pre-thanksgiving

There has been a lot of activity in the Ackermann household lately and it is high time I catch up.  'Tis definitely that season, and I love it!

We had been debating for quite some time as to what to do Thanksgiving weekend.  Eric had it "off" but we just weren't sure what to do with the time.  In the meantime, some Youth World people were planning a Thanksgiving dinner and everyone was invited.  The problem was that we still weren't sure what was up, so we said we wouldn't be there.  Then things looked dismal for going away, even for the night or two we were thinking about.... and the saddest part was that it was looking like we weren't going to get any Thanksgiving dinner!!  That would be a tragedy!  

In a conversation with Marlo I happened to be whining about that fact and a few minutes later, she called back and asked if we wanted to come to their house Wednesday night to celebrate with their semester abroad crew (a mere 25 people they already had coming!).  Uh, yes please!  So we joined in their festivities... and food, of course.

 Four countries were represented, which was to me the best part of the evening:  the US, Canada, Ecuador and Germany.  Six Germans, two Ecuadorians, one Canadian (yours truly.... or five if you count the kids) and the rest from the states.  It was fun as it was the first time the Germans and Ecuadorians had ever celebrated Thanksgiving.  Apparently they are not very thankful people.  Kidding, kidding, of course!

Even though it was a little coolish outside, we kicked the kids out-of-doors to ease the squeeze of space.

 Other than some issues with cooking all the food* it was a very delightful evening.

*I made two pumpkin pies, only to discover after 50 minutes of them being in the oven that the gas tank ran out early on - as in shortly after I put them in.  The timer went off, I went to check them and low-and-behold, they were almost completely uncooked.  I baked them a few minutes more but then realized I had to take them out of the oven so that I could cook one pan of Marlo's stuffing and my corn casserole.  Even with that, we ran out of baking time for those two items and so we wound up bringing almost baked stuffing and corn casserole and not-even-half-baked pumpkin pie.  We finished the rest up in Marlo's oven but the pumpkin pie was in sad shape.... by the time the middle was set the outside was burned.  I think God was trying to humble this-here proud pie baker.  Only one piece was taken.  Sigh.  (The good thing is that we had some today and it was actually pretty decent.... it just looked yucky)

And the actual Thanksgiving day?  More on that later, but rest assured, Eric still got his turkey and stuffing Thanksgiving dinner on the real Thanksgiving day.

Thanksgiving morning: Turkey leftovers for breakfast.

Gross.