Abundant Blessings - Thanksgiving Twenty-Ten

I was up before 6:00 this morning to get my turkey in the oven and it was delightfully snowing outside. This is the view out my front door around 7:00. It's been a long time since we have had a white Thanksgiving. I knew right away this was going to be a really fun day!!

Oh I so made PW's Throw Down turkey this year. This 20 lb'er was brined overnight, cooked covered at 250 degrees for three hours, then basted with this amazing herb butter mix before being returned to the oven to finish cooking uncovered.

Later it came out a beautifully browned turkey. I also made stuffing, our traditional Honcoop sweet potatoes, Leslie's harvest jello, and four desserts. My only debacle was my gravy - hey wait...didn't that happen to PW on Throw Down also??

It was time to load and go...but alas the fifteen year old first took a few of her now famous self portraits. Of course she did!

...and a shot of the pumpkin she NEVER carved for Halloween!

Waiting for the meal Uncle Genius's Ipad was a hit!
*pic courtesy of Jill*

Jack opened our Thanksgiving devotions with the Likkel tradition of reading of Psalm 100...

...and Sam shared his very special "thankful" list with us...
*pic courtesy of Jill*

...and then is was on to the food!

I must say my PW turkey was A-MA-ZING!

Oh happy, thankful day! Brandon & Greta's smiles say it all!

Lawn and Vern perusing the oh-so-abundant eating options.

Seriously I can't believe Ross, Taya and the boys are with us again this year. What a blessing!

After eating the kids went outside and constructed two snow forts anticipating a major snowball fight. The only problem was they accidentally built their forts too far apart and couldn't actually throw a snowball far enough to hit each other. Too funny! Then the adult males joined in and it didn't matter anymore...

...because it was game-on...

and all-out war!
*snow pics courtesy of Jill*

Later in the afternoon Darryl, Karin & I took out our old trusty family slide projector and looked at some slides of our growing up years. Oh the memories! So much fun! Grandma, Taryn & Lawn joined us to watch the show.

It's been many years since we've seen some of these slides. I took a picture of this one of Dad moving a building. Dad liked moving building on to the farm. If you look in the building you can see it was being moved by his tractor. I'm not exactly sure which building this is but I'm sure Uncle Genius knows. Our neighbor Kenny Shagren is on the far left, Daddy behind me (in that oh so stunning orange pants outfit my mom made) and Uncle Gerrit next to me with his arms crossed.

The guys had a bit of a game of Stock Market before we hit dessert. Greta made four of the most amazing pumpkin pecan and apple pies, Karin made her very best fudge ever, and Grandma made batches of her renown divinity.

The snow stopped before it got dark and the temp went up to 32 degrees. By the next morning our 5 inches of snow were rapidly disappearing, and the grass was showing green patches again everywhere. So much for this snow!