Thanksgiving

First time cooking a turkey! It turned out perfect. We got the turkey fresh from the butcher down the street.

Was lucky enough to find pumpkin puree at TK Maxx in Durham! I was so excited to know I would make pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. I also made homemade whipped cream, but since we don't have a mixer, I shook it up in a jar and it worked great!

This year, thanksgiving was a little different than usual, seeing as we are halfway across the world from our fellow turkey-eating Americans. Daniel and I are no strangers to being away from our immediate family for thanksgiving. The last two thanksgivings we have had as a married couple have been spent on the east coast in DC with my sweet aunt and uncle and cousin-since it was just a short drive down from our home in Pennsylvania. Those two thanksgivings will always have a special place in my heart, and we always had so much fun in DC with family. This thanksgiving was a little different though, since we didn't have any family to spend it with. We decided to get together with some of the other American student-athletes, have everyone pitch in, and have a nice thanksgiving dinner together. 

I am a big fan of tradition, so I was a bit nervous of how homesick I would be on thanksgiving. I was afraid it wouldn't feel like thanksgiving here, and that the food wouldn't taste the same (almost NOTHING tastes the same here as it does in the states). Our boiler mysteriously stopped working the night before thanksgiving, so we woke up on Thursday to an extra chilly house. We wrapped up in some blankets, sat on the couch, and began to tell stories of thanksgivings past, and traditions we loved as kids. I think we will make this a new tradition for our family. Talking about these memories made it actually feel like thanksgiving, and made me excited for the rest of the day. I was in charge of the turkey, gravy, rolls, green bean casserole, and the pumpkin pies. Basically the most important and delicious things, that I didn't want anyone else to mess up! haha. We picked up our fresh 12 pound turkey that morning from the jolly butcher down the street. He told us it had been butchered on Tuesday, so it was about as fresh as a turkey could get! Doing a turkey for the first time is a daunting task, but thanks to my mom putting up with my constant texts, the turkey turned out to be something my mom, and all my grandmas would be proud of! After a full day of baking, we got together with our fellow homesick Americans, and had a thanksgiving dinner that we will always remember. The food tasted so close to the food we would of had at home. It was a blessing! There was about 16 of us and we all ate a ton and there was still tons of food leftover, so I'd say it was a success. There is nothing better than Thanksgiving leftovers. Even though this Thanksgiving was a different one, we will always remember our little thanksgiving in England.