Friendsgiving

I've seen alot of people posting on Facebook about "Friendsgiving" this year. While I'm sure we all wish we could find the time and money to travel home to be with our family, at least we have good friends to spend our holidays with and that was just how it was for Reid and I this Thanksgiving.

We have a lot to thankful for this year from Reid graduating law school, to passing the Colorado Bar, finding a temporary job and us finding out we are having a baby. It has been a year of changes and growth and we are blessed each day to have each other.

My Thanksgiving started with an Email from my bosses last Wednesday saying we could leave work 2 hours early! I'm also thankful to work for such wonderful people who really truly care about family. That evening we went to work on our Thanksgiving dinner task of desserts. We decided to make Bavarian Apple Tort and Pumpkin Pie. Both turned out oh so delicious and we were happy to take the leftovers home :)

Bavarian Apple Tort (from Reid's mom)
crust
1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla or almond extract
1 cup flour
* Cream butter, sugar and vanilla. Blend in flour then spread mixture onto bottom and sides of 9" spring-form pan. Bake 10 minutes at 400.

filling
8oz cream cheese
1 egg
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla or almond extract
* Combine cheese and sugar, blending well. Mix in egg and vanilla and pour over crust. (you can make double filling for a "thicker" appearance)

topping
1/3 cup brown or graulated sugar
4 cup peeled and thinly sliced apples
1 tsp cinnamon
*Toss sugar and cinnamon over apples. Spoon apples over cheese mixture. Bake at 400 for 25-30 minutes. Cool before removing from pan.

Pumpkin Pie (from Better Homes and Garden New Cookbook)

1 15oz can pumpkin
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 eggs, slightly beaten
3/4 cup half-and-half, light cream or milk

*Preheat oven to 375. Place pie crust in 9-inch pie plate (we just used a store-bought crust).
*For filling, combine pumpkin, sugar, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg in a bowl. Add eggs; beat lightly with a fork until combined. Gradually add half-and-half and stir until combined. Pour over pie crust.
*Place pie in the oven. (to help prevent the crust from overbrowning, you can place foil over the pie and cut hole in the middle so only the crust is covered) Bake for 25 minutes, then remove foil. Bake additional 25 minutes, or until a knife inserted comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack and cover and chill within 2 hours.

On Thanksgiving morning I met a friend from Spokane and ran the Turkey Trot with her and her family that lives in Denver. This was really fun and I'm glad that I went out and ran. The weather was a bit chilly, but perfect for running. Great morning exercise before pigging out on yummy Thanksgiving food later in the day. Reid met up with a friend from law school and played some overdue golf. He said for not having played in so long, he did pretty well. He was just happy to get out and play! That evening we went over to Reid's friends brothers house, who invited us over for dinner. We had a great time, ate some delicious food and even all our dogs ran around and played.

Friday, we found out some friends from college were in Boulder and so we made a day trip up there to say hi. Reid went biking with his fraternity buddy and I went shopping with the girls. We also got to meet their two adorable boys. Saturday was time for more friends as a couple from law school was in town (whom I ran the Turket Trot with). We met them at a park to catch up and decided we need to head to Billings, MT sometime to see their new house and dog they are getting. When Sunday finally rolled around it didn't feel like it should still be the weekend but we now had a day at home and life felt like it was back to reality.

We hope everyone else had a fun-filled holiday weekend. Bring on the Christmas music, decorations and hopefully some snow for a white Christmas!!