We also got to see and talk to both of our families on Skype - it was great to see everyone together and chat a little.
THE MEAL:
So my first stab at cooking a turkey turned out amazingly wonderful (especially considering that I only spent $4 on my 12lb Jennie O turkey)! It was super tasty, juicy and seriously just sooo good! Additional menu items included: Susan's stuffing, Donna's greenbean casserole, my specialty sweet potatoes and some cranberry sauce/jello stuff that I forgot to put on the table - whoops. That was actually the only dinner mishap and nobody seemed to mind. Oh yeah, and of course we had gravy too, which was terrific thanks to Megan. For dessert: homemade pumpkin cheesecake. My first cheesecake too, which was also super yummy (can't go wrong with a Paula Dean recipe I guess). I'm thinking everyone enjoyed the meal because unfortunately for us, we only had about 3-4 servings of everything leftover.
Oh, and I pulled out our china of course since we were certainly celebrating the holiday and had to do it right : )
Precooked items:
The Finished Turkey - Success!
CHARLOTTE'S FIRST THANKSGIVING:It was a year for "firsts" all around: Charlotte's First Thanksgiving, I cooked my first Turkey-Day meal and Doug carved his first turkey. Charlotte LOVED having guests here to entertain her (the girl loves attention). And the food? Well, she thoroughly enjoyed her first Thanksgiving meal! She chowed down on green beans, sweet potatoes, and even stuffing and some turkey. There was a fight in our house over leftovers the next few days.
THE GUESTS:
Besides Doug, Charlotte & me, Megan was here to celebrate with us and Tony (our old realtor and friend from high school) and his girlfriend, Liz joined us for dinner. Meghan & Mark (our neighbors & good friends) joined us for the after-dinner party and dessert. It was the perfect number of guests and we all had a great time. Unfortunately, after being picture-happy as we started cooking, I kinda forgot when everyone was there.
It was certainly hard to be away from home, missing our families for Thanskgiving, but with all of the cooking, eating, drinking, eating, cleaning, eating and simply hanging out at home, we managed to have a great holiday here in Texas. We are very thankful for our friends here for celebrating with us and especially to Megan for coming down for the holiday.
One last picture...the food must've been pretty good because we had very little leftover:
