A Central Florida Thanksgiving

This could be considered an excessive photo upload blog post. We cooked our first Thanksgiving turkey and hosted R's family so I was quite excited and took a lot of pictures of things like our maple tree and the table top.

We planted this Maple Tree our first year in the house, and it has survived one tropical storm.

The leaves turned color this year!

And fell on the ground!!

Leaves! For the first time in nine years we raked leaves!

My grandma graciously shared her Thanksgiving recipes with me: she told me to follow the instructions that come with a Butterball turkey, and thankfully, told me that sometimes there are two cavities; I took lots of notes on how to make her dressing; and she explained that yes, I had actually been eating giblet gravy (gravy with the heart and liver of the turkey) for the past 30 years. I did have to make one phone call to Grandma while making the dressing, one phone call to my mom to discuss the dry-run of my gravy (I had never made gravy before and it was suggested I try it before the actual day), and one phone call to my Aunt L to figure out where I had gone wrong while making icing for her coconut cake recipe.

We picked flowers from the front yard for the table.

Looking so handsome it was difficult for me to do anything but kiss his cheeks.

Our turkey!

She made sure she was wearing an apron like Dad.

I made a cooking schedule for Thanksgiving week; I felt like I was creating an integration plan for our first time hosting. It was important that I use day-old cornbread in the dressing, defrost the turkey on a certain day, and let Aunt L's coconut cake freeze before the final icing. Thanksgiving morning we put the turkey in the oven and then got to do fun things like set the table with our china and mismatched napkins.

I love to use our dishes!

Ready to eat.

Ready to eat....maybe.

The best part of our Thanksgiving was being joined by family. We were so happy when they said they wanted to visit and spend the holiday with us! I had prepared myself that we would be without extended family this year - so it was a lovely surprise and R had help putting up Christmas lights the next day.

Auntie C, the glowing bride.

Our men.

Mrs. MHJ had fun playing in the accidental caramel-like substance I made during my first icing attempt.

C made a pecan pie, yes, that crust is from scratch.

My attempt to recreate Aunt L's coconut cake.

My lap top battery is at 15%. Two more photos.

P.S. It's 80 degrees here today.