thanksgiving--a sister time

hi. i'm here to talk about thanksgiving weekend. a weekend of thanks. a weekend of sisters.

let's begin.

it all started on friday. i got off even earlier then i usually do on friday because of the pie day. on pie day i ended up staying an hour and a half later than i was supposed to, in order to tend to the baking pies and put together the tartletts. so lisa forced me to leave on friday an hour and a half early and to tell you the truth i didn't put up a fight.

i went home and packed my bag, cleaned out the litter box, emptied some memory cards onto the computer, and laid out copious amounts of food and water for the felines in the hopes that they would not eat it all in one day. whether they did or not i cannot tell. i only know it was all gone when i got home with the exception of the water.

i gave myself an hour to get to the ferries, believing i was giving myself plenty of time seeing as it only takes around 20 minutes to drive there even on a busy day. well i was sorely mistaken. it took an hour to get out of richmond, and most of that time was spent between 4 and 5 roads on steveston highway. it was very frustrating. as my car went forward inch by inch and the time got away from me, inch by inch, i knew i had missed the ferry. i even started reading my book because the inching forward came so rarely.

i parked at the reservation's lot and took the shuttle to the ferry. once at the terminal i found a line up that went out the door. "oh yeah," i remembered, "thanksgiving weekend is the busiest ferry weekend of the year." how could i have forgotten. it was during thanksgiving weekend for example that elicia, as a walk on, didn't make the cut off. that never happens.

i read while i waited. a book is a good friend in a time of wait.

i read on the ferry.

i read standing outside in the general melee waiting for katie to pick me up. after a while i heard andrea calling me. i heard her, but i didn't see her. it was costco's with karey all over again. :) but she kept calling and walking towards me which helped in eventually seeing her. once in the van sitting beside a red-headed cute elizabeth, we were on our way.

back at the townhouse supper was almost ready. i lucked out that it was super late. in that way i got to partake of basil the lamb's leg prepared expertly on the bbq by brent. it was soooooooo good! brent was the chef extrodinaire all weekend, like he always is. we had andrea's famous homemade greek salad with it. so delicious. everyone kept commenting on the excess onions in the salad and putting their onions back in the salad thereby increasing the onion ratio. i of myself did not have an onion issue.

that night katie and andrea and i stayed up talking until after 3am. don't ask me what we talked about. sisters like to talk. sisters communicate excessively and that's the way it's supposed to be.

drew was asleep on my air mattress when we finally went upstairs to brush our teeth. it took andrea a while to actually get him awake enough to realize that he had to go downstairs. after he left i noticed a rather large drenched drool spot. we changed the sheets because boys are icky sometimes. :)

after that i read for a little bit. what can i say? it's a really interesting book, man. so aaaanyways i think i didn't get up until 9ish 10ish. brent made us a yummy pancake and bacon and scrambled egg breakfast, with the help of his side-kick dean. after breakfast i went with katie and the girls to document their paper route. it was fun. elizabeth sat on the wagon keeping her feet on the paper stacks to keep them in place and michealah, natalie and rhiannon ran from house to house sometimes squabbling on who got to open the next stack of papers or who got to deliver to what favourite house or who got to pull the wagon, but on the whole being cheerful and cute as always. i took pictures and you may see them some time in the future. when they were all done we arranged them just so in the wagon and pulled them all home which was a good workout for katie and i.

we decided to go to pipers lagoon. pipers-the-beloved. we were hoping that the tide would be out far enough to be able to walk over to shack island. it started to rain just as we left but we went ahead with our plans anyways. rain shouldn't just assume that it will ruin plans. that makes a you know what out of rain.

our first stop was the grandfather tree. someone had made a big driftwood shelter inside it. then we walked down to the end of the strip, climbed over the rocks and took the trail through the long yellow grasses and garry oak trees. i love that part. the tide wasn't out far enough to make it to shack but we stood and looked at it and the kids investigated another driftwood shelter. rhiannon made some improvements to it even. then me and natalie and rhiannon decided to 'explore' this smaller trail and look over the landscape like we were the first people to ever find that spot. everyone ended up back together at a grassy bluff overlooking the shacks and we took some group pics--all of us looking very much like drowned rats. you might see it one day. i need a month off just to focus on photos to get caught up.

back at the ranch we got into dry clothes and made pies. andrea made the pumpkin pies with her own prize pumpkin and katie and i joined forces to make the pecan pies. pecan pie is surprisingly easy. it's basically just sugar, butter and eggs with pecans on top. easy-peasy-japanesey. this whole time dean and brent were very into watching imax movies on space and whatnot. but dean took time away from the movies to mash some spuds--he used mayo and it was good. and brent of course did the turkey, stuffing and gravy. katie did the sweet potatoes. brent made the bread dough and katie and i shaped the buns. (once she took one of my buns out and re-shaped it for which i gave her the evil eye) the girls set the table and we sat down to eat. let me just say that i think this was the best thanksgiving dinner i have had in a long time. everything was so delicious but i think the key to it all was brent's gravy. hello! he put liquid smoke in it and holy-moly-catohlly did that make my meal. the stuffing was the good brent kind with cranberries in it. the buns were hot and fresh. everything was perfect.

