Turkey Time

Wow, where did the rest of November go and the start of December? As every one's Holiday schedule typically is mine has been particularly hectic. Between the new job, wedding showers/parties, traveling and the Holiday I can't remember what I've even done since yesterday.

However, this year I got myself back off my butt Thanksgiving Day morning and ran the annual Cincinnati Turkey Trot. It was unseasonably warm, which was awesome, but rainy, which was not awesome due to the blister I got on my foot from wet socks. A group of us ran the race entitling us to a Thanksgiving Day brunch and dinner.

Later that jam packed weekend we had a wedding shower thrown by amazing family friends! A group picture of Jim's family, my family (minus my brother) and the hosts is included. It was an amazing dinner party and we were all so lucky to have a fabulous Chef prepare us a gourmet meal! I can't rave enough about the meal, he is opening a restaurant in O'bryonville soon and I recommend everyone goes!

I'm currently sitting on a long flight back from LA where I visited Jim's sisters, sister-in-law and infamous Bruce Wayne the dog! More to come on this...Happy Holidays!

Dorks Unite

Alright, so ever since I've know Jim and his sisters we call each other dorks. Dorks as in loser, not a whale penis (bet you didn't know that was what the term dork really meant).

Well even though Jim hangs out with my family and me with his, we really haven't done much of the socializing with each others families at the same time. I think actually in all the years we dated we may have only had one time where our parents and siblings got together. It may sound weird, but I am not a fan of merging families until it's official and it totally stresses me out!

So after the engagement we decided why not have a family dinner to get to know one another. So I immediately started stressing about it because I'm weird and it might be on the list of "Things that make me shake uncontrollably and get bad poos for no reason" - some day I might just let you in on that list (don't everybody request it all at once)!

We set the date, a night when 2 of 3 of Jim's sisters would be in town seeing that Molly is in Afghanistan and really can't hop on over for burgers and crab cakes. It was to be housed at the Price flat in Adams Landing.

So after I reviewed the outfit my Mom would wear and made sure my brother was prepared for the night, we arrived at the flat. If you know my family, of course we arrived with dessert and champagne. Of course Jim wasn't there and arrived late claiming he was stuck at work (which is always his excuse these days, I'm considering hiring a PO). We had some before dinner drinks, chatted about the wedding and then moved onto dinner.

Pop the champagne bottles. Dinner was yummy, my brother ate 3 crab cakes which made Mary Beth, Jim's Mom, ecstatic and I scarfed down a burger and saved room for Bon Bonerie dessert - not helping me lose weight for the pending nuptials. Well if I told you that champagne was water that night I would tell you would have thought we just came out of the desert!

All of a sudden dinner was over and there was no champagne left so back to the wine. Jim claimed he wasn't feeling well and left early, yeah, left me there to fend off our families alone- HOW RUDE! But we had enough champagne that we practically pushed him out the door because once Jim was gone we could really have fun!

Next came piano playing, singing, embarrassing stories and a very pathetic attempt to capture our first family photo. Which is the series you see along this story.

I can say I was nervous for nothing and we had fun and I can only imagine the insanity that is coming up this year with this bunch!

Turkey Day

I can't believe Thanksgiving is already here! Like where has the time gone? I guess being so busy at work and traveling that all of a sudden it's here!

Well, Jim and I are having our first Thanksgiving at the house this year so it's pretty exciting but also a little stressful. I've cooked a turkey once in college and it turned out well, but that was college and it also went with a ton of beer and partying!

We are having 8 people over, all Jim's family. I plan to run the Turkey Day Trot and eat breakfast at the Price's all at the same time as starting the prep work! Then, after the meal at our place we head off to my family party around 6 or so (well I head off and Jim will probably join later in the evening just in time for charades with my family)!

I love Thanksgiving - the food, family and talk about Christmas. I imagine this year will be really crazy so I've gone ahead and made an itinerary for myself. So here you have it! The tricky part is we only have 1 oven and I believe in making things from scratch- so I really had to time things out just right for a 3PM arrival and 4PM meal. And oh yeah, I plan to run the Turkey Trot so I don't feel guilty piling the food on my plate. I figure I will run 6 miles in the AM so I can eat some extra calories!

Wednesday

• Set Table


• Make Cranberry Sauce
  

Thursday

• 8AM Turkey Prep & Put in Oven (Tent so no need to baste for 2 hours)


• 8:30AM Turkey Trot


• 9:30AM Breakfast at Price's


• 11AM Turkey Check and remove tent, begin basting


• 11:30AM Make Spinach Dip and cool


• 12 PM Sweet Potato Prep


• 12PM Mashed Potato Prep


• 1:30 PM Stuffing Prep


• 1:30 PM Green Bean Casserole


• 2:30 PM Turkey Check and let sit


• 2:30 PM Put in Stuffing and Green Bean Casserole


• 2:30 Make Gravy


• 3:30 warm items in over for meal at 4PM

Gobble Gobble! May you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Our New Girl

We finally got a dog!!! After many debates and votes we landed on the name "Chili"! We like this name for several reasons: We live in Cincinnati and Chili is a big deal (we are the "Chili Capitol of America", she is brown and as soon as we said the name her ears perked up and we both agreed on the two syllable word and think this is unique to Cincinnati dogs:)

I am sure I will write a ton of blogs about her as time goes on, but I'm going to tell the story about how we got her first.

So, we had gone to several websites and a few shelters looking for a great dog to adopt. We finally ended up at the SPCA and had lots of dogs to choose from. Jim really fell in love with this beagle, but he was unavailable and already had someone interested in providing him a good home. So we kept testing out dogs, some were too wild, too shaggy, mean and then their was Chili. She was cute, playful and pretty calm. It was a big scary decision, but we took the leap and adopted her.

So home she came but as the night went on she started to develop a pretty bad cough! We kept her through the night Saturday but it got much worse come Sunday morning and she was beginning to leak mucus out her nose. Being that it is a Sunday, we had to make an emergency visit to the Pet ER.

I originally went alone, thinking it was not going to be a big deal and we'd get meds and be on our way. Well, I was sorely mistaken. The vet encouraged me to get X-Rays and test for pneumonia and worms. She warned me it was pricey, but I felt it was worth the investment.

Sure enough, the poor little girl has severe pneumonia. Her lungs a completely filled with fluid and that is why she is hacking up mucus and having trouble breathing. The vet also encouraged us to test for Parvo, cause with both her chances of survival are small and would most likely need to be put down (yes, I immediately was crying and called Jim and made him come up)! Luckily, she did not have Parvo and we developed a treatment plan.

We walked out of the ER with a $500 pet bill for a dog we had less than 24 hours. I am taking her to the vet today to figure out our next steps and hopefully get her back to normal. I am so excited to see her grow and what her personality is like. Right now, I think she's acting a little different than normal due to the infection.

She is just too cute and I hope we make good parents!