what's cooking?

Here in our corner of the desert, we had our usual potluck.

Now that I am officially out of the boot and have moved into wearing an ankle brace and stuffing it all into another shoe, I am working hard at gaining strength. I still have to take the walker with me since my ankle, while healed, is still quite painful and weak. Thankfully, Adam has been home since the kids have the whole week off.  He and Jackson have made sure to take all four dogs, themselves and me out for a mile walk around the neighborhood.

This year, since Sarah gave Steve a smoker for Father's day, he smoked our turkey. Must say, all of us agree that it was our juiciest and best tasting turkey ever!

I had prepped it the night before so it was nicely seasoned, looked beautiful and tasted really good.

We had two types of cranberry sauce. Jellied and homemade.  The homemade courtesy of Aidan. he also had quite the hand in making this year's stuffing and sweet potatoes. Of course, between Steve and Aidan, I was able to accomplish my mashed potatoes. We also had a string bean casserole that Sarah makes every year. Not the usual, she makes hers with roasted beets and toasted walnuts and tops with some nice goat cheese. Sam rounded out the meal with a delicious butternut squash and kale salad. Sam also brought the pumpkin pie, chocolate cream pie and she made a tart with several types of berries. 

We were all incredibly full!

We were also very happy that we took that family Walk earlier in the day.

There was just enough turkey left for Steve to take for his lunch today with some of the sides.

Thankfully, there was also enough sides that I shouldn't have to stand on my feet for too long for several days! There is also enough turkey and vegetables left that I'm going to make a matzo ball soup.

Adam and Steve both had to be at work early this morning. I've already put up the second load of dishes that I had to stack last night.

Courtesy of Sarah, we played a very interesting game that she found on the internet. It was called Intent.  they were cards that had some very interesting questions that we could share our answers and hold some fantastic conversations! Then it came with little washers that we could stamp with one of the words that the cards gave as the subject. The kids enjoyed stamping their little washers. We all chose words such as: hope, dream, love and serve.

We were truly all very thankful.