Thanksgiving 2010.

Growing sourdough bread rolls. Start at 5 PM on Wednesday. Finish baking Thursday around 2 pm.

Sausage Balls. Andy has them popping out of the oven fresh and hot throughout the afternoon.

Pie crust. Poked too many holes. Sealed them up a bit. In the end, sealed too many. Nice flaky crust though.

Meringue. Never as tall as mom's, but equally tasty.

Rolls still growing, but finally in the oven.


Mimosas, of course.

Decorating the blessing cards. He worked for hours. They looked so distinct and personalized.

The finished product. Chocolate pie. Erica told Andy, this filling does not taste like regular pudding. He said, "It's because it isn't." Lots of milk, eggs, good chocolate, and sugar (cornstarch too of course).

Corn pudding.

Kentucky cheeses thanks to Grandmother (again! this year).

Two chickens. A ridiculous amount of buttery broth. The making for some rich chicken and dumplings, of which I did not get a picture.

Snatching dinner rolls between frisbee games.

Turkey Dancing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4R1q1NU0iU

And the morning after. We washed dishes for hours.

Volleyball: Fast times at Peter Piper.

On Thursday, Turner and Andy went to Peter Piper Pizza (think Chuck E Cheese) to meet up with Turner's soccer team and take a photo. I am not a lover of noisy, smelly places filled with flashing lights, screaming kids, and a winter's worth of cold germs, so I stayed home. Andy kept me updated via text. The first one said, "Be glad you aren't here!"

It was team photo night for ALL the sports teams associated with Tucson's national youth soccer league. Peter Piper, already a pretty busy place, was overrun with kids in soccer, indoor and outdoor, ranging in ages from 3 to 12 or 13 years. There were other sports there too, but I only know of volleyball (more on that in a bit). There are about five or six teams per age group. To make the frenzy even more fun, the "professional" photographer forgot the camera batteries. Instead of walking next door to Best Buy and purchasing a new battery, the photographer drove back to the office, which is nearly twenty miles west of Peter Piper. Over an hour later, kids waiting in line with and without patience, the photographer returns and starts snapping photos.

Andy and T get a free father/son picture, and then they cheese together as a team, or what remained of them. Four of the teammates had to leave during the long wait for camera batteries. T FINALLY gets to play the games. He has $5 in tokens and, according to Andy, that can really take a long time to spend when you're frustrated, tired, and hungry. In the end, Turner earned 190 tickets and, therefore, brought home a host of plastic stuff made in China. And a dinosaur from the Philippines. The men make it home near Turner's bed time, but we sit down to dinner together anyway. Fried pork chops, mashed potatoes, and D's favorite, brussel sprouts.

After we finish eating and done our plate duties, Turner tells me, "Mom, I want to whisper something to you."
"Okay."
He whispers, loudly enough for Andy to hear from across the table, "I stood next to a hot volleyball chick tonight."

I pull my ear away and make eye contact with him. He smiles and looks down in a bashful kind of way. I look at Andy who is dumbfounded. I laugh.
"Oh really?" I can't keep the smile from my face.
"Yeah," Turner says with pride.
Andy says, "I saw you watching her."
"Yeah. And I told Cam to look at her too." He giggles. Andy laughs out loud. I feel as though I should say something feminist, but . . .

Later Andy tells me he saw Turner checking her out from behind his hand. Sneaking glances while she looked away. She was blonde and about 12 years old.

Fall festival.

Our Saturday line up: Gym, Soccer Game, Fall Festival at Turner's school, Tutoring, and Making Manicotti for Dinner. We won the soccer game. Turner had two great saves. He is such an effective goalie; he almost refuses to play another position. Last week he flat out refused citing evidence of his replacement's inability to block some important goals. This week he played half a quarter after his coach assured him that at all other moments he could play goalie.


We arrive at the fall festival about 12:45. It ran 11 - 2. We bought our tickets, jumped in the jumping castle twice, ran the maze twice, fished twice, got hair painted, stuck hand into frozen goo to search for eyeballs, walked and won at the cupcake walk, and hit the toilet with toilet paper rolls.
He won a small stack of slinkies, tops, poppers, and twirling things (another round of cheap Chinese plastics). I wasn't allowed to put these things in my purse; I had to carry them around in my hands, dropping something or other a frustrating amount of times. I got to meet some of Turner's friends' parents, and we all made comments about how hot it was (sunny and 80).


There was great music though, loud loud loud, and Turner and I found plenty of opportunities to shake our bodies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhAy9R0ZCM8