Thanksgiving 2012

While this was our 2nd year spending Thanksgiving together, this was the first year that we were a) married, b) hosting, c) making turkey, and d) dog-sitting for our neighbors at the same time. And somehow, Todd managed to avoid being in a single picture. Perks and drawbacks of having the nice camera.

We were so happy that even though we are far away from home, living in Maryland, we were still able to spend Thanksgiving with family. Richard and Katie and their boys were able to come spend Thanksgiving with us.

The little boys had a great time with our DVD collection. Aiden preferred to sort, reshelve, and open all Disney or kid DVDs.

Tyler preferred a more relaxing approach.

We all enjoyed the relish tray, including the accidental jumbo sized olives and Mom's dill dip.

You can see the pies leading up the relish tray. We had four delicious pies - one for each adult - the lemon meringue, Mom's apple pie, classic pumpkin pie, and the Wiese favorite - raspberry pie.

We also had dinner. A huge turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, dinner rolls, orange rolls, green bean casserole, corn, and Katie's special sweet potatoes.

After dinner, we headed back over to take the dogs for a walk. The boys were really cute with them. Tyler especially took a liking to Kiva, the retriever, but she was a little too strong for him to walk, so he took Opie's leash.

After taking care of the dogs, we went pack for pie. It was a great Thanksgiving.

Apple Picking

One of the great things about living in Maryland is the humidity. Just kidding. The really great thing is the stink bugs. Just kidding. Ok, but the really, really great thing is the traffic. I kill myself. Sorry that was the last one.

What I meant to say was, one of the really great things about living in Maryland is enjoying all of the seasons. And fall is one of the best to enjoy out here. To celebrate this year, Todd and I went to Larriland farms to pick apples. This was both enjoyable in and of itself, but also because it meant that the fruits of our labors would result in two of our favorite things: apple pie and apple dumplings. Oh yeah!

We had a great time picking apples and were only a little scandalized by people picking and eating apples without paying for them. I was truly scandalized by a little girl who would pick and drop apples randomly as she passed. Perfectly good fruit bruised, wasting on the ground. It took most of my self-control to not give her the old teacher glare.

Here we are laboring in the orchard:

And speaking of scandalous...

Another great thing about the outing was that we decided to eat lunch there. They had all kinds of fun fall treats, and just fun treats in general: apple cider, apple fritters, sweet potato fries, hot dogs. We got a little of everything and had a delicious and festive lunch.

Then we just enjoyed the scenery and headed home. We ran out of steam before we were able to check out their huge pumpkin patch. Oh well, guess there's always next year, Larriland.