Happy Thanksgiving!

This year Thanksgiving was pretty low-key.  For the last four years, Tom and I have gone to his parents' house for Thanksgiving, but since we're going there for Christmas this year, we stayed here for Thanksgiving.  My parents ended up going to visit one of my sisters in Texas (in conjunction with my nephew's baptism), so we were all by ourselves.  We actually quite enjoyed getting to just be together.

I did all of the cooking and Tom helped by keeping an eye on Ann and taking out the trash and such.  I do enjoy cooking, but after 5ish hours in the kitchen, I was pretty tired.  (I did "cheat" and bought a pre-cooked turkey breast from Trader Joe's, and bought pre-made rolls, but I made everything else myself.)

Here's my pie before it went into the oven.  I've made a couple pies in my life, but it's been a few years.  I decided to just do a pumpkin pie (from scratch, crust and all) since it was much quicker than, say, an apple pie.  I was pretty pleased with how it turned out.  Maybe next time I'll branch out and try something different.

I meant to take more pictures while I cooked, but ended up not.  But here's the end result of all of my labors!  (I realized later that I'd forgot to take my fruit salad out of the fridge, so it's not there). 

 Everything tasted really good, and I was really happy with how it all turned out.  I still have much to learn when it comes to cooking many things all at once, but I figure that's a skill that comes with practice :)

This is actually the day after Thanksgiving.  Ann and I went out to eat with some of my friends from high school that I haven't seen in a long time (read: 3-5 years).  Kim (on the left) lives up with her husband (also a friend from high school) in St. Paul, and Christine and her husband live in Florida.  It was great to get to see them again and catch up on each others' lives.  I can't believe it's been 10 years since we graduated from high school.  So much has happened in last decade.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.  I'm getting all excited for Christmas now.  Seeing all of the Christmas decorations go up is making me so happy :)