Thanksgiving Past

We are biding our time until it is time to leave for the Boise airport to go home. Brian is at work at the moment and will be here in another hour to give us a lift.

It was a most enjoyable holiday weekend with Brian and the boys. We drove to McCall on Wednesday evening, and Brian and I had enough time in McCall to do some gorcery shopping before the store closed at ten. For a small town, McCall has a wonderful grocery store by the name of Paul's. They are able to walk a fine line to be able to appeal to a wide range of shoppers from the basic to the gourmand. They have a great deli and gourmet food section. And then to add to the mix, there is a flight of stairs just past the cash registers that leads up to a quilt shop. What more could I ask for? Gourmet groceries and quilting supplies!!

Our dinner was very traditional starting with an appetizer of pickled herring with Aquavit and a beer chaser!! Now that is a Kirkwood tradition with the components coming from Ken's Danish heritage, but we press it into service for every occasion no matter how signifcant or insignificant. Dinner was roast turkey and stuffing, gravy, two kinds of potatoes, Brian's cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. We pretty effectively missed the vegetable/salad course except for some baby peas. Brian found some specialty root beer for the boys for their Thanksgiving libation, and we adults shared some tasty wine.

Brian and his dad installed an outdoor light on each of the six condos in their complex. There are no street lights on their street, and the one tiny light near the entry just doesn't offer much illumation. By the time they got to the sixth unit, they were down to about ten minutes per installation. A Crusty's pizza and a jug of beer was their compensation.

Since there is not enough snow at Brundage to open the ski season (although we got about three inches on Thanksgiving), the boys spent a lot of time with their Play Station, Game Boy, and Legos. They have a wonderful Lego train with both freight and passenger cars. But more track is needed to get the train up to full speed. I loved it.

I added a new game to the condo collection: Blokus. It consists of different colored squares combined in odd shapes to be fitted together on the board with only corners touching. It is a pretty fast game and one that can be enjoyed by most all age groups. Brian won every game he played, and Nolan was a close second. As usual, I participate in games for the sheer pleasure of playing since winning is not usually an option.

I'll blog again after we get home and I get the layer of dust off the keyboard. I need to clean fast and move quickly to accomplish everything and be ready for Christmas when Keith, Janet, and the girls arrive on the 22nd. Ciao.