Why have a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner when you can have a T-Rex?

During this Thanksgiving the pandemic was raging across the United States and in Arizona.  So, many families decided to celebrate the holiday at home.  Most everyone wanted to cook their own turkey, specifically a small turkey for the perfect small gathering.

The grocery stores were not prepared for this unprecedented rush on small turkeys.  Eight days before Thanksgiving I realized that I could no longer purchase an 8-12 pound turkey and the 10-20 pound turkeys were getting scarce.   So I ordered a medium sized turkey (with home delivery from our local Walmart) and allowed substitutions.  I just wanted any old turkey for our Thanksgiving celebration.

This is what was delivered outside our garage door.....a 25 pound baby T-Rex!

Our so-called "turkey" took up the entire top shelf of our refrigerator:

On Thanksgiving morning at 6 a.m., after letting our T-Rex thaw out in the refrigerator for EIGHT days, I prepared to stuff our baby dinosaur.  He was still a bit frozen!  That’s how big he was.

I added the last of my plum sauce to our stuffing.  I had made this sauce specifically for Thanksgiving turkey stuffing years ago when I had lived on a farm with an orchard that included a wonderful plum tree.

Dan is my Superman so I put him to work.  He did all the heavy lifting. 

I don’t know how his back is, but mine is just fine.  Thank you, Dan, for taking care of me.

I take care of Dan too.  I “let” him wear one of my aprons when he offered to be my sous-chef.  Wasn’t that nice of me?  I don’t think he felt like my Superman while wearing my ruffly apron.

Ten years ago on our first Thanksgiving, Dan gave me his grandmother’s apron.  She had made it from flour sacks.  Here I am wearing my special Grandmother’s apron while making our pumpkin pies.

Dan and I spent the entire day together preparing for our Thanksgiving feast.

I had already made a cranberry/raspberry sauce.  The raspberries helped to sweeten the cranberries, so I was able to use less brown sugar....it is a very tasty sauce!

Dan made the most delicious bean casserole.  This was something that his mother had made every Thanksgiving, but since my mother had made a broccoli casserole I had not tasted bean casserole before Dan introduced it into our Thanksgiving menu.  It will be part of our celebration tradition now forever.....very delicious, and not too heavy or filling so we could eat lots of our T-Rex and pie too!

[Dan here:  Vicky makes plum stuffing, cooks the Turkey just right, makes pumpkin pies.  My contribution was a casserole that had THREE ingredients--all from cans!   And she gave me the recipe to boot.  I opened cans and stirred.  Vicky said I look like a proud little boy....and I agree!!!]

Back to Vicky:

 

I made enough mashed potatoes to feed all of Leisure World.....but, after all, don’t we need enough to match the size of our T-Rex?

This big boy took 6 1/2 hours to cook!  But he sure looks tasty and we sure are hungry after smelling him roasting all day long.

Finally done!

The gravy is simmering and all was ready for our feast:

Pumpkin pie with ice cream....I had trouble finding Dan’s pie under his mounds of ice cream.

This is the view out our window that we get to enjoy everyday from our beautiful home, Nuestra Casa!  But we particularly marveled at what a beautiful place we live in as we celebrated Thanksgiving this year.

We look forward to the day when the pandemic is over and we can see our family, our children, and grandchildren.  We miss them all so very much.  It hurts us inside everyday.

We spent every minute together on our 10th Thanksgiving Day.  The entire day was just wonderful.  We thought of Thanksgivings past and talked about all that we are thankful for. 

We are so very thankful for our family, children, and grandchildren.  We are thankful that all those we love are well and that we are healthy.  We are thankful for each other, the days and nights that we share, and our life together. We are thankful for the love that we feel for each other.  

We certainly have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving and every day.

Thanksgiving together for 10 years!

This year we realized that we are now celebrating our tenth Thanksgiving together.  That surprises us!

How time passes.  We are at an age that we are noticing the passage of time in a way that we never have before.  

It is sweet to reminisce and talk together of our past.  We have so very many good memories of our childhood and growing up in the 50’s, our siblings and friends, the work where we dedicated many years, once in a lifetime memories of our children growing up and becoming adults, and the wonderful memories of our ten years together.

But it is also disturbing since we can’t quite figure out where the time went.  We can’t fathom when or how we became an old couple.  Just yesterday it seems that there were “old” people around, but we were not one of those “old” people.  And now we are.

It’s OK because we love each other and love our life together.  And we love our grandchildren, our children, and our family.  It’s just a bit perplexing.....

 "Who knows where the time goes...."

We also miss our family that is no longer here.  Those that have died, with all of their memories that have died with them. We wish that we could see them, hear their voices, see their smiles again, and talk together and hear their wisdom.   But our memories of them are sweet and vibrant.  And we think of them every day.

Now that we are celebrating our 10th Thanksgiving, we realize that we have many years of memories together, and this also gets us thinking about the passage of time.

We both love Thanksgiving Day with the smell of turkey in the oven and the family we love gathered together with laughter and love in the air.  We have so many memories of Thanksgivings past.   It is our favorite holiday.  

Here is our past nine years of Thanksgiving celebrations in photos.  We have celebrated Thanksgiving all over our wonderful country--in Washington, Florida, Utah, Arizona, Texas, and California.  Our 10th Thanksgiving, this year's, will be a separate blog post.

2011 at our home Whidbey Island home in Washington:

 

2012 at home on Whidbey Island:

2013 at the Everglades in Florida:

2014 at Big Bend National Park, Texas:

2015 at our Whidbey Island home....an early Thanksgiving in September with much of our family:

 

2015 Actual Thanksgiving Day in the Mojave National Preserve, California:

 

2016 at the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona:

 

2017 at Valley of the Gods in Utah:

 

2018 our first year living in Leisure World with our grandson, Adam:

 

2019 with Kathy and Bill at our home, Nuestra Casa, in Leisure World, Arizona:

We have so very much to be thankful for on this beautiful Thanksgiving Day in 2020!

Dan and Vicky going for a ride in our new 1948 Ford convertible

 Some models I have recently completed.

 

That's as close as we are going to get to actually having one (sob).  Here are some more before and after photos of model cars, including this one, that I (Dan) have been building. 

First, the 1948 Ford shown above.  Started like this:

Now, Vicky taking us for a nice ride with the top down:

The following is a 1934 Citroen CV 15.  I love these types of vehicles because they have an art deco look to them.  My love doesn't extend to the Heller model kits, though, because they have an almost absurd amount of tiny pieces that have to be affixed to the outside.  In addition, Heller model kits don't always provide good guidance in the instructions as to the exact placement of parts.  And if one is off by less than 1/32 of an inch on some parts, then when the model is almost done it won't fit together correctly.   GRRRR

Finally, many of the small pieces are simply glued onto the body--there aren't pins and holes to hold them in place to dry as there are in other company's models.

So, gluing the small pieces, while exposing none of the body to excess glue, is a real challenge.  After one like this, I need to work on a couple of less frustrating models.

 Before assembly:

 

And when completed:

Here is a French Citroen Landaulet:  It is a late 20s car.  The difference in style between the early 30s one above and the late 20s one below is obvious.

The meaning of Landaulet is that it is a four-wheel carriage with a top divided into two sections that can be folded away or removed and with a raised seat outside for the driver

Before assembly:

During assembly:

 

Completion:

 

1914 Mercedes race car.

Before:

 

 

Working on it:

 

 

 

After:

 

   

Citroen C4 Splendid Hotel (1928-1930)

Before assembly:

During assembly:

Finished:

 

1935 Morgan 3-wheeler (the Mog):

Before assembly:

After assembly: