Thanksgiving 2011

This year for Thanksgiving we celebrated with the Evenhouse side of the family on Thanksgiving Day.  Then on Friday Scott and I did all of our Christmas shopping--I hate shopping on Black Friday, but it is usually the only time we can go together.  We did not do any crazy things like getting up at 3am or anything...we left home at 8:30am, got some stuff here in Oskaloosa, and then made it to Des Moines to get the rest of our shopping done.  We were not able to visit with the Platt side of the family this year--one of Scott's brothers had to work over the holiday, one has been in the hospital a lot and stayed home, and Scott left on Sunday for a 2 week work trip to Portland, OR.

Part of my contribution: kolaches, Dutch apple pie, and chai almond cookies.  The cookies were a new recipe, and even though I cooked them shorter than the recipe said, they were hard as rocks and dry as a bone...they went in the garbage.

We all went to church at Third on Thanksgiving morning...and our family took up an entire row!

 We ate at my sister's house, because they have a big enough room that all of us can sit around the table.  I was not able to get a shot of everyone in one picture, even from the very top of the stairs, so it is split between two pictures this year.

All the grandkids from youngest to oldest.

 In the afternoon we all walked over to visit Grandma Evenhouse at the Comfort House and eat dessert.  We treasure every moment we can have with Grandma!  She is the expert kolache maker...apparently I have the thickness right, but did not put in enough apricot filling this year.  I find it funny when she tells me that, since I think I have seen her cook a grand total of 6 different items in my entire life...but she is the kolache expert....

Scott always manages to charm the nieces and nephews by feeding them.  Kendall apparently likes my apple pie!

We saw this door mat during our shopping expedition, and I thought it would nice in front of our door.  

Here is Scott playing with our new toy.  We decided to buy a new digital SLR camera this year--we had the money in the budget, and the camera will be nice when we have our baby!  Right now we're working on figuring out all of the things we can do with it.