Blessed

It was a wonderful and blessed Good / Bell Thanksgiving! We have been building holiday memories in KC with them for some time now and had to keep all our previous traditions. . . Bethany and I always pre-prep in the kitchen on Wednesday together and cook together all day Thursday. (A new traditon we definitely want to keep: brining the bird with Williams Sonoma brine & herbs.) We spent our time tasing each other's culinary surprises and her trying out recipes from her new Pioneer Woman cookbook (Yeah Pawhuska's Ree Drummond for your pumpkin cheesecake!)

We couldn't all be together --
It was only the second year we weren't with Marshall for the holiday (in 2003 he was in Canada at the University of Northern British Columbia.) I did find out from Terry on Wed. night that Marshall had been planning to drive to KC and surprise Bethany and me. His wreck on Monday morning - sliding into a tree with his pick-up-- changed the course of his plans and he was left without a safe vehicle to make the trip and looking for a place to spend his four-day weekend.

Of course, B & I talked nonstop to catch up and our conversation always seemed to end up with our little #10 (as Mat's Dad loves to call him)! We tossed around possible baby names. Every now and then we had to stop and catch Terry or Mat up with our gabbing.




No trip to KC is complete without a trip to their little grocery market the "Hen House" -- Here's a pic of us two chicks on our way to the Hen House! Seemed we always were out of something. Bethany was craving more of my pineapple cheese ball and so for the little mamma I had to buy more stuff to make a second batch. We rushed in 10 minutes before closing time at Thursday noon.




Mat had to work Thanksgiving Day -- so we cooked even more -- way too much for the five of us. Mat invited a co-worker, a Cardio Fellow from Lebanon, for dinner and we enjoyed getting to know Bossum and learn that his wife will join him in KC in late January. In some sense, it made Marshall seem a little closer --










Serious talk time. . .




"Black Friday" meant B & I had to hit the shops just to see if there were any deals we couldn't pass up. With careful spending and good sales I'm happy to report, I'm 3/4 done with holiday shopping!



Time with our children relaxes and re-energizes Terry and me . . .here's a pic of our tired little mamma Friday at noon -- post holiday -- post shopping -- ready for a nap!!
We hit the road for Tulsa and Bethany went to bed!