Thanksgiving 2009

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with family this year. Cleo and I drove up to North Carolina (near Winston-Salem) on Wed. afternoon to spend Thanksgiving with his niece Stacie and her family. His sister Tami and her husband and youngest daughter Kylie flew out from Idaho and so it was really nice to get to see them all. Tami and Eric cooked a super yummy traditional turkey dinner complete with her wonderful homemade rolls and 3 different kind of pies...Cleo and I were in heaven!! They went to a lot of work and we really appreciated it all. We stayed up pretty late Wed. night catching up and then ate and relaxed on Thanksgiving Day. We did go for a walk (before dinner--not sure why we didn't go after!) around the neighborhood and that allowed us to not feel as guilty eating so much for dinner :) Thanks Stacie for inviting us..we sure do love y'all.

We had to leave on Friday morning and head back to Georgia because Cleos' brother Tom was headed our way on Saturday afternoon. He had been in Florida with his wife and their 3 kids and all their grandkids at DisneyWorld and they decided to drive back to Texas thru Georgia...yes, I know it's out of the way...that's what made it so special for us. Anyhow, they arrived on Sat. around 4:00 and their daughter Amber and her family came too. They (Ambers family) only stayed for dinner and then headed out as they needed to be back in Oklahoma on Sunday. We thought that was super sweet for them to stop by as well. Thanks Amber and Wayne...we sure love you guys!! Cleo and Tommy went out and checked out all of Cleos' hunting spots behind the house and by his job at the PTC airport on Sunday and Cindy and I went shopping. Cleo put a pork butt on the spit/grill Sunday late afternoon and it turned out yummy. After dinner we watched 4 Christmases and ate popcorn and chocolate. We sure do miss having Tom and Cindy close as we used to do tons of things with them when we all lived in Wyoming. We love you guys and want to say thank you for coming our way...we're headed your way next!!

It was just a really great 5 day weekend for us and we just want our family (all of our family) to know how much we love you and how thankful we are for you in our lives. We are also blessed with wonderful friends and not a day goes by that we don't give thanks for ALL our blessings. We hope that each of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well and that this Christmas season will bring good health, happiness and prosperity to each of you.
Cleo had his belt attached to Elizas' scooter so she wouldn't get away...Eric pushing Addie in stroller

Uncle Kevin (Cleo) and Eliza napping

Kylie, Tami and Eric relaxing after dinner

Tami and Cleo

Cleo, Royal, Wayne, Mitchell, Amber, Spencer and Marcy

Cleo and Tommy

Cleo, Marcy, Cindy and Tommy

Texas Nativity that Audrey made for Cleo and I...how stinkin' cute is it???

What's Cookin???

Well, in my house it's anybodys' guess anymore!! We had to buy a new grill a few months back and although Cleo does most of the grilling at our house I have been known to grill as well. Our old grill was a gas grill but you could also use charcoal which we did most of the time. So a while back I decided to cook some ribs on the grill...how hard can it be right? I put them on this new rib rack I bought and was so excited to have ribs when Cleo got home from work...but, as you can see by the picture below things didn't turn out so well!! Really, that's an understatement...they completely burned in less than 10 minutes. I'm talkin' when I went to pull them off the racks, they totally disintegrated in my fingertips. I checked and I had the gas on low so I'm not sure what happened. Then last week I decided to try some veggie kabobs and fish on the grill. It was almost the same story...black veggies (not edible) and the fish was pretty crispy as well, although it was edible.

I used to pride myself on being a decent cook but lately this has not only been happening on the grill, but in the kitchen as well. I seem to overcook, burn or just simply ruin the most basic things. Maybe this is secretly my way of getting Cleo to start doing the cooking...LOL...we all know that won't happen!!! Anyhow, I hope this is just a "slump" and things will get back to normal soon..,but if anyone has suggestions on how to improve my cooking skills...DO TELL.