Thanksgiving Day

OK, I've had my break....now I will try and get back to this blog and finish the posts about our time in Chile during the last couple days, back when things were too crazy to take the time to sit and type and wait foreeeeever for pictures to upload.

I'm going to start with Thanksgiving Day - I know the point of the blog is to keep people up to date on a more regular basis, as opposed to telling you what happened last week, but such is life! We actually had a really good day. As I mentioned before, we spent the day working to take advantage of the last full day of work, and had our big meal for supper that evening. We had 19 people around our table - the Thompson family which included Greg Thompson, Sharon Bisbee ( a GMSA missionary who came down from Santiago with the Kunnari's), Melissa Jarvis, Dan, Diana, Brett, and Troy Kunarri, and all of our family. The kitchen was busy for most of that day and the day before getting ready for our big feast. It seemed that even being outside of the US and without some of the typical foods or decorations, our Thanksgiving was a bit closer to the original than most here in the States may have been. We were in a different land, among several friends and not just family, a bit limited in the food we had access to, even more limited in the kitchen appliances we are used to....All in all it was a good reminder of all that we have and take for granted. We thank the Lord so much for His provision for our family to be able to go to Chile. It is easy to forget that and get caught up in the 'busyness' of everything, but we are very grateful to Him and to all those that He used to make if possible.

And now for the pictures....great they are not! I'll start with ones from the day before Thanksgiving when we did a lot of the prep work and baking.

Diana saved the day by making the pie crusts...NINE in all! We had 2 strawberry, 2 cherry, 1 blackberry, 1 pumpkin, 2 apple, and 1 cheesecake.

The other major chore was making the rolls - Liz made up a HUGE batch. But not only did she do that, she made Logan's day by teaching him how to cut them out and roll them up.The potatoes were peeled, the squash peeled and cut up....

The turkey was set to soak in a brine mixture for 24 hours and that was pretty much the end of the pre-Thanksgiving prep work. The next day Dan T. put the turkeys into the smoker (actually a sawdust burner) for a few hours then finished them off in the oven. Dan K. had the honor of carving them both. There were actually two turkeys, about 13-14 pounds each, that were quite a nice, hard-earned treat. Liz searched far and near for some turkeys and then finally was able to order them from the butcher shop a couple weeks in advance.

The kitchen was HOT that day as the gravy was made, the potatoes mashed, the stuffing baked, the corn casserole cooked, and the pies heated up for dessert.Melissa and Monica made some table decorations, although they had help from some of the younger boys in collecting pine cones=) And finally the time came and we all sat down to a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with all the trimmings!