Giving Thanks!

Thanksgiving was a week ago and WOW what a week its been! :) Klaus' parents came to visit and celebrate their first ever Thanksgiving with us and his sister came over for dinner too :) It was really nice to have them here and it kept me from being too homesick (I was too distracted by cooking the dinner on my own for the first time!)

Since the only whole turkey we were able to find (after MUCH searching) cost about $175 us dollars! We decided to go the easier route and buy three turkey breasts instead. In traditional Thanksgiving style it was WAY too much turkey for the 5 of us, but it meant we could have leftovers the next day. :) I also made bread dressing from scratch (they don't have the Stovetop boxed dressing here... and I wanted it to be gluten free so I could eat it too!), mashed potatoes, carrots, green beans (again there's no cream of mushroom soup so I didn't make the green bean casserole), salad (with dried cranberries) and rolls. And of COURSE pumpkin pies! I made the pies in individual serving sizes and had a mix of pumpkin and apple pies :) Overall I think it turned out well- I had to keep reminding myself not to say anything like "the stuffing doesn't taste like normal" since Klaus' family had no idea what stovetop stuffing actually tastes like! lol! As long as I kept my mouth shut they would think it was exactly right! :) I also forgot to take any pictures of the food because we sort of had a mad dash to get everything done quickly since the turkey cooked WAY faster than we had planned on! But I did get a few pictures of the living room set up for Thanksgiving.

 

The best part for me was the recognition that my Danish classes are actually helping A LOT! I was able to understand nearly everything his mom said and could even hold a conversation with her on our own for about half an hour!! That is something I could NOT say last spring when we saw them last so I was incredibly happy and a bit (ok a LOT) proud of myself and the progress I've been making :) There's still a lot to learn and I'm sure my grammar was wrong most of the time, but the fact that she could understand what I was trying to say was a HUGE accomplishment for me. :)

 

I definitely missed being in the states for Thanksgiving this year, but I was able to Skype with my American family after our dinner and before theirs which was really nice, and Tex got to "meet" his cousins!! :)

 

Klaus and I have begun decorating the apartment for Christmas but since its an ongoing process I figured I will do a separate post about it once we're done! :)

 

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!

XOXO,

Joy