Rolling Over and Over in My Gravy.

What a week! Soren and his entourage came for Thanksgiving, since we won't be able to be together for Christmas this year. 

I spent most of the week cooking and cleaning. The kids arrived Wednesday night, and we had Thanksgiving dinner early in the evening on Thanksgiving. The dinner was...interesting.

Since I don't eat meat, and I wanted something as close to what the rest of the family was having, I tried to find a Quorn Turk'y Roast at the local Whole Foods. No luck! Usually Smith's carries it, but they were out of it, too. I had to make a trip to Salt Lake City early in the week to visit a thrift store to get some things for Soren to play with, to JoAnn to get some webbing to finish the chair pads and buttons for Daphne's sweater, and to Toys R Us to pick up Soren's Christmas presents, so I added the Whole Foods, Salt Lake City, to my list of stops. They had the Turk'y Roast, and it was on sale, so I picked up two. I had bought a regular turkey breast for the others. We were also having Finnish Rutabaga casserole, maple sweet potatoes, asparagus, salad, stuffing, gravy and a cranberry relish recipe that DDIL2 learned about on Facebook. The gravy tried very hard to finish me off.

DDIL2 made the salad, while Soren played in the living room under supervision of the guys.

Everything takes longer to cook at high elevation, but this turkey breast took longer than I expected. I started heating up the gravy too soon, got distracted, and it boiled over on my stove. Fortunately, I had plenty of the vegetarian mushroom gravy, so I put it into another pan and stuck it in the oven with the turkey breast. It boiled over again, all over the bottom of the oven. (I should point out that everything boils at a lower temperature at high elevation, too, and I should have known better.) I was really distracted. 

When I finally got dinner on the table, we took the photo above, and started passing stuff around. I reached over the sweet potatoes to get the gravy, which promptly slid in its dish and tipped over, spilling gravy all over the tablecloth in front of my very patient BIL. We cleaned up what we could, covered up the spot with paper towels and had a wonderful time eating and drinking. Soren preferred the Turk'y Roast to the real turkey. Smart boy! (Of course, the fact that he doesn't have too many teeth yet might factor in. It's easier to chew.) We finished our dinner with a pumpkin cheesecake from Trader Joe's. Yum!

On Black Friday we went for a hike instead of shopping.

(The hat was part of Soren's Halloween costume, a character from "How To Train Your Dragon.")

The pups needed a run, and everyone needed to be outside in the fresh air on such a pretty day. Most of our route was a paved bike path (chosen to avoid the mud), so we took the umbrella stroller. We stopped at the local bagel shop for hot chocolate on our way back to the car. 

We had decided that we wanted to "shop small" on Saturday, so we started out at No Worries, a locally owned restaurant in our neighborhood, for breakfast. Soren was well-behaved, in spite of having to wait some time for a table, and we had a great time.

From there, we went on to Great Harvest, a locally owned bakery franchise, where we picked up some nice bread and some treats to feed some friends who were coming for tea. Then we went to the local toy store to get some special presents for the grandkids, and finally to the local quilt shop, Davidene's, where I discovered I had lost my credit card. I had used it at Great Harvest, but a phone call to them revealed that they didn't have it. I had to cancel it. (That's going to take the fun out of Cyber Monday!)

Football: We had watched my Patriots win their game Sunday night, and then DDIL2 and DS2's favorite team Oregon Ducks win theirs on Friday, and finally The Ohio State's (where DS2 did his graduate work) game, which had to be recorded and watched after we got home from shopping on Saturday. They won, too. It made up for the gravy fiasco.

We also Skyped with Daphne and Zachary and their parents, and then with DS1 and DDIL1. We will see them all around Christmas time during our planned trip east. 

We had a bunch of board books checked out from the library. Soren loves board books, and we read each one several times. He also discovered my iPad. I have some great games on it for kids. He really liked Pocket Pond, one of my favorites. DS2 showed Soren how to play Angry Birds, one of his.

All good things come to an end, and our visit had to as well. Sunday morning we had to drive Soren and his entourage back to the airport, where he said goodbye to Grandpa...(Soren kisses with his mouth open and his eyes closed)

And to me.

Soren made friends at the airport before the flight home. He never met a stranger.

During the week I managed to get some work done on Daphne's "Green Pastures" cardigan. I had to rip out several rows of the sheep pattern that I knitted during the nail-biter Patriots game. Guess I was tense, because it was too tight. However, the redo worked fine, and I'm ready to sew on the buttons, sew up the underarms and block it. 

I feel ready to be put out to pasture now. It was an exhausting weekend, but lots of fun!

What's on my needles: "Green Pastures" cardigan for Daphne, just the buttons to sew on, underarms to sew closed and the blocking to do. Dogwood Blossoms and Christmas Waffle sweater still on hold, and Green Tea socks with the heel almost done. Ready to CO for second, smaller Green Pastures cardigan for Soren. 

What's on my loom: Making more progress on the Christmas present scarves.

What's on my wheel: Full Circle Roving in "Wolf". First bobbin finished. No progress this week.

What's on my Sewing needles, Featherweight: Delectable Pathways, piecing the Delectable Mountain block panels. Appliqué panel #3, No progress this week.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: I'm still listening to Bath Tangle by Georgette Heyer. Still reading The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley on the Nook App, purchased through BookBub. Another intriguing story. Listening to the Fiber Hooligan podcast and the Knit Picks podcast.

What's my app of the week: Pocket Pond...again! This app is always a winner with the small set! Soren got a kick out of "splashing" in the water without getting wet. He also tried to dump our the water, and had a look at the other side of the iPad, trying to find the depth to the pond. 

What's in my wine glass: Liberty Creek Pinot Noir, another big bottle. We need it! It's time to rest up, but I will really miss the 5:30 AM wake-up call!

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals were harmed during the production of this blog post.