Thanksgiving 2009

Last night was amazing!! Everything was perfect for me. We had some setbacks and some exercises in flexibility (substituting ingredients, rearranging cooking utensils, reorganizing pans, finding enough plates and chairs!), but it was delicious and I'm quite sure everyone had a good time, so it's a success.
Ha, this is the night before when Vic was studying the turkey as he was doctoring it - getting it ready for it's last night in the fridge.



All the food! I had to do some delegating toward the end, but Vic and Oyvind were asking to be of service. SO - Oyvind mastered the mashed potatoes and Vic carved the turkey - just like all the videos we watched told us to do :) They were masters! Not to mention that with about 30 minutes to meal time, I requested for Vic to just come up with a way to make some sauce. ha ha. But he did! We had some stuff to work with and those two negotiated some magic while I was finishing up the stuffing and pineapple. Oh yea - the meal: turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, scalloped pineapple, pink stuff and the gravy. Not to mention the cranberry/orange/cream cheese appetizer thing and the apple cake he made. And all we filled with leftovers at the end of the night was a 5 x 7in box. It was amazing! Even if I do say so myself...



All the people :) This part made me so happy! I told them that at home, it's not time to eat until we've taken the picture of everyone at their seats, food in place, but not eating yet! Tore was Uncle Fred in this pic, so he's not in it. Starting from the bottom left, that's Carl, a roommate; Maren; Othelia; me; Oystein; Vibeke; Taksha and then Oyvind is cut out as well as another girl Ida. After so many attempts to take this picture, some are cut out and some are not looking. We'll take what we can get.

Everyone was wonderful. Despite my lack of preparation with the Thanksgiving day story, they knew just as much as I did anyway!
Somewhere in here though, Texas came up, as did country music. Ha, Tore actually likes country so he was playing it for the backgroud music! Even though that's not really at all like my Thanksgivings at home... But after dinner, they literally moved the table so I could teach them some basic line dancing. Texans would have loved to see this one!! The best part is when people are trying to follow, but the line has turned, so they're having to look behind them while still attempting the steps... Which reminds me - I'm also thankful for country-western dancing.

Awh, this is just a very HIM look and I happened to capture it. And now I'm sharing it. This is his "I don't know, I give up" look. Vibeke, Carl, and him and I were sitting around after others had left helping Carl finish his bottle of wine... I'm pretty sure this frustration came from not being able to find a karaoke version of Spice Girls "Wannabee" with the words included. Tragic, I know.




And another picture together :)
After a while, we (and Carl) joined Oyvind and Taksha at a salsa dancing club in town! I'd never done it before of course, but I figure, I teach people dancing they don't know, I should put up with learning something I don't know. Vic is quite good and patient (or maybe he meant it when he said I'm a quick learner) and so we learned the basics before doing it on a dancefloor. I personally liked the merengue where all I did was kinda stomp/walk and got twirled around just as long as I took the right cues.

I have a lot to be thankful for, but in this moment, I'm thankful for the food this country DID have, for my helpful, patient sous-chef, the 9 Norwegians who ate "my" food and for the Slovaks (or Norwegians for that matter) who didn't bump into me on the dance floor.
I could have used an apron though...