I numbered this post, because we still have a lot of holiday events coming, so this is likely to be the first post of several!
We had a guest with us for the Thanksgiving weekend. Drew is an old homeschool friend from California who is now a college student living nearby. We've known Drew since he was about 7, and it was great to spend the holiday with him!
A handsome young fellow, is he not?
We played a lot of games, most of which he won, but I forgive him. We also took several really nice hikes, and did a little geocaching. From Wikipedia: Geocaching is an outdoor recreational activity, in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called "geocaches" or "caches", anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook where the geocacher enters the date they found it and signs it with their established code name. After signing the log, the cache must be placed back exactly where the person found it.
We found our first geocache at the top of a hill, under a log. It was exciting to track down and discover the little film canister. Drew showed me another cache I'd like to look for that's located on one of my regular runs.
Our Thanksgiving Feast
I wasn't feeling particularly creative or Martha Stewart-y this year, so we ate all the standard stuff - turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce - prepared the normal way. Not like my friend Lisa, who every year spends Thanksgiving with relatives who select a theme for the meal. This year's theme was tropical. Pineapple stuffing, anyone?! Last year's was bacon, and featured one of these:
The Beast
The grocery store was offering a free turkey with $150 worth of groceries, an amount I easily surpassed with two teenage boys to feed for the week. Wanting to take full advantage of this generous offer, I chose the largest free turkey I could find. Twenty-seven pounds. Twenty-seven pounds! I didn't know they came that big. I wonder how the poor thing even managed to stand up?
We had to buy a new pan to cook it in, and it barely fit in the oven. Karl calculated that in order to be ready by 2:00, when we hoped to eat, he'd have to have it in the oven by 6:00 in the morning, so he set his alarm and got up early. As it turned out, however, the bird was done early and actually got slightly overcooked. Unbelievable - I was sure we'd be eating our Thanksgiving dinner as Sunday breakfast!
After Karl carved a generous meal's worth for six of us off of the bird, it looked like it had a little bald spot on one side. The remainder of the 27 pounds was still intact. What to do with all the leftovers? Well, besides the obvious sandwiches, I made turkeybrothturkeypotpieturkeyenchiladasturkeyjambalayaturkeyburritosandturkeychili. And I still have a bag of leftovers in the freezer which I will no doubt throw out in disgust in about March. So much for saving money! Having such a large turkey compelled me to make too much of the side dishes as well, so I have the same problem with stuffing and cranberry sauce, though without the many possibilities for leftovers.
Our Turkey
As has become our custom, we picked out our Christmas tree on Saturday. In the rain. We're lucky to have a good tree farm just a few minutes from our house. Drew took a silly picture of us in front of the tree.
Claire was not pleased with the weather.
Karl and Brennan hauling the newly-cut tree.
Now the tree sits in the livingroom, but it's only half-decorated. The kids have pecked away at it for the past week, but we still haven't quite finished. We've been busy: Hailey is in the throes of Nutcracker season, Irish and Scottish dance and choir rehearsals continue, Claire will be performing on several instruments in the Youth Symphony concert, and regular life carries on, with weekly soccer, our Current Events and two literature groups, zombie runs, and college classes.
Homeschool choir with the Usual Suspects has been really fun. We're singing seven Christmas songs in 4-part harmony - one in Latin! We decided to call our group "Led by Ted," and we've set up several performances over the holidays. Last week we performed in the grocery store. We stood in front of the flower fridge between two doors that kept opening, bringing in blasts of below-freezing air at regular intervals. But we still had fun!
The Premier Performance of Led by Ted
Hailey, in addition to many hours of Nutcracker rehearsal, signed up for a Scottish and Irish dancing performance at a local festival. Most of the kids in the groups are Usual Suspects, and they have a blast dancing together. They looked lovely in their white dresses and plaid sashes, and performed beautifully. The girls had choreographed their Irish dance themselves the night before the festival!
Miss Rosemary, the Scottish dance teacher, giving last-minute instructions.
The kids were told to each choose someone out of the audience to join in the dance. Miss I. chose me. I danced in Uggs. It was not pretty, but it was fun!
Hailey looks sort of wistful here.
Miss M., a very poised 15-year-old, announced the dance to the whole audience.
Irish Solos.
The whole group. They had to stand at an angle because of the bright sun streaming through the huge windows.
Stay tuned - more holiday activities to come!