we cooked the pecan pies too long because we didn't know. it seemed like they weren't done, but they were in fact done. the result was a hardened candy top which was actually quite delicious. the pumpkin pie was delicious too, but i'm getting ahead of myself. first katie, andrea and i went on a walk. we needed to walk that full feeling out. plus it was hot as hades in the townhouse. we walked dean over to his best friend's house and then walked around in the dark talking. we were going to walk down to the beach in the dark but it was soooooo dark we couldn't even see the stairs so we decided not to after a couple of steps. andrea and i both had to pee. she peed in the shadows on the grass and i did not.

we watched love comes softly, which i had never seen before. drew watched it with us because he loves pioneer movies with all his heart and soul.

we went to bed 2-ish i think that night. more talking.

next morning came too fast. before i knew it katie was waking me up to shower. church was nice. there are so many people who i don't know anymore. i sat between michealah and natalie. sitting there with them, an arm around each at different times, it reminded me a little bit of the days i sat in that exact row in between amy and bethany. back in the days when i was their mia maid advisor. it doesn't seem like that long ago, really.

i felt a twinge when we sang for the beauty of the earth for the closing hymn because my choir was singing the beautiful arrangement of that back home and i was missing it. i hope it went well.

i really enjoyed sunday school because a) i never get to go to sunday school anymore and b) it was on isaiah and there is so much depth and beauty in isaiah, and c) we sang a hymn at the end. rs was about repentence, which is always a good topic.

after church i wanted a nap but didn't have one. katie, andrea and i went to sugarloaf. it was a gorgeous sunny day and it was sooo nice at sugarloaf. we talked and sat in the sun and took goofy pictures and on the way down i made us sing a round of the lord is my shepherd. i didn't want to leave. it was just a nice feeling up there and the ocean was so vividly blue. and the grass on between the bluffs was so neon green, almost. nanaimo. i love you.

we went home and forced drew to let us watch him do some of his bike tricks at the bike park. we saw a little boy without a helmet fall and hurt himself and we suddenly noticed broken skateboards all over the roof of the public washrooms and multiple shoes hanging high in the branches of a near by cedar. after drew tired of his tricks we played some games like "what time is it mr. wolf, go-go-go-STOP, tag, freeze tag and rainbow in the field nearby.

we had turkey and lamb leftovers for lunch and chili was added to the leftovers for dinner.

we talked to mom and dad on skype saturday and sunday and on sunday night we talked to sarah who was quite scantily clad. she took us on a virtual tour of her house. kyle flashed by us in his g's. we had some laughs.

then we watched another movie--miss potter.

then we stayed up talking while drew tried to sleep through it. after 2 rhiannon came downstairs and said "what are you guys still doing up? you should have went to bed a long time ago." it was pretty funny. she wanted to sleep on the couch because she said that the girls were snoring. we didn't go to bed right then but it wasn't long after that that we did.

next morning was another brent pancake and bacon and scrambled eggs affair after which andrea and family distributed hugs all around and left for the ferry. but first i popped my air mattress because it was caught on the radiator and i didn't know it.

then we all got ready and went out for a family photo shoot. brent opted out but he told us to go to colliery dam which was the perfect place. we had the best time taking shots and having fun in the leaves. we were gone 2 hours and didn't even realize it.

when we got home we watched dr. oz and oprah with brent, had panago pizza and then katie and elizabeth drove me to the ferry. i got there just in time. i read my book the whole way back sitting at a table just outside the cafeteria because the ferry was so full there were no seats. at one point a worker asked me to move so a family could sit at my table. i said NO! just kidding i said no problem and moved to a single area.

once on the shuttle bus to the parking lot, i realized that i had no idea where i parked my car. so i took the bus to the very last stop and and walked back towards the front. sure enough it was very close to the front, although it didn't seem that close when i was parking.

other thanksgiving tidbits:

1. andrea kept telling us things we knew.

2. i found it irresistible when sitting in the chair at the table across from the mirror not to keep adjusting my hair and checking out different looks. i got a lot of ribbing for it from katie and andrea.

3. we looked up lots of our old houses on google maps street view

so that's thanksgiving. today was the fist day back from the long weekend and the first day of our new menu which is always a crazy time. no pun intended. this menu has a lot of things you need to make in the afternoon, in an effort to have more participation in the afternoon hours, which is our struggle. but today it was only us staff working our butts off. we made hundreds of meatballs, i made up a tomato and mozza baked pasta dish, we made pancake batter, we did dishes we took out the garbage. i wrote out recipes that were only in my head so that other people can make things when i'm not there...the work never stopped and now i'm late for bed. i have to do pancakes in the morning. later peeps.