Gobble Gobble!

So Turkey Day 2007 was a shining success. Rachel discovered the perfect amount of food to prepare for our family. It’s a quest she’s been on since 2004. And look, it only took three years! Most impressive. The snacks were delicious. Paul even whipped up some Cheesecake Factory mashed potatoes (the secret is the right blend of pepper, salt and cream). Nicholas was very busy. Ever since our trip to Chicago, he’s been quite obsessed with skyscrapers. He built this lovely edifice with the help of Grandma and Grandpa Pettit. He also went outside with Gramps to play in the snow. He built a snow leopard fort…and proceeded to roar like a snow leopard for the rest of the day.

There was napping and football watching. My brother cursed the Packers all afternoon. In the evening the grandparents dispersed and Paul and I went to our traditional Thanksgiving movie. This year it was Beowulf in 3-D. I wanted to go see Enchanted, but was vetoed by Paul. He ate his words when Beowulf was over. It was terrible! At least…in our opinions. And we have pretty credible opinions when it comes to movies, I like to think.

Friday morning I headed up to Spencerburg to visit my parents and see some friends (new and old!). It was a good time. I ran into some people I haven’t seen since high school, which was pretty surreal. I saw a couple of quarter tricks—one quarter was cleverly slipped up my shirtsleeve…the other was thrown at my face across a bar. I much preferred the first trick.

On Saturday night I got to go listen to some karaoke. My companions for the evening sang a couple of songs and they were fabulous. But they couldn’t compete with the local karaoke artists. Truly, Spencer is an untapped bed of talent. Reality television needs to explore that uncharted territory, I’m telling you.

Our IT guy at work commissioned this painting last month. He went on a family vacation and took a photo of the Precious Arch in Moab Utah. It was fun to do a landscape. I haven’t done one of those in quite some time. I really enjoy painting landscapes and architecture…I think it’s a toss-up between painting portraits of kiddos and painting landscapes.

Now it’s only 3 weeks until Christmas. I’m proud to say I have my shopping almost done. And what I have left I can do online and in downtown Iowa City. I get to avoid the insanity of Coralridge altogether this year. I can’t believe that I was working there a year ago. It seems like ages…

Cheers