Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Finally. The Final and Finale’ Thanksgiving Post.

Why is this man holding this stick?

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Well, here’s Steve’s Stick Scoop.

When the Thanksgiving Crew went out for a bike ride last week, that particular stick became inexplicably caught between Steve’s front tire and fender causing his bike to come to an instant and complete stop. The back of the bike came up about four feet off the ground and came very close to flipping him over the handle bars.

For those of us riding behind him, it was quite a dramatic (not to mention, scary) moment.  We’re so thankful he wasn’t seriously hurt!

Thankfully, that was all the scary drama we had to cope with; the rest of the bike ride was peacefully pedaled under this beautiful Carolina sky.

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Of course, being the wonderful hosts that Steve and I are, we wanted to be sure that our guests felt needed and important in the overall grand and global scheme of things. And so we forced invited them to go with us on a long overdue recycling trip.  (Yes, I know.  You don’t have to say it.  We are such thoughtful hosts.)

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When we (and our intrepid guests) were not biking or recycling, there was always plenty of computer-esque stuff going on. I especially love the picture of Sarah showing her grandpa how her Nintendo DS worked.

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In their spare time, Debbie and Randy took Caleb and Sarah on a balmy, sunny walk on the North Carolina beach.  Can’t you just feel the blissful balminess emitting from this picture?

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Of course, a Thanksgiving get together is not complete without a Meal To End All Meals.

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The fresh floral arrangement was made for us by a wonderful church member.

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Another equally wonderful church member made us The Cake which we talked Vernie (Steve’s mom) into cutting, since she is the Smith Matriarch and we were all sort of intimated by the whole cutting challenge. (And yes, I think that was a run on sentence.)

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Vernie rose to the occasion, as she always does.  This 15-layer cake is highly coveted and sought after by all; in fact, whenever anyone brings this home baked, rare delicacy to a church potluck dinner, there is inevitably a stampede toward the dessert table. And all the good church folks try to politely elbow all the other good church folks out of the way so that they can grab a piece before it all disappears.  (Don’t ask me how I know.)

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Thankfully we didn’t eat all of the cake at Thanksgiving and (also) thankfully, it freezes well.  I have put a few pieces in the freezer and am using it as a bribe to get Nathan back home for Christmas.   He adores this cake.

Of course (in our house, at least), a Thanksgiving meal requires the folding of Thanksgiving napkins.  My sister, Debbie, did the folding while Vernie kept her cake-cutting hands in good condition  by doing some knitting.

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So blessed to have these wonderful ladies in my life!

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And . . . to give the men equal time, here’s Steve with his dad and two younger brothers. The Smith Men at their finest.

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And speaking of men at their finest, my brother-in-law, Randy, volunteered to both cook and carve the turkey.  Can a brother-in-law possibly be any more wonderful than that? (He also mashed the potatoes.)

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In addition to turkey, mashed potatoes, and chocolate cake, there were a whole bunch of other yummy things on the menu.  Including dinner rolls.

Which, in case you’re wondering, are the mysterious items hiding under this towel in the dryer.

And why (you might be asking) are there dinner rolls in the dryer?

Well, here’s the deal.

I needed the rolls to rise in a warm place; I usually use the oven, set to it’s coolest temperature and then turned off.   Since the oven was otherwise occupied, I ran the dryer for about five minutes, then put the pan of rolls inside.

Worked like a charm.   Dyer-made rolls.  It’s what’s for dinner.

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And our last picture of our Thanksgiving Feast-n-Fiesta?

It’s this guy.  Constantly on the lookout.  Constantly on the alert.  Glued to the feet of all the cooks in the most tenacious permutation of canine-ical glue-i-ness. 

And did anything (accidentally) fall to the floor?  What do you think?

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FROM THE COMMENTS SECTION:

Thanks to all your kind comments about our Kitchen Harmony song.

To Buff,

The parts were arranged as follows:  Randy, bass;  Steve, lead;  Debbie, low alto;  me, high alto.

To Jan,

We did make quite a few CD’s of the four of us but they’re mostly gone by now.  (It’s been about fifteen years since we traveled together.)

3 Had Something To Say (Just click here!):

lesley said...

Rolls in the dryer? bahahahaha! Perfect picture.
What a great group you have! Is Sarah the only girl of the younger generation?

Anonymous said...

The cake in the photo reminds me of a dessert called Dobis (sp) Torte. It does freeze well, and takes an extremely talented and crazy pastry chef to create. I'm sure it was delicious.

Kathie Mayo

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