First Thanksgiving in Virginia

Dave's sister Melanie and her family moved about the same time we did. Our Florida-to-Virginia move wasn't nearly as much of a climate shocker as theirs: Arizona to Connecticut. Melanie's husband is an optometrist with the Navy, and they drove all the way down to see us for Thanksgiving.

Melanie and Sam are dedicated runners, so Dave signed them all up for the local Thanksgiving 5k along the James River. Sam came in first in his division, (there were several hundred runners) and may have come in first overall if the course had been more clearly marked.

While they ran, I watched the 5 kids, and we played by the riverside history mural.

Stackable cousins! Collect them all! Samuel (left), Nate, and Jane held up Andy and Jessica.

In the picture below, we're outside the children's museum with James River fountain in the background. All the kids took turns climbing down the metal caterpillar and getting "pooped" out; Jessica was the last one, shown here.

Hiking picturesque stairs in the historic section of Lynchburg on our way back to our car:

Later we played and worked on Thanksgiving dinner. I ordered a card table the exact width and height of our kitchen table, and a new long tablecloth. The dinner looked great with all white dishes. (It was a perfect warm day, and if we'd thought of it sooner, we probably could've set up the table outside.)

Melanie and Sam made sweet potato souffle, a fruit salad, whole wheat rolls, and stuffing. Dave brined and cooked the turkey and made the mashed potatoes. And I made creamy beans and peas, Indian succotash (my new favorite), and mashed trio (turnip, rutabaga, and potatoes). 


It's ironic that Samuel, forks held the highest, was the pickiest eater, but Jessica was a close second. There was only one food everyone loved: turkey!

 Happy Thanksgiving!

 After the feast we took naps, did some Wii dancing, and went on walks,

and of course, ate pie. Melanie and Sam brought pumpkin and pecan (my favorite). Dave and I made apple, cherry, and grasshopper (chocolate mint) pie. I experimented with several variations of pumpkin: maple pumpkin with walnut streusel, pumpkin with gingersnap crust, and apple butter-pumpkin with pecan streusel. (Honestly, I think normal pumpkin pie is still best, but it was fun to try, and I had to use up that apple butter.)

The next day we slept in, then did some black Friday shopping. I got discounts on Candy Land, our new Kitchen Aid mixer, outdoor lighted Christmas trees, and this:

Friday we also visited the Thomas Jefferson summer home: Poplar Forest, which is in the heart of Lynchburg. Surprisingly, the home was lived in and owned by private citizens until the 1980's; they only began restoring it, adding museum buildings, replanting historical landscaping, and restoring the furnishings (burned in an earlier fire) in the last 2 decades.

The home is octagonal, and the grounds very symmetrical.

Below our niece and nephews, pretending they are impatiently waiting to use the "necessary": the fanciest outhouse I've ever seen.

Below, Jessica, age 21 months, stands next to her 4-yr old cousin Andy. That's our tall daughter!

At home, we set up Jessica's little Christmas tree with plastic ornaments in her room. (It took forever to get this shot; silly kids!)

Bubbles + shaving cream paint + fizzy bath colors +  cousins = FUN!

And Dave opened up his extensive Lego Technics collection to make this Lego car with his nephews with gear shifts, steering, shocks, and headlights. Pretty impressive.

While Melanie and Sam had to sleep on air mattresses, they at least had their own place in the office. And the cousins slept on couches and air mattresses in the front room. We never could have accommodated them in our old squishy place. They left first thing Sunday morning. Thanks for coming to visit, Jarvis family!

Thanksgiving

We had a nice quiet Thanksgiving. Dave enjoyed his 4-day weekend, and I got 4 days off working on the Nativity. The day started with Dave running 4 miles in the local "Run for the Pies" in which the first couple hundred people across the finish line won a pie.

Two years ago he ran this race with my sister and her husband, and we thought it was a 5k (3.1 miles). This year he trained for 4 miles and was pleased he improved his time by a whole minute, and got a Publix apple pie.

Jessica and I waited at the playground during the race. She had no fear; she climbed all over and was happy to have kids running all around her.

Dave cooked ALL of Thanksgiving dinner. I had been only buying instant & frozen food, and hadn't made any plans by the Saturday before Thanksgiving.  Dave took the initiative: "I'm making a list and going shopping, Liz. What do we need?"

Dave and I love watching Alton Brown's Good Eats. Dave used Brown's recipe to brine our turkey for the second year. 

All I did to help was set the table, take pictures, and beg for vegetables besides everyday broccoli and carrots. Dave got me spagetti squash and artichoke--yum. Besides some extra salty potatoes, everything was perfect. He even did all the dishes. Thanks, hon.

We failed to get a good picture of all of us.

Jessica chowed down and used our tablecloth as a napkin for her hands. Here she bites a stuffing popsicle.

Here's Jessica's opinion of the meal:

After Jessica's morning nap on Black Friday, we went shopping. Jessica lasted about 4 hours--the last hour we had to switch toys, snacks, or distracting games every 5 minutes. But we made it to 4 stores and picked up some deals.

We wanted to buy ALL of the toys from our childhood for her THAT DAY. We had to keep telling ourselves "She's too young for a:
dial-up phone
lite-brite
legos or duplos
tricycles
toy food and kitchens
science kits, especially involving rockets
Playdough
bristle bricks
anything Crayola
giant puzzles
popcorn pusher
toy register with plastic coins
Lincoln logs or tinker toys
etc.etc.etc."

She can't stand, and she doesn't really know how to use her shapes bucket or the wood puzzles she has now. Her first birthday is in 2 months anyhow, so we can get other toys then. We opted for a giant plush lion, balls, a 3-D bookmark, a baby laptop with buttons and lights and music, foam bath letters and a doggie washcloth mitten, and a short push toy with music & buttons.

I also bought her a cute stripey outfit (which says size 24 months but will probably fit her this summer.)  Our little baby is growing like a weed: she turned 9 months this weekend, but is wearing 9 & 12 month clothes already. She has long outgrown her little baby bjorns/slings, so we also got a frame baby backpack off Craigslist. We already tested it and it works great. We also Amazoned a plastic, indestructible Nativity.

Saturday we pulled out the decorations, and Jessica loved the loud plastic sparkly tree beads.

Dave persuaded me we needed a real tree. It's been 5 years with only the fake 3-footer. So Jessica went with us to get the skinniest tree in the lot. (I thought that was a funner milestone than seeing Santa.) She just thought it interesting, but spikey. I've been letting her play with the little tree (shown below), and our Christmas bells. So far she's pretty obedient about not pulling ornaments off, and Smokey has no interest in the trees either...but we'll see.

I also found the cutest Christmas PJs for her with "I've been good" and reindeer all over. But she kept pulling at the forearm sleeves, which were too tight, so we cut them off.

We're terribly excited for Christmas this year (we're staying in Florida), and very grateful for our little Jessica.