Break's almost over. Thanksgiving has come and gone. It really doesn't feel like the other Thanksgivings...probably because I don't have any leftovers to stuff myself silly (they're all at my parents). Dinner went very well. In fact, it was pretty awesome. Andrew says that my dinner was better than his mom's (we had two dinners that day...OY...). Yep. Once again, a successful Thanksgiving dinner, made from start to finish by yours truly.

Let's recap on the happenings of this lovely Thanksgiving break:

1) Tuesday night a couple friends came over and we drank and played GameCube stuff. Bryan and David brought nasty beer and got drunk, Natascha brought over pumpkin pie (she made it here) and Andrew was schooling all of them on the ways of the Game Cube. It was nice and relaxing. By the end of the night, David and Bryan were passed out. The next morning, we all went out for breakfast at IHOP. I had pumpkin pancakes...mmm...

2) On Wednesday night I went over to my parents to prep for the next day. I put the turkey in the brine, but I pretty much spent all night baking. I made apple pie (my first one!) and pumpkin cheesecake to take to Andrew's parents' house. They were good, I guess. I didn't puree the cottage cheese that goes into the cheesecake enough so the texture wasn't quite right, and I sliced the apples too thin for the pie, so they got too soft...but overall, it tasted good. Baking's so hard.

3) Thanksgiving day! I got up around 8am to start cooking. I got the turkey in the oven (*side note: I saw a thing on one of the cooking shows where they put wine and butter soaked cheesecloth over the turkey to keep the moisture and "encourage" it to brown evenly, so I tried it, and it worked really, really well...I think it was the best turkey I'd ever made), starting cutting up some of the veggies and such. Really, I didn't cook all day. I mean, yes, I was in the kitchen all day, but I wasn't cooking the whole time. I had little breaks here and there. I couldn't really do much until the turkey was out of the oven (which is why I need a house with a kitchen that has two ovens in it...ahem...). Thanks to my boyfriend with high tolerance of my bossiness, we got everything on the table only 10 minutes behind schedule. Man...it was a lot of food. Andrew looked at the table and was like, "Baby...this is SO MUCH FOOD." I really cooked everything that I had on my previous menu posting (minus bread pudding and souffle). We ate the hell out of everything and everyone was pretty much ready to pass out within the next hour. We still had half of everything leftover. Man, I can't wait till I go home today...

4) Yesterday we just hung out. Andrew and I went to go see Casino Royale with Bryan and David. It was a really good movie. It definitely exceeded my expectations. We also went to eat...a lot. Andrew and I had lunch at Whole Foods ( I heart Whole Foods), then after the movie we ate at Taco Mac (because Bryan wanted beer, duh). After Taco Mac, we went to my parents and rescued Coco (she was NOT happy about being at my parents, and I don't blame her). I made pumpkin ice cream with ginger snap cookies while I was there, and Andrew played chess with my nephew-ish people. Then we came home and watched Episode VI. Yay.