Over Snoqualmie And Through The (non-existant) Woods

And so Thanksgiving 2008 has passed. We ventured up and over Snoqualmie Pass en route to Yakima to visit my parents as well as my older brother and his family for Thanksgiving. We had awesome weather on the way over on the day before Thanksgiving, so there was no trouble getting the Corolla up and over the mountains. Well, there was a little effort involved, since the car contained Lisa, Joshua, my brother Brek, and me. We have learned to travel a little bit more lightly since we started driving places with Joshua. So at least we didn't have to have an extra 300 pounds of equipment in the trunk.

Yakima was just as brown and dry as ever, except really cold, too. It was very clear on the day we arrived, and it got well into the 20s that evening. The car was not happy about that. It really doesn't like being outside overnight in cold temperatures. Our garage has it spoiled.

Anyway, Joshua woke me up bright and early on Thanksgiving morning, since he has no concept of "sleeping in." All he knows is that when he wakes up, he wants some food and a clean diaper right away. Since I was up anyway, I tossed the turkey breast roast (bone-in) into the crock pot with some garlic, spices, and salt, and set it to cook on high for five hours. A little bit later, I made a breakfast of french toast, little smokies, and eggs. There was a little time to kill, so we watched the rest of the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and I wondered why they bother to have the people on the floats pretend to sing, when they are clearly lip-syncing to a prerecorded song. Some of the people were really good at it (Darius Rucker, Kristin Chenoweth) and some were horrendous at it (every teeny-pop singer, the various R&B flashes in the pan), but the whole concept is just silly to me. If you are going to have people sing for the cameras in front of the Macy's store, then set up a stage in front of the parade route, and have them sing into real microphones while the float goes by behind them. Don't have them ride on the float and fake the song for the camera. The worst offender in this? Andy Williams (yes, he is still alive) who didn't even bother to hold a fake microphone. He just lip-synced to a recording of "The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year" from about thirty years ago.

So the parade ended, and the dog show started, which I love. But Lisa and I needed to begin prepping potatoes, green beans, mushrooms, and onions for the various dishes I was going to cook. After much peeling, slicing, and rinsing, the real cooking began. It was a few hours worth of work, but eventually, we got the whipped potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, dressing, ham, and turkey cooked and on the table. There were also rolls, pickles, olives, banana peppers, pepperoncini, and a few different things to drink. It was all pretty good, even if the gravy wasn't as thick as I was hoping it would get. My parents invited their neighbor Jack over, since he was all alone for the holiday. He is a nice elderly, hard-of-hearing gentleman who had a lot to say. A LOT. Loudly. But it worked well for my dad, who also has a lot to say, if not so loudly. They were talking with each other at the table for quite a while after everyone else was off doing other things.

The biggest benefit of cooking just about everything is that I didn't have to clean any of the dishes. Brek was very helpful with that, as well as my nephew Forrest. So they did some dishes and my other nephew Garrett and I started up a game of Mario Party 8 while we waited for the pie to bake. Then Forrest joined us. It was a lot of fun. It was also fun to eat key lime pie, cheesecake pie with raspberry topping, and eventually pumpkin pie.

Later, Lisa, Brek, my mom, and I all played some Mario Party and had a lot of fun. All in all, it was an exhausting day, but was good times. We realized after getting back that we forgot to take any pictures at all, so that is why there are none in this post. Doh!

We had to hurry back on Friday so that I could work a shift at Papa John's, but the trip back was pretty uneventful. Fun stuff.