Thanksgiving 2013

This year for Thanksgiving we had my awesome brother Peter visit us from BYU! He drove down on Tuesday and arrived just in time to have dinner with the missionaries! We had yummy chicken tacos. One of the elders was actually MTC companions with my brother-in-law Steven! Oh and his name is Elder Fackrell which is hilarious because it sounds so close to Fakkel. Awesome. He and his companion Elder Petersen came to dinner and shared a spiritual message with us. They encouraged us to share the gospel more through Facebook since people are always online. So sad but so true. We can continue to talk about it in person, but Facebook and other media sources are a good way to let people know that "hey I'm a Mormon" without it being in their face. I also shared my Mormon.org profile which you can view here. 

On Wednesday James had to work but I hung out with Pete all day and it was so nice! We went to Last Chance which is of course the crazy busy/super awesome deals/clearance Nordstrom/better than Nordstrom rack/retail store. We found Ecco shoes and Cole Haan shoes for a steal! The lines were crazy but we were in and out with everything in an hour and a half. Sweet!

We had lunch at Cafe Zupa's. It was Pete's first time there and he loved it of course. We both had sandwiches and their delicious Wisconsin Cauliflower Soup! 

Next stop: Arrowhead Mall for some Christmas shopping! Pete's favorite store we went to was Nick's Menswear. He scored a white pocket square for only $4.99!

We headed home to start preparing and baking the apple pie for Thanksgiving! Pete peeled, cored, and sliced the granny smith apples while I worked on the pie crust dough. It was a lot of work but together we baked a beautiful pie (Nana & Grandpa's recipe). 

We were so tired & hungry we decided to order Papa Murphy's garlic chicken pizza. YUM!

We went to Redbox and rented the movie Mud with Matthew McConaughey. We liked it! Not your typical Matthew McConaughey movie!

THANKSGIVING DAY!!!

Everything went smoothly as we prepped our feast. James and Pete helped me make Nana & Grandpa's recipes. Our 11 pound turkey and stuffing turned out to be delicious. We also had mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, pearl onions, cream cheese celery sticks, rolls, and ginger ale. Before our feast we had a thanksgiving photoshoot. I love how these turned out. Photographers are Peter Fakkel and James Chapman.

 Pete's mustache for Movember.

Everything turned out amazing. I was so pleased. We were all so calm too...no stress! Thanks to the boys for all their help. We had a lovely meal. 

We had to relax after all that food to make room for dessert of course. We had several friends invite us to share food with them. We planned to go over to the Batty's house for dessert. We also tried to hold out until 6:30 for pie but we couldn't wait. We each had a slice of apple pie & chocolate chip cookie pie with vanilla ice cream on top! We arrived at the Batty's house; Trevor, Trevor's mom, Whitney, Claire, and BABY EMMA were there! I was so excited to see her. Thanks for sharing your pies guys! Hope you loved our yummy apple pie and chocolate chip cookie pie! 

Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie recipe is from here. Try it. It's SO easy to make & soo good!

After dessert we went to see CATCHING FIRE again! It was Pete's first time and he loved it just as I love it! If you haven't seen it yet, GO SEE IT!

What a wonderful Thanksgiving. SO thankful to have had Pete with us. So thankful for my family. So thankful for the gospel. So thankful for Thanksgiving. To read last year's Thanksgiving post go here.

On Friday we got up and went for a hike! Had to work off all those calories from our feast! We took Pete up to Thunderbird Conservation Park and worked up a bit of a sweat. The view was so pretty! 

Pete wanted to head to Kohls for their Black Friday sales so we went there and he waited in line for a little over an hour I think. I had to go to work so James dropped me off and went back to Kohls for Pete. Imagine the line looking like this but inside and wrapping all around the store!

While I was at work James took Pete back to the mall so he could get another pocket square from Nick's Menswear. They said they mall was packed. They also went to the Asian Market. James loves that place.

The boys picked me up from work and we went to Chino Bandido for dinner. The combination of Mexican and Chinese food intrigued Peter so we had to take him because it's soo good! The place was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives....this place is definitely a dive. James and I have been there before and I was not impressed with the inside of the restaurant. But the food is reallllly good. We always get the jerk chicken quesadillas and burrito with refried beans and pork fried rice. The meal always comes with a snickerdoodle cookie that completes the whole experience.

What's next? Movie time at home with leftovers.

We watched this movie. It was pretty good and funny too.

We had monkey bread for breakfast before Pete left for Utah early Saturday morning. 

Thanks so much for coming Pete! We loved having you here! 

Hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving!