Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was our second year just the two of us, this time because Mark had to work on the day after Thanksgiving at a BGSU football game. The band had to report to campus around 6am, so we decided to stay home and have a quiet Thanksgiving together in our new house. Even better, our new table was finally delivered just a week or two before Thanksgiving! 

our beautiful table, set for two with family crystal

For me, it was a short week: I worked at home on Monday, then taught on Tuesday. No classes Wednesday-Friday. I did have a bit of grading to do on Wednesday morning, but after that, I spent a quiet day mostly working in the kitchen getting things ready for the big Thanksgiving meal. It felt like such a luxury to have the whole day without any other expectations or obligations. 

On Wednesday night, we were invited to the drumline's friendsgiving, hosted by one of the students. He made a turkey and rolls, and everyone brought other dishes to share. There were 11 of us all together, and it was a really nice gathering. After we ate, they played a few rounds of jackbox games (Mark joined in, I watched). Then Mark and I headed home (we're sure they kept hanging out for a while). It's really neat for me to see how this group of students bonds with each other, and the food was delicious, too! (We brought a cheeseball with crackers and pumpkin chocolate chip bread). 

Thursday was a nice quiet day at home with Mark. I had a slow start in the morning, we took a walk together, I watched some of the national dog show, then started cooking at some point in the afternoon. I also talked to my parents on the phone, and later we had a short phone call with Mark's mom. We watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving movie somewhere in there, too. 

Here's what we ate!

roasted chicken! (and a happy cook)

Mark's plate on the left, mine on the right

close up: chicken, mashed potato casserole, bacon
brussels sprouts, mac & cheese, roll, cranberry sauce

homemade pumpkin pie

On Friday, Mark had a super early start for the football game and was gone all day. I walked downtown to do a bit of local shopping and just enjoyed a relaxing day. Saturday was more R&R at home: reading, movies, coloring books. On Sunday, we put up most of our Christmas decorations. I'll post about those sometime soon--we have a few unfinished projects still. :-)

Overall, it was a really lovely weekend, even though we missed seeing our Michigan family again.  It was such a gift to have this long stretch of days away from school work before heading into the last few weeks of the semester. And I'm in the home stretch now--this is our last week of classes, then finals is next week. Almost there!