Come Ye Thankful People

Our Thanksgiving preparations began on Wednesday.  For one thing, I made 160 rolls in the morning for Lucy's school potluck party.  (So nice to have all the help to entertain the kiddos.)  We also prepped one of our turkeys.  The Boy Scouts at church have a fundraiser where people can bring their Thanksgiving meat all wrapped up and seasoned and the scouts will cook it overnight in an imu (those underground polynesian ovens).  I love the kalua pork done this way.  So we decided to give it a shot with a turkey.  But we had to have something to compare it to, so we cooked one in the traditional way too.  We tried to do all the seasoning/brining the same so we'd have a true scientific experiment.  :)  Also Wednesday night Liz and I made the desserts and yams.  Whew!  We were ready for bed Wednesday night for sure.

Thursday morning, George picked up the imu turkey at 8am.  And it was really yummy.  I thought it had a nice smokey flavor.  Apparently the traditional Hawaiian style is to get all the meat off, chill it, and then heat it later.  Onolicious!

Jake and the kids writing "Thankful lists".
I bought a big paper turkey to put on the wall.  Originally I was thinking we'd write something we were thankful for on a turkey feather every day in November, but by Thanksgiving, we'd only done 9 feathers.  ha!  So there were lots left over for everyone to write on Thanksgiving.  I really enjoyed reading these later.

Since we didn't really have a deadline for dinner time, everyone decided to go kayaking around 10:30ish.  I came about 45 minutes later with Cole.  When I arrived, Elise was bawling her head off.  Austin was crying too, but not quite as crazily.  George, grandpa Tom and the "twins" were in the green kayak.  They turned around to check on the yellow kayak crew and tipped over.  It was a little more windy than in times past.  I arrived just as they were getting back to shore.  No one was hurt or anything, just a little wet and freaked.  After some hugs and kisses, George and I went out together and had a good time.  When we came back, the children were obviously healed and sang the "I'm H-A-P-P-Y" song about a hundred times.

We came back to the smells of turkey cooking in the oven.  Yum!  Not trying to kiss-up or anything, but I must admit, I thought Geo's oven turkey was more moist and delicious than the imu kind.  (However I still want to try a pig if they do the imu fundraiser for Christmas.)

We had the traditional yumminess for Thanksgiving dinner.  George told me long ago that he read the secret to good cooking is lots of butter and salt.  I used 9 sticks of butter in two days... which must mean everything was delicious.  :)  I was surprised (but happy) at how much everyone liked the yams.  

For dessert, I made a pumpkin pie (kind of cheesecakey), a double layer pumpkin pie, and a lemon guava cheesecake.  I think the guava cheesecake was the best of the three.  I was so happy because this was the first time the cheesecake actually looked yummy - usually I've overbaked and its all cracked.

Afterwards Lucy initiated artwork in the playroom.  She helped Austin make stuff too, but he wasn't too interested in modeling.

Cole slept through Thanksgiving dinner.  But he still got to wear a pilgrim hat.

Tom and Liz did a mountain of dishes.  The minute we had any room in our stomachs, we had pie (w/ candles for Austin's birthday).  By the end of the day, the tryptophan did its job. We were beat.  But very grateful to have family to spend the day with.