Turkey lurkey doo

Its crazy that Thanksgiving has come and gone already. We spent the holiday in Corvallis with our good friends Russ and Jaci. The holiday started on Wednesday night after work when we arrived and Jaci and I started on the pies and bread. We made a fantastic strawberry-rhubarb, pumpkin (from scratch- no canned pumpkin for us), and apple. And since there was a lot of pumpkin left we also made some pumpkin apple bread for Thanksgiving morning. I don't remember when it was, late Wednesday night perhaps, we realized that the turkey was still frozen solid. So after some google searching, decided the best and safest way to quickly defrost the thing was to keep it in cold water and changing it every 30 minutes. Everything was going along pretty smoothly until Jaci had a work emergency that was going to keep her very busy and on minimal sleep thru Thanksgiving day.

Thanksgiving day: Russ and I tackled the meal, Justin was a key assistant. In the end I believe we all made an amazing meal which included: Turkey (which Russell flipped while it was cooking), Squash Soup, Cranberry Relish, Chipotle Sweet Potatoes, Manchego Mashed Potatoes, Homemade Bread, Apple-onion stuffing, Cheese Service, Artichoke spinach dip, and then everything the Mulls brought over. Oh and Justin and Russell made this intensive giblet gravy that took hours, I heard it was good, but they lost my interest when they added organs to the dish. It was a great Thanksgiving that included the Mull Family and Jaci's brother. Had some live music performances and even played multiple rounds of Apples to Apples.

The weekend only got better since we had reservations in Bend for Saturday night. Saturday morning the four of us got into the car for a road trip over the mountains to the high desert. It was crazy to pass through dense forests only to end at flat brown desert. Jaci and I had letterboxing plans for the afternoon and we spent time in a local park. At the trailheads they warned you about mountain lions and bears, luckily we didn't find either. Once it started to cool down we headed over to our hotel. We had managed to get a reservation in a cottage at the McMenamins Old St. Francis School. Meaning we got to stay in a adorable house, that at one time was the schools Art House, and our backdoor emptied us out to a pub with multiple firepits. And did I mention that they also had a Turkish-style bath, free movies, and a pub! This place was awesome. I wish I could live there. We did take advantage of everything we could, went to the pool, saw the movie 'Burn After Reading', and tasted many a fine food and drink.

Oh I almost forgot the High Desert Museum. Lots of fun, got to meet Thomas the otter (he was off, meaning otters are either on or off, it was nap time for Thomas) and Daisy the skunk while going for a walk around the museum.

Sadly the weekend had to come to an end, but we were able to experience a winter tradition of lights at the Corvallis Pepsi Bottling Plant. It was classic!

Great weekend, excellent friends, good company, and lots of fantastic food! What more could you ask for?

• Thanksgiving photos