Blackberries and Peaches

While cooped up in the OR one day, Ryan heard some people talking about having been to an orchard down towards Galveston where you can pick your own blackberries. When he told me we decided to make it our first big adventure after getting our Daddy back from the land of ginormous anesthesia papers. This afternoon we headed down to Galveston and spent some time at the beach and then drove back up to Fruits n' Such Orchard. The evening had cooled off perfectly and the orchards and gardens were beautiful. Kate had been excited all day and enjoyed every minute of it. Sawyer was so cute. He started out by picking the red ones but eventually learned to go for the big juicy purple ones. He got into a fight with a big blackberry branch and ended up with scratches all over the side of his face and ear, poor kid. He was so cautious after that and it was adorable to see him be so careful. We ended up with a delicious haul. When we got home we found some of our peaches had split open in transit and we had to eat them up. They were delicious. Seriously, best peaches EVER!

Thanksgiving and Grandma K and a lot of ketchup

We were so lucky to have Ryan's mom come to help us celebrate Thanksgiving this year! Ryan was able to take the time off work to spend it with all of us, which was quite a treat for everyone (especially me, who seemed to have a hard time hearing my kids in the morning so I got to sleep in a lot!) We made pies the night before the big day. Grandma passed on her yummy cherry pie techniques to Kate and Sawyer, who were eager helpers!

And look, here is a picture of me! I love my husband so much that I made him a mincemeat pie

Thanksgiving morning the kids helped me make cinnamon rolls and then we watched the Macy's Thanksgiving parade....this is one of my favorite traditions and I kept telling Kate about it to get her excited. She enjoyed it, but she asked me every 5 minutes when Santa was coming on the TV. 3 hours is a lot of parade and I was wishing I had watched it a little later when I could have taped it and skipped the commercials. I'll have to remember that next year!

We tried something new this year and let our Turkey sit in a brine overnight. We put it in a trash bag inside the roasting pan but the bag kept muffin-topping out the sides so we made a clever turkey brine dam all around it using plates and masking tape....it worked great! I don't know if the turkey was extraordinary or anything, but it was fun to try!

I those are all my Thanksgiving pictures. I guess I was busy cooking or something. Everything was yummy and it was a fun day.

One of our fun adventures with Grandma K was going down to Galveston. Unfortunately she came the week the weather just started turning cold so the 70 degree days we had the week before were gone. It was cloudy and a bit chilly but they still had fun playing in the sand and searching for sea treasures.

And, last but not least, Kate and Sawyer's favorite thing to do with Grandma was read bedtime stories with her. I'm pretty sure she had "McGuillicuddy Could" memorized by the time she left!

Thanks for the fun visit, Grandma!