Happy Thanksgiving

The last two or three days we have had unusually beautiful weather. Sunshine, temps in the sixties, blue skies and light winds. Then, we woke up on Thanksgiving to yet another island tempest. Wild winds, crazy sideways rain and just general nastiness.

This is the view out the back, trees are blowing sideways and video probably would have been more telling than a picture.

Poor Shelby had to get up at 5:30 to go out in the weather to get the smoker going and the turkey on. Then he had to go out about every 20 minutes or so to check on the smoker and make sure the winds and the rain were not bothering the temperature inside the smoker. Not fun!

The weather was still not cooperating midday when it was time to fry the other turkeys and so that had to be done inside the garage. Talk about SMELL. Fried turkey tastes delicious but oh my does it smell terrible when it is cooking. I had every Scentsy warmer in the house on as well as all my candles lit trying to banish the smell from the house before the guests arrived.

I had done some of the baking and prep Wednesday night, and only had a few things left to do Thursday morning, which was very nice. Then the housekeeper came and cleaned it all up and made it sparkling before people came over, so thankful for that! Here is my pretty dining room table ready to eat on...

Here is the makeshift table in the living room so that we all had enough space to eat.

The spread of food!

We had two fried turkeys, one with jalapeño butter injections and one that we did in a brine recipe found here, plus a smoked turkey on the smoker that was soaked in a brine also. We had all the sides and fixins including some delicious Portuguese type stuffing brought over by the neighbor's Portuguese family.

I was quite pleased with my pecan pie this year, isn't it pretty?

We had about 15 people between the four families together for dinner. Our neighbors Dan & Rosanne and their girls, and their Portuguese family came too. We also had a family that is new to the island that we have made friends with over. Their household goods were just delivered Wednesday, so their house is a sea of boxes right now. I love having lots of people but I don't think our little house could hold any more than we had. Base housing is just not made for entertaining!