More Thanksgiving!

So our Thanksgiving continued into Tuesday. We decided to do some horseback riding while our turkey was cooking. Since I had been forcing Andrea to watch me cook all weekend she figured it was only fair to force me to ride a horse. I haven't been on a horse in ages. Andrea promised me that the horse I was riding, Pearl, was nice and gentle and would be the perfect one for me. However, first came the task of getting on the horse. The stirrup was a tad bit too high for me to get my foot in it so Andrea had to give me a leg up. Next problem, my jeans were just a bit too ungiving for me to swing my leg up and over the horse's large back end, which led me to this point:

We were both laughing so hard that I couldn't get anywhere! I finally managed to suck the gut in enough and pull a few contortionist moves to get myself on up there. And true to Andrea's word Pearl was a good horse. I just had to show her who was boss at first and it was smooth riding from there on out.

Look at me go. We never went faster than a walk. Pearl had made it quite clear before we started that she would much rather have been taking a nap. So slow it was. Fine with me.

The kids also got to do some horse riding. They got to ride Bobo the pony. Alex was not too thrilled.

He thinks little ponies are beneath him. Give him a full-sized horse any day. He was much happier riding the play bull.

He was bouncing along and out of the blue copied one of us saying "Yee-haw!" It was soooooo cute! He hasn't said many words up to this point and all of a sudden this weekend he has started saying all sorts of things. But I have to say that yee-haw is about the cutest thing a little boy can say.

Ella rode Bobo like she was an old pro.

Whatever mom, I've done this horse thing a million times. And how can you not love a scrunchy face like this:

Sorry. Just had to throw that in.

So after all the horse riding fun we went back and showered and got back to making our feast. Ella was a great help in getting the food ready.

Too bad I couldn't have given her a knife and set her loose on the apples or something like that. But after days of standing in the kitchen slaving over a hot stove, the meal was finally finished. And what a feast it was.

We had so much food and not so many people to eat it.

Here we all are, minus Lane who was sleeping on the floor in the living room. We stuffed ourselves silly and still had enough food for a whole 'nother meal! It was all so good and I even got Andrea to try my sweet potatoes, and she liked them! After doing all the cooking I declared that I was exempt from dish duty. So to keep off my aching feet I took on the job of turkey stripper.

It's a messy job, but someone's got to do it. Then it was time for the food coma to set in and we watched movies the rest of the night. Such fun!

Wednesday found me up bright and early working on the cake that was going to be my contribution to the Thanksgiving feast on Thursday. I got it all frosted (after a scare that I'd used bad Crisco in the frosting, but got that all fixed) and then began the fun of putting on all the leaves.

I placed some on the sides and edges. Then decided that what would fall be without a giant pile of leaves?

First a giant mound of frosting was necessary.

Then on with the rest of the leaves. And finally, viola! The final product:

And just look at that tasty looking leaf pile:

Is this post long enough yet? Well too bad, there's more.

That night right as we were sitting down to dinner the power went out. And when the power goes out in the country it gets reallllly dark. Ella and Alex both burst into tears. But we busted out some candles and some flashlights and all was well again. It was lightning like crazy and I did my best to get a picture of it, but this was the best I could do:

We probably could have gotten by without candles since the lightning was so bright. We spent the night pretending like we were in a Jane Austen book. We gathered around the piano and sang songs and tried to have intellectual conversation. However, the powers that be must have thought the conversation not too great, for the power came back on about that time. It was kindof nice to have a whole night without TV and noise. The kids were really good in the dark.

Onwards to Thursday, Thanksgiving day. We had our 2nd feast at Andrea's father-in-law's house. Here is our gracious host with Andrea's husband Stacy:

The goofiness runs in the family. We all pigged out again on the usual Thanksgiving fare, with a yummy ham thrown in for good measure.

I thought the leaching blue coloring off the toothpicks was a nice touch. It was an interesting meal spent in the company of interesting backwoods country folk with seriously dysfunctional families. It was hard to keep straight who was related to who how. Are you confused yet? But we all ate our food fast in order to get to the cake. I let Andrea do the honors of the demolition:

All declared it good, or as Stacy said, "It's pretty good." Said in a non-committal southern accent.

After all that food we thought it best to get out of the house for a bit. So what better thing to do on Thanksgiving evening than go bowling! And bowling is just what we did. Anton creamed us all with a score of 102. Just goes to show what pathetic bowlers we are. Than again, maybe it was his fabulous bowling form:

Ella and Alex both had a great time. Alex produced a new word for us all "Ball."

Alex didn't really care as much about it all as Ella did.

However, I think the award for best bowling form should really go to Andrea.
I took this photo in retribution for the one she took of me, which because I am editor has remained absent from the blog. If she's lucky I might let her post it on her's, maybe.

And that brings us to the end of our Thanksgiving festivities. But never you fear, the fun of this vacation isn't over quite yet. There is still more to come on a non-Thanksgiving note. Have a great day!