Back in January, Jeff started suggesting to his parents, siblings and some aunts/uncles/cousins that all should gather in California for Thanksgiving at our house in 2009. Well, he continued, throughout the year, to invite and reinvite and reinvite and then the day finally arrived and everyone showed up! Jeff was ecstatic and I was relieved that my now 2nd trimester pregnant body was feeling up to the task.
We had guests from Oregon, Utah, Virginia and California. One cousin and his family of six stayed at our home for the week and they were perfect guests. We got to visit with a total of 34 family members and even fed them all a delicious, sit-down, traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We only missed Aunt Laura who injured her shoulder the day before and so couldn't make it for the big day.
Monday and Tuesday were filled with cleaning (thanks to Aunt Janell and Grandma Joan!), cooking and grocery shopping. Tuesday night we helped Grandma Joan make her famous apple pies for our feast. It took 3 hours of peeling, cutting, measuring, rolling to make 5 beautiful apple pies! The Ullmans arrived from Utah that night and immediately pitched in to help finish.
Jeff kept Ben busy in the garage playing air hockey, using only their hands to hit the puck.
On Wednesday morning, we'd finished most of the Thanksgiving prep work, so we took the Ullman family to San Francisco for some tourist activities. Here's Ben on Lombard St. - he loves this place, especially because even on maps it's curvy.
We went to Pier 39 and watched the sea lions fight for space. They always remind me of me with my children in my bed early in the morning -- get off!!! Here's Eliza with her cousin Cathy. They played
perfectly together for hours and hours on Tuesday and then again on Friday.
Also at Pier 39 we watched a (mediocre) magic show and Jeff and cousin Christian and son Connor were selected for the grand final act. And Eliza, well, she just can't stay off a stage.
Look at this gorgeous day on the Golden Gate Bridge!!! I include this photo because you can see Ben making a u-turn around the "no u-turn" sign.
These four walked across the entire bridge and we tired folk picked them up on the other side. Jeff and Ethan with Kayla and McKena:
The Ullman family with San Francisco in the background:
And then it was home to prep for Thanksgiving Day! All the family started arriving in the afternoon and just as everyone was accounted for, the turkey was done ... 2 hours early ... so it had to wait. Meanwhile we all enjoyed an appetizer spread orchestrated by Jeff's mom.
Then, with the help of MANY hands, we all sat down for a delicious (if I dare say so myself) Thanksgiving meal.
Table 1:
Table 2:
Table 3:
Table 3 other side:
This is Table 4 but with the wrong people sitting there. It was the kids but they all ate pretty fast. Except for Eliza. She stayed at the table by herself and ate and ate and ate.
And here's Grandma Swickard (we call her "GG" for Great Grandma) with the 15 great grandchildren who were at our house that day. Yes, she has even more than this!
So a big thanks goes to my mom for being a kitchen slave, launderer, housecleaner, and event planner extraordinaire. She's pretty amazing. The funniest moment was when on Tuesday night after working hard for two straight days she actually thanked
me for letting her help. What?!
