Fourth Thursday of November

I love thanksgiving. I loved thanksgivings in MN. My family would always get together with the Woodwards (our super close friends-pretty much family). They or we would usually drive down or up on Wednesday night. On Wednesday, we would start playing and preparing. We would usually make a ton of pies because we always had a lot of people who would stay with us till Sunday and because we LOVE pie! I loved it. Scott and Amy would usually dominate in the kitchen while the rest of us would wander in occasionally to help, talk and/or eat. Then we would always play board games-usually Risk, and the girls were usually plotted against and taken out in the first rolls, but it is ok--it was fun watching Jimmy, Craig, Tom, Steven, Mike, Brent and our dad's all get ridiculously competitive. Then thanksgiving day was great--of course. If it was warm we usually played football and played more games and ate way too much food. Anyway--that is memory lane. It was great, and I love those memories.

This year was great too! My amazing brother, Mike, drove down here and celebrated with us! He stayed with Rich and I from mon-sun. It was a blast!!! We miss him. : ) The night before Thanksgiving, we decided we needed to keep up the pie tradition, so we made seven pies! It was crazy, I know, but it was fun making them. Besides my apple pie, I'd never made any other pie so it was a very educational experience for all of us. Word of advice: if when making french silk pie, your sugar is still grainy after mixing it with chocolate and stuff, don't keep mixing it for thirty minutes. It will remain grainy. Wastes LOTS of time.

On Thanksgiving morning, I went running. Of course. Then we all went to Rich's place in Mapleton. We played football! Rich was amazing. I'm not lying. He has a great throw/spiral thing. I love watching him play. Then we ate yummy food. Then we watched a little football and all fell asleep. Then we ate pies! Kathy had made two herself, so we had nine! Way too many. We ate maybe one. Later that night we stopped at the Krebs (my cousin's) and played some games with them. It was a spectacular day. I love the holidays!

Us and Maple mountain

Rich and his amazing form and technique and skills...

Ken Nance-Rach's boyfriend

My brother Mickey!

Rich showing me the heisman

Me attempting the heisman

dang tryptophan!

Rach and Ken all cozy

My mother-in law

The chefs of the pies!