Thanksgiving with the Family

Yes…I know that Thanksgiving was about 3 weeks ago.  However I needed one additional photo in order to put this posting together.  I had one other blog set to go as well and I just left it on the calendar where I’d put it.

In any case, it’s never too late to celebrate family and our Thanksgiving week trip was definitely a family celebration.  We started in St. Louis with Laurie’s family and then we were off to Omaha for Thanksgiving with our son and his family. (Much more to follow regarding both visits)

As luck would have it, snowfall in Omaha occurred before, during and after our drive to and from our son’s home.  We just don’t drive in snow any more if we aren’t forced to by circumstance.  Still, despite the gray skies the light snow cover did provide a bit of that holiday feeling for the festivities…

There was a flurry of activity as David II and Amy prepared our Thanksgiving feast!  As you can see from the photos, our grandson, David III mostly contributed by physically being in his parent’s presence…not much of an actual assistant though!  I’m sure his smart phone efforts paid off in setting up meetings after Thanksgiving with his high school friends from Omaha.  Emmett Lee, our other grandson was at least watching his parents work…

Emmett Lee is so tall!  He’s at least 6’1” and at 16 years old, he’s still growing.  Poor me…slowly shrinking with age and probably 2” shorter than Emmett already.  FYI, Emmett is a good student…with math being his strongest suite!  He loves sports too...especially track and football.

David III is about 6’5”, just a little taller than his dad.  He was home from New York University for the Thanksgiving break and to stock up on home cooked food.  As a freshman at NYU and having learned just how expensive it is to exist in the Big Apple, he has landed a decent part time job as an IT help desk employee at NYU’s dental school.

I loved these rolls!  I normally wouldn’t include bread in a post but these roll were very good and more importantly, they were key to my subsequent enjoyment of the turkey and stuffing leftovers

Our turkey looked good and it was juicy through and through.  It was very good indeed!  FYI, my only Thanksgiving 'pre' and 'post' meal assignments are 1) carving the turkey up for the table, and (2 after dinner stripping it of all usable meat for use as leftovers.

Note: David II’s better half, Amy, has completely mastered the art of making turkey gravy!  It’s so good that I put it on just about everything.  She could bottle and sell it.  My favorite leftover plate this year consisted of a couple of those rolls split and covered with turkey, stuffing and lots of that gravy… (Sorry, no photos)

I took this photo of one-half of the overloaded Thanksgiving table with David III, Emmett Lee and Grandma Dianne.    

Amy took this picture of the whole table.  From the left, David III, Emmett Lee, Grandma Dianne, David II, Laurie and yours truly.  It was a smaller group than usual this year as Amy’s family is usually well represented during the holidays. 

One more photo… It’s the entire Omaha contingent of the family, this time with Amy front and center.  The boys…all three…are so tall!

In addition to my open face turkey/stuffing sandwiches slathered with gravy, there were plenty of other snacks plus cheesecake and pie for dessert.  We had an early dinner and some of us (mainly David II and myself) spent much of the rest of the day snacking on leftovers and ‘after dinner appetizers’.  David II and Amy used to serve up the appetizers before dinner but it hampered everyone’s ability to enjoy dinner so they changed it around.  One of our favorites is Amy’s improved spicier version of Gardetto’s Snack Mix with pretzels, bread sticks and rye chips.

That’s it for now.  It was a great visit!  Next I’ll return to the first part of our Thanksgiving week and the time spent, adventures enjoyed and the food encountered…

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave