Mid Summer Night's Thanksgiving

Last night was our third annual Mid Summer Night's Thanksgiving! Three years ago Bill and I thought it would be a fun idea to have a big thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of our friends in the scorching heat of summer. Why? You might ask, well anytime to sit down to a huge turkey dinner is enough reason for me! :) So for the past three years we have gathered our friends, cooked the turkey, made them bring the sides and just had a fun evening together! We normally host it in the middle of summer around the middle of July, but for some reason this summer kind of got away from us and here we are at the end of August, but better late than never!

In the years past, Bill has always been in charge of cooking the turkey and does a REALLY good job! Yesterday morning he was busy, so I thought, "How hard could this be? I cook alot, it comes with directions...."......ok.......wow......this thing was 22lbs. and really slippery! It was like trying to wrestle a really chubby toddler that had been dunked in olive oil....after I corral it into the roasting pan and pat myself on the back for a job well done, Bill comes in and offers to 'check' it. I was in no mood to have it be 'checked'. But thank you God that he did, because after a few seconds he pulls out the entire sack of neck and giblets with a cocky grin on his face. UGH!

Anyhow, he took over from then on after I had a mini meltdown and it came out just perfect! He did such an excelent job of taking it out at the perfect moment and carving to perfection!

We had our regular Thursday Night dinner group there and they brought all the fixings! Mashed potatoes, gravy, homemade stuffing, sweet potatoes topped with brown sugar and walnuts, green bean casserole, fresh corn, garden salad and Arliss made her famous dinner rolls!

(Stefanie, Emily, little Nora, Ashton, Arliss and James)

We normally set up a huge long table out in the back yard, but it was so windy that we set up camp in the garage and driveway. Thanks James for coming through once again with the tables and chairs!

(Rob, Stephanie, Melody, Scott, Shawn, Brandi)

(Bill, Chad, Brandon, Chase and John)

(Sawyer, Jack and Theo)

The boys (and no I don't mean the three and under boys, I mean my husband and his friends) had a grand time of throwing my decorative apples, pine cones and mini pumpkins at each other, so I'm sure we'll be finding those jammed in the tread of our tires over the next few weeks....

We headed down to the park to play some kick ball and Sawyer and Jack decided to ride down on the four wheeler. Sawyer's a bit of a crazy driver because he gets pretty distracted and just steers wherever he may be looking.....so he swerves quiet a bit! But they made it down and back all in one piece!

Gearing up for the big game! James and Bill were picking teams and they ended up picking Arliss and I LAST! How could they do that to their wives?!?!

(Stephanie, Ashton, Melody and Arliss)

After the sun went down and the mosquitoes came out, we headed home for some mouth watering pies! We have some really good bakers in the group that brought apple, pumpkin and pecan chocolate silk supreme! D-Lish!!!!!!!!!!

A while ago Sawyer appointed himself and John as the official dessert guys. So John plates and Sawyer serves. Last night though Sawyer put himself on 'ala mode' duty and went to town on dishing out tons of melty vanilla ice cream!

He was using two ice cream scoops, and a child safe knife but mostly his hands! I think people got dished up a little more ice cream than they had anticipated :)

The best buddies ended the evening with a DVD and practically fell asleep as soon as their heads hit their pillows! It was another successful Mid Summer Night's Thanksgiving! Thanks everyone for coming~We are so thankful for you and how close we've gotten over the years!