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.

Quote of the Week

I'm going to start putting the Quote of the Week in its own post so that if I ever do print a book from here, then I will be able to include all these great (and sometimes inspiring) quotes. Sound like a plan?

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
--Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Emmitt Gregory McLachlan

11 days old. Adorable. Need I say more?










More pics on my website: www.brookwhitney.com

A couple photos from Christmas

This year we had a pretty laid back Christmas. It seemed like everyone was out of town or unavailable, but it proved to be a special time for all. These are pics from Christmas night. Usually we go to Auntie Betty and Uncle Joe's for dinner with all the cousins and grandparents and all. Uncle Joe was sick and we missed them terribly, but we had a fun time at Nonnie and Papa's house. Mae kept us all entertained and we raided Nonnie's closet for our New Year's Celebration with the Menards (those pictures to come soon).

This photo needs a brief explaination...Sean has a fart program on his phone and Mae was making us all laugh with it (quite hysterically).

Think Swing 2008 Slideshow

Here is my first attempt at creating a slideshow in my editing software. I hope it works! Maybe later I can figure out how to add music to it. Anywhoo, this is from November 2008, it's the "best of" show. ;) (If you click on the little screen icon at the bottom, you can view it full screen...the photos look better if you do that)

Think Swing 2008

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: 2008 spokane)

www.brookwhitney.com

I'm still planning on posting Christmas pictures too. (one of these days)