Turkey Time Part 1

We celebrated Thanksgiving for an entire week. We ran two turkey trots and cooked two turkeys. This post is about the first turkey trot and the first turkey, from Saturday, November 19th to Tuesday, November 22nd. My friend Tina is a high school teacher (we've served together in several church callings for the past five years, and she's currently our Relief Society president, with me as a counselor). Tina's high school leadership class organized a fundraiser turkey trot for the Saturday before Thanksgiving, so naturally we ran. I mean, a local running event that the White family is NOT in charge of? You'd better believe we'll be there! 

The big draw for this turkey trot was the twelve full-sized frozen turkeys that would be given out to age group winners. Jeff was recovering from another bout of long covid stomach issues that day, so I took Jay and Rose to the high school at 8:30am on Saturday, November 19th. It was a thick white frosty freezing sunny morning, about 24 degrees when we arrived to register. Rose and I carefully layered up our clothes, and Jay decided to run in his puffy coat. Thankfully Tina held the registration inside the school greenhouse, which was quite comfortable compared to the frigid temperature outside. 

Once we had signed up and paid our donation/registration fee, we waited around to see who else would come. It turned out to be a mini Sunnyside Ward activity, with at least five families from our ward showing up to run. Several members of our cross country team also came, dashing Jay's hopes of winning a turkey in the 13-18 year old age group. He decided to jog the course with his buddy Noah, and they had a good time together. I spent the pre-race wait explaining the course to anyone who had questions, especially explaining the course to Andrew, our #1 high school runner, since I knew he'd be leading the race. Unfortunately the front group still made a wrong turn, but it was a very low key run and we all had fun. 

Rose was hoping to go for a 5k PR, and I tried to temper her expectations with reminders of how subfreezing temperatures can drastically affect the lungs. I also promised to pace her. We ran the first mile in 7:26, just under her goal pace. Soon after the mile marker, Rose started feeling the agony of lungs breathing hard in frigid air. She slowed down and, feeling like a selfish beast, I asked her if I could run on up ahead. Rose gasped her ok, and I sped up. I settled into a moderately uncomfortable 7:10 pace and held on to the end. 

When the results were tallied (about 40 people ran), Rose won a turkey for the 12 and under age group, and I won a turkey in the 19-40 age group. Not too shabby for a 36 year old going up against college kids! Haha, there was maybe one college kid in the race. I gave my turkey to a friend because we already had one turkey at home, and we did not have space in our fridge or stomachs for two more turkeys. Normally I'd say that even two turkeys is too much for our family of five, but we were expecting my sister Mel and Braxton for Thanksgiving, so we knew we'd want enough for leftovers. 

Turkey trot #1 was a fun way to start off Thanksgiving week! When we got home and cleaned up from the run, Rose, and Amber helped me make two pumpkin cheesecakes and a batch of apple cobbler (superior to apple pie in my opinion). The girls had fun crushing baggies of pecans and gingersnaps by beating them with a rolling pin and an ice cream scoop. 

Later that same Saturday afternoon, I took Rose and Amber to the church for an hour and a half so they could participate in the piano ribbon festival, which is the annual mini recital event where kids rotate around classrooms and play piano songs in various categories to earn ribbons. They did well and cherished their multicolored ribbons all the way home. I was so tired after that busy full Saturday! Thankfully Jeff's day of rest helped and he was able to come to church with us and help with food prep the next day. 

Sunday, November 20th was our first family Thanksgiving feast. After church, we came home and started the food prep: Jeff sliced down the turkey spine and spatchock-ed that bird like a pro. I made yams, cranberry sauce, bacon green beans, gravy, and dough for the rolls. Rose and Amber rolled the rolls while Jeff and Jay peeled and cut the potatoes. In the five hours between church and [early] dinner, I only sat down for about 20 minutes. I was all tuckered out when it was finally time to eat. We invited Jeff's parents over to eat with us since they would be out of town on Thanksgiving. I forgot to take even one picture of that feast with them, which is a bummer because pictures are how I remember things best. This was the first time we've ever had Jeff's parents over to OUR house for Thanksgiving--they have always hosted it themselves because it's their favorite holiday. Hosting is exhausting! 

Monday and Tuesday were school days. I picked Jay and Rose up right after school on Tuesday because it was raining and Rose wanted to bring her cello home for the first time. She pulled it out right away when we got home and we all enjoyed hearing her play. It's so fun having another child with a string instrument! Jay says he misses playing the string bass--he likes it better than the tuba and baritone which he's been playing in band this year. (He opted for band this year to make his schedule work better.) Rose wants Amber to learn how to play the viola so we can have one of each string instrument in our family, but Amber has staunchly declared that she wants to be in BAND, even though whenever I get my violin out she begs and begs to take a turn playing it.

Yay for turkey trots and music and family feasts! The holidays are here, ready or not! 

Triumphant turkey trot trophies, with Jay in the background--he wouldn't join us officially, preferring to photo bomb us instead.

Inside the greenhouse before the turkey trot, filling out registration forms using bags of potting soil as tables.

Some of our sweet high school runners who came to the turkey trot: Elijah C, Andrew, Danari, and Elijah W. 

Tina is an awesome human! Love her.

Mother daughter baking time: chaotic, messy, and tiring (especially after running a race), but with sweet rewards.

Apple cobbler, ready to bake!

Smashing the gingersnaps for the pumpkin cheesecake crust.

Ribbon festival. Amber just began her second year of piano lessons, and she's in that difficult phase of learning to read actual music rather than memorizing specific songs and fingerings. I hope she makes the transition soon; it's a rough path for both of us.

Rose is so confident.

Rose played Mary had a little lamb upside down and impressed the room.

Ribbons!

The Thanksgiving food list. we accomplished all of it except the sour cream apple pie and the cranberry peach pie.

Rose, dividing the roll dough.

Everyone busy with their feast prep tasks. When we sat down to eat later, everyone took turns thanking each other for the various parts of the meal that we each prepared. I was gratified to hear my children acknowledge my hours of work for the feast as they listed off all of the things I had made. 

Jeff is exceptional at getting meat off of birds. He plucks rotisserie chickens for me every time I go to Costco. It's to the point where I am now actually bad at removing meat from bones because I have so little practice doing it. Not that I'm sad about that--not sad at all! Happy, in fact.

The plate of food always looks like it shouldn't have taken so long to prep, but this represents close to five hours of work.

Traditional Jay with-turkey drumstick picture.

Rose has joined that tradition.

As our resident vegetarian, Amber ate mostly rolls, with some potatoes and a speck of yams, apples, and green beans.

Pattern blocks! One of my favorite things about holidays is how my kids like to get out blocks and games to play happily together. Contention still happens, but they PLAY and it's their own little holiday tradition to build with different types of blocks and play games together.

Chilly morning walk past the grapes behind our house.

Rose with her middle school half-size cello. She pulls the end pin alllll they way out to make it tall enough.