A Non-Relaxing Thanksgiving

A relaxing Thanksgiving break was what we didn't have.  I felt bad for poor Maddie because we were always out of the house.  Besides going to the temple on Friday we also did some Black Friday shopping!  David, Kristene, Andrew & I went to Wal-Mart Thanksgiving night and it actually wasn't that bad.  Things were pretty organized (they handed us a map as we walked in!) and I didn't feel as claustrophobic as I did when we went last year.  There was nothing at Wal-Mart, so we went next door to Sears (I'm not sure why this is underlined with a link to it, but I can't seem to fix it) for some tools.  Scott joined us Friday morning when we went to Costco to get our TV!  We also went to breakfast at Kneader's, which was really delicious.  The rest of the day was spent at the temple and putting up our new TV.

Pretty sure we couldn't have done it without David's help.

Saturday morning we went to The Family Tree restaurant down in Santaquin, Utah.  Scott & I went there last year (?) with David & Kristene and the scones is what makes this place famous.  The scone looks like a loaf of french bread, it's ridiculous.  So, we wanted Dean & Nadine to have the scone experience themselves.  We had plenty of leftover scones, as usual.

After that, we headed to Brita's to hang out with the girls and baby Dylan.  We then went and saw the new James Bond movie, Skyfall, which I thought was very good.

 Sunday was Dylan's baby blessing and I snapped this adorable picture of him in church!

He's tebowing! :)

Although it was a busy weekend, we had a fabulous time hanging out with Scott's family!

High Five for Friday!

I didn't do a Friday post last week because of Thanksgiving, so here I am back to doing them again. 

1. Scott officially has a new job!!  While in the float pool, he started working on the 7th floor of the Murray hospital a few times in a row.  He started talking to the manager on that floor who told him about a position and to put in an application.  Scott then started figuring things out with his contract with the float pool (he was under contract to work there a year) and got it changed to where he could transfer to another floor.  On Tuesday, Scott got a call from the HR department saying that he was a top candidate for the position.  On Wednesday, he checked his e-mail and got a message saying that everything was good to go with his contract and when can he start (the message was actually sent Monday, but he didn't see it until Wednesday).  Scott called and asked about it and found out that the job was already his when he was putting in an application.  He starts December 9th and we are so excited for him to have a job with guaranteed hours!! The float pool job was a blessing, but he definitely need something more constant with the money.  Anyways, basic idea of this long paragraph is, Scott has a new job on the Orthopedics floor at the Murray hospital working day shifts (7am-7pm) with guaranteed full-time hours. Woo-hoo!

2. Our new T.V. is working great!  It is still crazy to think that we own this, but it is fun to have.  We moved our other T.V. and stand downstairs and is the start to making Scott's "man cave".

3. Thanks to Kristene I don't have to make a Christmas wreath for our door!  It's not a wreath, but it's cute!

4. Speaking of Christmas, there are only 3 weeks left of school until Christmas break!  It's going to sneak up on us just like Thanksgiving did.  I need to get out and do some Christmas shopping and decorate the house.

5. I'm taking on Scott's challenge of only spending $10 for dinner meals for the week.  This doesn't include things like Scott's beloved fruit and other basic things like milk, eggs, bread, etc.  While planning, it has really helped me look at what we already have and using that rather than buying extra, which is what I've done before.  Hopefully doing this maybe twice a month will help us save some money!

6. I'm going to add a sixth one today and say that Scott made chocolate chip cookies all by himself. Now this is a feat if you know Scott and how much he cooks (never).  He really wanted them, but I didn't want to make them so he followed a recipe on the back of a bag of chocolate chips.  Of course, I was yelling to the kitchen of things he should do or where stuff was, but they are pretty yummy!  Good job husband!

A Day at the Temple

The number of temples in Utah are the most anywhere in the world (13).  Anyone living in Utah is truly blessed with the abundance of opportunity to attend the temple often.  While Scott's family was in town for Thanksgiving, we took advantage of an opportunity and attended a session in the Salt Lake Temple.  It truly is a beautiful temple and since it was the day after Thanksgiving that we went, the lights were turned on and we were able to see those.  Although I can attend the temple by myself anytime I want, it really is more enjoyable with family.

I also have to thank David for these pictures outside of the temple before we went in since I forgot my camera in the car.

