I've has been doing a lot of family history blogging for The Westra Way, and a visit to the folks house had me bringing home a big box of "family artwork" from the Westra siblings over the years. In it, there was found a creative "hand turkey" I made back in elementary school. There's a big box of Blackham Boy artwork as well, so looking through it, there were more examples of creative turkeys made by the boys. Fun how different they all are!
Thanksgiving morning started with Colton off to do some early morning training with the boy's basketball team. They ran the track at school, and they took a selfie! Yeah! I'm thankful for that! Grayson was busy prepping for the meal. One turkey breast in the sous vide, and another on the smoker. Injected with a yummy buttery solution before cooking.
Grayson also makes the world's best mashed potatoes! Instead of making rolls from scratch this year, we elected to use the Beehive Lion's House rolls. They had been set out (in the fridge) the night before, and didn't raise as much as I would have thought. They still didn't seem to rise much, and I was a bit worried they weren't going to. After being stuck in a sunbeam, they got a jumpstart and were big and beautiful. I had made Jello cubes (no cranberry sauce, but these have a similar look, right?) and added basil carrots and simple stove top to the meal. Gray had picked up a HoneyBaked Ham ... not that we were lacking on food! Cool Whip dessert for after (my "pie" in a pan). Of course, since we have vegan K8 and Cal, we had some vegetarian options as well.
Grayson and Landon needed to lay down to rest and digest after the meal. I worked on some clean-up and the rest of the crew was up for some games. First up though, as they had been discussing Pokemon, I had mentioned it was too bad that they didn't fill their minds with all sorts of other facts (rather than Pokemon evolutions, attacks, regions, etc). I mentioned listing the presidents and the states on a map. That last suggestion peaked their interest for a contest to see who could get the most correct. I printed out some blank maps and everyone had five minutes to fill it in.
Colton was the clear winner - completed first and fast, with everything correct. One could surmise he had a bit of an advantage, being in U.S. History currently in school, but Colton said they hadn't really talked about the states, and he hadn't really studied the states since elementary school. We reminisced a bit about the boy's 5th grade programs back at Terra Linda, with an "America" theme, and the song "50 Nifty United States". In fact, there was a post about it, and there's video! See it HERE. Then there were games. SET and CTM. It was a small, family Thanksgiving. We had our meal at 1:00, and Cal&K8 headed off to another Thanksgiving with her side of the family.
There had been the annual turkey cookies early in the week also.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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