Grateful, Thankful, Blessed

 

I feel like I forget every year how much I love Thanksgiving. Though my heart pangs thinking about our family gathering together to share meals, play games, watch football and take naps, I feel so grateful for our family we have created out here in Pittsburgh and for the memories we have shared and the community we feel. We've said it over and over again our out of state educational experience would have been vastly different if we didn't have the friends we have made out here. They really have become family. So for Thanksgiving our resident Airbnb pro Amanda found a super nice townhome about 35 minutes outside of the city tucked away in the hills near a "ski resort." We rented it out and felt like such adults because with just one kitchen and a few Instant Pots and crock pots we cranked out a full blown Thanksgiving dinner for 10 people. 

The food was excellent, the decorations were cute and the butter turkey made it all the way to be our perfect centerpiece. Tanner did the honors of chopping off the head and spreading it on the homemade rolls Jaden and I were in charge of. Despite our best efforts they just aren't the same as when Amy makes them but we need to keep practicing and maybe one day we can replicate them. 

We spent our weekend eating food, playing games, and watched a couple of movies. I felt way less bogged down by homework than I had the last time we rented a cabin in the woods which was a big relief. Our final day was Taylor's birthday so we got up and went to breakfast at the ski resort lodge which was beautiful. Zach and Jenna only drove down for dinner, Jenna's sister drove up from where she lives in Virginia and then Jenna drove back with her before she went home to Utah for a few days so they weren't there for the birthday brunch. But all in all it was a perfect Thanksgiving weekend. 

Peaches

• Watching the boys find and make a banana cream pie recipe

• Made our sister-in-law Alex's fruit slush for everyone which was so good. I love sharing family recipes with everyone and learning about and participating in their own family traditions

• Six Sisters Instant Pot turkey recipe was delicious
• Feeling like such adults for accomplishing a full Thanksgiving meal without parental supervision, except for the phone calls we each made to mom's asking for help and eyes on making sure things looked right 
• Enjoying yummy food
• Jaden and Tanner re-enacting the Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker fight when trying to answer the trivia question "which hand did Luke lose in the fight?"

• I remembered to bring the butter turkey
• Finally joined the Carhartt beanie club and honestly love it 
• FaceTiming family
• Did a puzzle of Seattle where Amanda and Tanner will be moving after graduation

Pits

• Emie has intense stranger danger and wants nothing to do with Jaden and I which hurts my feelings probably more than I should let it
• When Jaden popped open the trunk to onload all of our gear our Kitchenaid shot out and landed right on top of my foot. It made a tear in the boots I was wearing and left me with a nice sore bruise but no broken bones thank goodness
• Was not a fan of the new Spirited Christmas movie, I don't know why I had any other expectations when I saw it was a musical 
• We had thrown around the idea of doing an Airbnb in New Jersey and going into New York for the Macey's Thanksgiving parade and obviously didn't do it but I still think it would have been so fun. That one will always be on my bucket list