The lights at the temple were beautiful as always and I just love taking pictures of all the lights.  I think it is so gorgeous and just really puts me in the Christmas spirit.

Sad face.

Thanksgiving!

This post is going to be all about Thanksgiving Day, so it will be super long with lots of pictures!  I will do another post the activities that occurred with Scott's family during their time here.

This was my first year making Thanksgiving dinner.  I have always brought a dish to the other Thanksgiving dinners I went to, so it was pretty stress-free.  I had the menu planned for about a month so that helped cut down on stress.  I knew that I wanted it to be a classic Thanksgiving dinner.  I like trying different things, but I always resort back to what I'm comfortable with.  I look around on Pinterest, of course, for ideas and found some great recipes.

The day before Thanksgiving was all about making the desserts, sweet potato casserole and Jell-O pretzel salad.  It only got stressful when everyone was going to visit Brita and her family and I was torn on whether to go or stay and keep working on the food.  I went because I hadn't seen Dylan (new nephew) yet and I didn't want anyone to think that I didn't care about him.  Around 5:00, I decided to leave and finish up making the dishes at home.  The apple pie took a little bit longer than I thought, but I am glad that I made what I did the day before because it definitely reduced stress Thanksgiving day.

The apple pie turned out pretty good!  The crust was a little too thick in my opinion (didn't roll it out thin enough) and I forgot to put a crumble topping on top, but it was still plenty flavorful.  I tried the lattice top technique, which looks great, but my fluting of the edges didn't come across so well. I used a recipe that I got from college.

 

I forgot to get a picture of the whole cheesecake, but this is a nice looking piece.  Scott loves the Jell-O brand cheesecake, so I was fine making that because it is much easier than cheesecake from scratch, but I do enjoy the real thing a lot better.

Had to try all three!  I also made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies for those who didn't want pie or cheesecake and it was a great idea.  Such yumminess.

The Jell-O pretzel salad caused me the most trouble when it should have been the easiest.  When I first made the Jell-O, I wasn't thinking and left the Jell-O mixture in a bowl to set up.  Yeah, that didn't work at all. On the way home from Brita's, I bought another Jell-O package and tried again. This time, I put it in a metal pan and it set up way to quickly.  It was only supposed to be partly set-up so you could still pour it on top, but it hardened up all the way, so it fell out in chunks.  Despite that it doesn't look too pretty, it sure tasted good.

Trying to get a picture of all the layers: Pretzels on bottom, cream cheese mixture in the middle and Jell-O on top.

The sweet potato casserole doesn't look too pretty either, but it tasted great.  The recipe I used was from Our Best Bites, but their recipe called for coconut on top and I was not doing that.  I knew that brown sugar is commonly used, so I melted some brown sugar and butter together and poured it on top.  It added such a great sweet flavor along with the marshmallows on top.

Thanksgiving day really wasn't that stressful for me.  I had plenty of help which made things go by quickly.  We had an easy breakfast of muffins, eggs and hash browns.  I love appetizer foods, so we had crackers & cheese, deviled eggs (something my Aunt Kathy always made), shrimp and little acorn treats.

David & Nadine having fun looking at the Black Friday ads!

I bought a turkey breast, so it only took 3hours to cook and I didn't do any basting to it and it was still very moist.  I rubbed butter and Santa Maria Style Seasoning all over it.  Maddie enjoyed splurging on Thanksgiving and had some turkey too.

 Scott carving the turkey!  We finally got to use the carving set we got for a wedding gift.

Other side dishes included stuffing, green beans & carrots, salad, mashed potatoes & gravy and rolls (which Nadine took care of).

Bought this gravy dish at Kohl's!  Nadine also kindly made the gravy.

I did the mashed potatoes in the crock pot.  I really liked how creamy they were and how I didn't have to think about them until it was time for dinner.

Salad.

Stuffing! Yes, I did the Stove Top box stuffing and it was delicious.

Vegetables!

Look at all that food!

We had plenty to choose from to drink, but we liked the Sierra Mist Cranberry the best.

Yum! My belly was very happy.

I made the turkeys that my mom did and also these marshmallow pilgrim hats.

Andrew pouring the drinks!

Group Shot!

After dinner naps were taken, Steve & his kids came over, a puzzle was worked on and games were played.

Working on the free puzzle Scott got from the hospital.

All in all, this was a wonderful Thanksgiving with wonderful people.  It truly was a great day.