The First Annual Eastern Corry Thanksgiving

So as I am typing this for my Journal as well so you will get an in depth play by play of what went on mostly in the kitchen. Feel free to skim or skip.

It was a great Thanksgiving Holiday for us. Jacob was slammed at the Hospital all day Wednesday but when 8:00 rolled around everything just slowed down. He headed to the call room and was able to sleep most of the night. This was a huge blessing as he arrived home at 7:00ish on Thursday morning and was able to enjoy the entire Thanksgiving Day without needing a nap first.

Meagan and I stayed pretty busy most of the day in the kitchen. I feel pretty good about our first go of making an entire Thanksgiving Meal on our own. We prepared the pies on Wednesday so that was out of the way. We had a great breakfast of Pumpkin Pancakes (courtesy of Doug and Meagan) Eggs, and Bacon. The pancakes were a great hit, especially with Kristian. He ate three and had pumpkin toots the rest of the day. Yup that is right, pumpkin toots. This means when Kristian tooted, it smelled like pumpkin. Hilarious.

After breakfast we started making the rolls. The guys took the kids outside to play with the remote control cars. The kids had a blast chasing after the cars and I think Jacob and Doug had just about as much fun, keeping them away from the chasing kids. While the kids were outside and out from under foot Meagan and I moved on to prepping the turkey, that was a fun experience. It is amazing how you can watch your mom do this whole preparation every year but suddenly when you are in charge you realize you never payed very close attention. Ah well, Thanks again mom for keeping your cell phone close to you all day and answering question after question.

During nap time Meagan and I finished prepping all of the Thanksgiving sides and Jacob and Doug went to see The Dark Knight. They triple checked to make sure this was okay and we let them know they were allowed to go as long as when they got back they did whatever we asked of them, including dishes. (Which they did, Thanks guys!!) Upon their return from the movie, began the "down to the wire" time. Meagan and I had every burner on the stove going and Jacob and Doug has us laughing with their creative carving techniques and their constant howls of "oh man, that's hot". With very little stress, much less than I was anticipating, we were sitting up to the table ready for a prayer at 5:15. We had planned for 5:00 so I figure this is pretty good.

The turkey turned out great, very moist and we even managed to have gravy from the drippings that wasn't lumpy. (this was the part that caused the most worries) All the sides (Rolls, Stuffing, 2 types of Potatoes, and 3 Veggies) were wonderful, with a slight exception to the roast potatoes which were a little underdone. Meagan's family's tradition of Pretzel Salad was a big hit and a great addition to the meal. By the time we pushed away from the table everyone was sufficiently full and we waited a little bit for pie.

After clean up, which went super fast, we sat back up for pie and I was very happy with how our homemade crust's turned out. This was only my second time making pie crust so I was a bit nervous of how the end result would be. The pies continued to be pulled out throughout the rest of the evening. We put the kids to bed at 8:00, I fell asleep on the floor at 8:30 and Jacob and I went up to bed at 9:00. Doug and Meagan said they followed to bed pretty soon after that. We are party animals!!

So that is the play by play of the First Annual Eastern Corry Thanksgiving. We are hoping to have Mark and Krista join us next year, and whom ever else we can coax to visit. It was a wonderful visit with Doug and Meagan and we are so grateful they were able to come. There was lots of laughs, chats, and good old family fun. We have so much to be grateful for and I am overwhelmed at how much the Lord has blessed me and my family.