Thanks and Feasting

Thanksgiving has come and gone. We have had a wonderful long weekend of feasting and relaxing.

We joined our friends for dinner. We brought this fabulous turkey to deep fry. (Our host roasted one as well so that we would have in-bird stuffing to enjoy.)

I asked Lester at the meat counter at HEB to find me his biggest turkey. This was it. 23 pounds. It barely fit in the fryer.

Right as we got to our friend's house, a cold front blew in and so we had to set up a little lean to in the back corner of the yard to fry the turkey. Of course, all the kids wanted to watch.

It was a beautifully crisp on the outside, moist on the inside turkey. Ready in just over an hour. Beats getting up early to put the bird in the oven. We actually fried two turkeys. I signed up to bring turkey to the ward Christmas party next week. So I just cooked another one at the same time. Just freezing that turkey for the party.

I had planned to do three. But the one that I tried thawing in the refrigerator was still frozen when we left for the party. So we roasted that one today. Nothing like a second Thanksgiving dinner to enjoy again.

Inside, Marie and Johanna were finishing the last preparations for dinner.

Jed was carving the oven roasted turkey. Nate carved the fried one.

Then everyone loaded up.

We had lots of pie. I made 7 pies. Bought 6 more. Marie made 3 more. We didn't come home with much: 3 out of the 16. Those disappeared the next day.

We played the traditional Kerksiek family candy game. All the kids had fun.

This is the group shot. The sister missionaries were there too. But they left before I could snap the picture.

It was a great night. We went and saw Tangled afterward. Kind of late, but the theater was pretty empty.

I missed my family. But I am thankful for good friends to fill their place.