A Very Nice Thanksgiving

For the second year in a row, my Mom & Dad joined us for Thanksgiving in Missoula. We had a blast despite the fact I was away from most of my family again and not in Indiana. We started cooking pies on Wednesday night and got up early Thanksgiving morning to begin the rest of the cooking in earnest. Even though we were planning a meal for 5 instead of 15, we cooked up a storm. Dad and I picked out a nice Hutterite turkey, fresh from the New Rockport colony in Choteau, MT to go with all the dishes we prepared. Jen had stuffing and sweet potato dishes that are traditional in her family, and we had stuffing, dressing and pie dishes from ours. It was an awesome meal, spent with family...we even pulled out Jen's grandmother's China, the first time I've ever hosted a meal and used China. We started off with a nice relish tray and roasted nuts. Then to go with bird we had cornbread dressing, oyster stuffing, sage stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, candied yams, sweet potatoes and pecans, cranberry relish, cranberry roll, and yeast rolls. For dessert we had two types of pumpkin pie, pecan pie, mincemeat pie, cherry pie (using Flathead cherries we pitted and froze this summer), and pumpkin bread pudding. In short, we stuffed ourselves.
Dad and Mom have been super fun to be with and as usual, every time they visit we do some really fun things. We headed out to Tarkio for the day and stopped at the Nine Mile Roadhouse for a burger afterwards. We shopped and dined and hung out to watch movies at home with some of Grampy O's famous popcorn.
A great holiday!