Thanksgiving

Back in the beginning of October, I had a conversation with my good friend and neighbor Kim. 

It was really weird because she was suddenly pregnant again and we were on the top floor of Landmark Tower. Oh wait...this picture was taken almost six months ago! Whoopsy. Any who, we decided that it was high time we got all of our husbands together and had our own version of a family thanksgiving.

Here was the problem. Neither Kim nor I had a dining room table large enough to fit our group of friends. That's where Hillary came in.  

We knew that she loved to entertain and she makes a mean apple pie (see picture above) so her house was the obvious choice. She is also a close friend and neighbor of ours so we got right to planning. I started with the invitations. 

By end of it, 17 people and two babies came for over to Hil-Dawgs for Thanksgiving.  Each of us ladies was tasked with bringing a few dishes. I stupidly volunteered to make the turkey. As most of you know, I don't eat Turkey, let alone meat. So it was quite scary when I had to pull out the innards and even scarier when I actually had to clean out it's cavity and stuff it. I prepared my brine, soaked it overnight, basted it with a white wine and butter mixture and...Voila!

And no Becky I did not try the turkey this year. But I did hear from all my friends that it was really good. Maybe next year? So once the turkey was unveiled, everyone took their seats to enjoy our yummy meal. 

This was the grand dessert buffet that no one really touched because there was SO much food to be eaten. Hillary made the two apple pies and the rum cake, Amanda made the pumpkin pie, and I made the pumpkin cheesecake with a gingersnap crust. Oh it was delicious ; ) 

And by the end of the meal, pretty much the whole turkey was gone. That was perfectly fine with me as I didn't plan on making a soup. I was all cooked out. 

For the rest of the night we had some drinks, played some Rock Band and passed around sweet baby Mallory. She's three months and just adorable. You can see Mike is a little nervous holding Mal. 
When I was holding Mallory, Mike told me my time was up after 5 minutes. Guess he doesn't want me to get any ideas! Here we are sucking our thumbs. I totally get why it's the cool thing to do. 

After that night of fun, a few of the girls decided to wake up at 5am and drive to Yokosuka Naval Base for some black Friday shopping. In total, we spent $1800! That's about a $400 average between each girl. 

I miss you all but can't wait to see most of you for Christmas! Mike and I are coming home on the 19th and we'll be there until the 2nd. Yay!