Merry Christmas!!!

It actually snowed here in Dallas on Christmas Eve and so we woke up to a white Christmas in Dallas!! I think the newscaster said it was the first white Christmas in 80-some years! We had a relaxing and quiet day. We slept in, opened presents, made dinner and now I can't remember what we did... maybe watched a movie? In all, it was a nice relaxing weekend!

-Snow on the balcony

-Presents under out Christmas tree

-Joe roasted a goose!!

-Christmas dinner

-For dessert, we had the world's largest Reese's cup...

Merry Christmas!!!

Our Christmas tree!

And the wreathe I made from the branches they cut off the bottom of the tree at home depot:

Pecan picking!

The weekend of Thanksgiving, Jill, Christine, Joe and I went for an adventure picking the state nut of Texas... the pecan!

Basically, we went to a pecan farm, where this family has about 10 acres of land in front and behind of their house, to pick pecans. It was a little drizzly in the morning, but not too bad. Thankfully we went in the morning, because it was really raining by 2pm.

Out in the orchard:

Joe cracking shells:

Finally convinced Joe to take a picture of me with the pecans:

Of course, an artsy photo:

Hopefully pictures of the Christmas tree and my wreathe tomorrow! (or the next day)

It snowed in Dallas...how crazy!

On December 2nd (Happy Birthday Linda!), we woke up to big wet snowflakes! It was so awesome to see, but sadly they didn't stick since the ground was too warm.... maybe next time!

Thanksgiving!

For Thanksgiving, I ordered a heritage turkey, which is more like a wild turkey and wasn't bred/genetically engineered to have massive breasts. Pickup was at an organic farmer's market out in the suburbs, but when I got there, it turned out that the farmer's market was actually just a tent set up in the yard of a farm. But it was awesome, because there were chickens and guinea fowl running around the yard and let me get super close to them.

As I've done the last two Thanksgivings, I again brined the turkey for a day. Here it is drying before getting dressed and ready to go into the oven:

and getting dressed in a layer of butter and cheesecloth:

all done! :

getting carved up by Joe:

Our dinner guests, Pierre and Genevieve with Joe:Dinner table all set and ready to be served: