at Karkeek Park. So off we all went, to find the elusive spawning salmon. I only have one picture in here of those we found because they are just too gross to show. We froze our fannies off and all we saw were lots of very large, dead salmon (see Stephanie poking them with a stick).

In the afternoon we went to Matt and Kristi's for an excellent dinner, ping-pong, tennis and a slot tournament. :) The three money winners were Jeff, Riley and Auntie Meg. It was a great night with lots of fun and laughter.