Tahoe Thanksgiving

Our neighbors, invited us up to Lake Tahoe this year to spend Thanksgiving at their rustic ski cabin with them and their two Devon Rex cats. We couldn't resist the chance of a change of scenery and the prospect of a relaxing weekend. However, with our neighbor being almost 37 weeks pregnant, it was up in the air until almost the last minute. Luckily she didn't have any problems at all. We got on her schedule of eating though. Pregnant people tend to eat like Hobbits--we had breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, luncheon, afternoon tea (or beer/wine in my case), dinner and of course supper (which was usually late dessert). It was really easy to get used to.

Tim and I ended up cooking the entire Tday meal from scratch. Tim did the deep fried turkey, helped with the mashing of the sweet potatoes, and was my moral support the day before we went up, by hanging out in the kitchen while I made wheat-germ biscuits, cooked the cranberries, and baked the pumpkin and pecan pies. We made the stuffing in a crock-pot this year, since you can't stuff a deep fried bird. (At least not while cooking it.) We then re-heated the items that we prepped the day before, and fixed up some mashed potatoes and turkey gravy as well. Everything tasted wonderful! Tim's turkey had a dry rub on it and he injected it with a home-made sauce that amongst other things, contained butter, lemon, and Iowa maple syrup, it was so moist! Tim actually complained that the breast meat was too juicy, as he couldn't drown it in gravy. (And of course he had to compare his wonderful turkey injecting skills with the "Big shot" he had to give me!) It seemed that all of the cooking ended up starting a theme, as later in the weekend I was inspired to "whip up" some home-made eggnog! I forgot how rich it tastes compared to store bought. I made enough that we had eggnog lattes the last few days we were there. (Yes, we had to bring up our espresso machine and steaming accessories. We are so spoiled!!!)

It snowed on Friday and the girls stayed indoors by the wood burning stove most of the day. I learned how to play Spite and Malice which was a lot of fun. Unfortunately we only played one game before the men came home from their trip to town. At that point they introduced us to Sudoku, which is right up my alley. Need I say addicting? We all sat around the fire one night solving our sudoku puzzles. We did manage to make it outside for a walk every day. As depicted in the picture that was taken when we walked to the lake. The wind whipped across the dark ebony water with a vengeance, making it seem very cold and foreboding! (Although from what I can remember when I water skied on the lake during the summer of 1989 the water was freezing cold then too!)

Between cuddling with the VERY WARM cats, playing games, and working hard at doing almost nothing at all. I started wishing it would snow more... If it did Tim and I would have been stuck there for awhile, since we took my convertible and the low-profile tires do not accommodate chains. (I have to admit my car cover looked pretty funny the first snowy morning under almost 2 inches of snow, and it wasn't much fun trying to get the icy cover into it's storage bag when we left to go home on Sunday.) More snow arrived on Monday, and everyone leaving the Tahoe area needed chains! So close! It would have been SOO cool to be snowed in! We got snow days in Iowa all of the time. (This just meant the roads were too slippery for the busses to take you to school, but not too slippery to enjoy the day off, snowmobiling, sledding, or skating!) Oh well, maybe next time...