Another first

It’s Tuesday and I had to reluctantly drag myself out of bed this morning to make it into work. Current mood….exhausted, sick, yet happy.

Last night marked yet another first for Daniel and I. We are pleased to say that we pulled off a very successful Thanksgiving dinner for our families – 9 people in total.

The day started out on a shaky note as neither Dan nor I could figure out how to get the dman neck out of the turkey; this is when I wish I would have paid more attention to my mother’s cooking demos when I was a child! I had no problems pulling out the heart, liver and turkey butt (sorry, no other way to explain it), but I was stumped when it came to the neck. To make matters worse, the turkey still felt frozen on the inside…despite 2-3 days of thawing.

I am ashamed to admit it, but I had to put in a frantic call to my mother to seek her advice. Here is the even sadder part…she was over at the house within 10 minutes and it took her no more than 2 seconds to rip the neck off. Great! Just great!

Once the neck was removed from Mr. Gobbles, it was smooth sailing. I shook off my embarrassment and redeemed myself by cooking an awesome turkey. After a little basting, lots of butter, garlic and some poultry seasoning…things were clearly going much better. Between Daniel and I, we made enough food to feed an army. Once again, it seems that I am lacking in estimation skills.

All in all, it was a great evening. Loads of tasty food, happy bellies, and a ton of wine. I’m not quite sure how many bottles we killed…lets just say that we no longer have much left over from the honeymoon. No complaints here, it was nice to treat people to something a little different rather than the usual $8 staple of Jackson Triggs. Yes my dear readers…we have become impossible wine snobs.

Dinner was followed by the first official family viewing of our professional wedding photos. We are immensely pleased with the results and are still having a hard time picking our favourites. Luckily, we own all the original digital files and unmarked proofs, so I can do any enlargements myself at home. Maybe I’ll play around with some different editing effects too. I love photography and would be perfectly content if snapping photos all day or playing with Photoshop.

The rest of our weekend proved to be just as busy. On Saturday, I was a bridesmaid for my friend’s wedding at Beantown Ranch. It was a gorgeous day and the fall colours were at their best – a very cute and cozy country setting. It was quite the contrast to my urban wedding, but I thought it was beautiful and very appropriate for the time of year. The bride was radiant and I thoroughly enjoyed getting dolled up for the second time in less than a month. All in all, it was a fun night. I made a complete buffoon of myself by dancing the whole night like a wild woman…even with random strangers (Sorry Dan).

I have one mandate when I am in a wedding party: DANCE! I have been to countless weddings where bridal parties sit off on the sidelines chatting with their friends. This is terrible, because it doesn’t inspire other guests to get up and have a good time. The remedy is quite simple….slap on a happy face and boogie down. It’s amazing how others will get up and dance once they realize that they’re not alone. I have no problems breaking the ice, or pulling others onto the dance floor with me. Luckily, there were a good number of dancers at this wedding (kudos to Sandy the MC) so we were able to keep the tempo up all night. Very fun! I have no doubt that the relatives of the bride and groom think that I’m certifiably nuts. Who am I to argue?

So there you have it…my jam-packed weekend! I managed to survive it, but came out with yet another terrible cold. Plans for next weekend…RELAX! This will be the first opportunity to truly sleep in several weeks. Who knows, maybe I’ll even get to sleep until 8:00am! The possibilities are endless….