Thanksgiving 2008

I made the pies the day before Thanksgiving. Pumpkin pie and pecan pie.
Before
After
Cooking....
Roast turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, homemade bread, corn, beets, brussle sprouts, carrot & turnip mash, a pickle tray, wine...etc.
The kid's table... Heather, Trinity, Thomas, Luc & Huck.I think the kids were having fun! We were so happy that Emilie and her boys could come over.
It's so nice when the cousins get together. Noisy...but fun!
Trinity! Where is your plate, my dear?We had some really nice late harvest apple cider with dessert.
Patrick, Peter, Felicity.
This was a really neat Thanksgiving because we were able to share it with two friends who had never had a Thanksgiving dinner before. Jason is from China, and I think he was impressed, but he wasn't sure what 'stuffing' was when Mary passed it to him.
Cheers, Patrick! He is from Germany and this was his first Thanksgiving dinner too. I think he really liked the gravy. Oh, and the pecan pie.
mmm...pie.

Trinity's puzzle

After school, Trinity was working on her puzzle.
Good job, Cin-Cin! It's Noah's Ark.

Paella

Gregory made an amazing paella for us this weekend. Check it out!
Greg was so organized... the ingredients looked delicious.
Look at it all! There's basa fish, chorizo, (Greg already grilled the fish and chorizo), clams, scallops, chicken, prawns, aborio rice, onions, peppers, tomatoes, garlic, wine, etc...
and saffron.
This smells delicious.
The clams are starting to steam open.
Greg covers the paella with tinfoil.
We really love this rose wine from France. 'La Vieille Ferme'. It went well with the dish.
This was amazingly good. I could not stop eating it! The clams and scallops were perfect.
Thanks, Gregory for another fantastic meal! Love you!

in the lunchbox

Another lunch for school.
A simple ham sandwich, mini rice cake things (butter & salt flavour), a small blackberry apple tart ( I made a bunch of these at the same time I made the pies, and I just put them in the freezer - they will be thawed in time for lunch.), and some nectarines from our tree, cut up and put in a container. I thought it would be fun for the kids to eat the fruit with the little plastic sword.
Trinity just got half a sandwich, but the other kids will eat a whole one.

Welcome to Canada Patrick

Peter's friend Patrick is visiting Canada (from Germany) and staying with Sorin, so we thought we would invite him over for dinner, and meet him. His first introduction to Canada was ...um...well, horrible!
It's a hilarious story, but I won't get into all the details here. The main point is that Sorin was driving Patrick home (after dinner, and after a long flight from Germany) and somehow Sorin got stuck in a ditch, and told Patrick to get out and push. It was totally dark outside and poor Patrick found himself completely dunked in some very dirty, smelly ditch water! **YUCK**
Sorin laughs and refers to the incident as "Patrick's baptism". Ha.
Anyway, here is Patrick, totally at home with our family, enjoying a delicious meal and some nice wine. Welcome to Canada, Patrick.
Gregory made an amazing meal for us. Bar-B-Q steak (I already inhaled about half of my steak before tearing myself away from my plate to grab my camera!), oven fried potatoes, Cucumber salad and bread. *drool*
For dessert, I made a very canadian blackberry and apple pie.

We love you, Grama

Felicity, my mum, Mary & Eva. "Hugs all around" as Grama always says.
This is such a great picture - you can feel the love!

blackberry apple pie

We have tons of blackberries in our back yard, so I made a delicious blackberry apple pie.
Perfect with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

dog

Sit. Stay. Staaaaayyy....
Prima loves to fetch. That is basically the only 'trick' she knows. Our friends, Brian and Lan have a great dog named Lola. They brought Lola over and showed us a few of the tricks they taught her ( playing dead, hugging, saying her prayers, weaving in & out of Brian's legs as he walked, jumping through Brian's arms when he made them into a circle, skipping, yeah... SKIPPING!!) and lots of other tricks. It was totally amazing. Prima was completely put to shame.
Oh, well, we still like ...um, o.k... love you, Prima. Good dog.

yumminess matters

I thought that the mums that read my blog might be interested in what I pack for the kids' lunch. Some days I dread doing lunches, other days I am totally prepared. Usually, I try to make their lunch healthy, but of course, yumminess matters!
This is Trinity's lunch box. Aww...
Egg salad sandwiches (half white bread/half whole wheat), a pear, homemade chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips, a package of smoked almonds, and some water.
Here it is all packed up in Cin-cin's lunch box.

Tom's motor bike

Here are the guys, working on Thomas' new motor bike. It used to be Eva's, but she is too tall for it now, so she gets Greg's bike, and Greg just bought himself a new one. Cool.
A few minor adjustments...
You guys look awesome.
Thomas is getting a feel for the bike. Don't worry, he put on his helmet and gloves for the actual ride. Gregory just took Thomas around our yard as this was the 1st time Thomas was on a motor bike. Thomas had a blast and really wants to go again soon.