Thanksgiving

Here are the highlights and lowlights of Thanksgiving:

• Surprising my parents--My siblings and I have been planning a surprise family reunion for a year now, and we managed to pull it off without anyone spilling the beans to my parents. My brother, S, arrived with his family the Friday before Thanksgiving. When my parents arrived on Tuesday night, they were shocked to see him here. After they recovered somewhat, my dad asked, "So is K [my sister] arriving tomorrow morning?" "'Fraid not," I said, which was technically true because she wasn't arriving until Wednesday night. Of course, I slipped up Wednesday morning while talking to my SIL in the same room as my mom. I was worried that my mom had heard and would only pretend to be surprised when K showed up. But she was just as stunned to see K as she had been to see S, and I'm pretty sure she can't fake the tears. (By the way, this is the reason I've been so silent on the blog this month. I was paranoid about inadvertantly saying something about the reunion.)
• Spending time with my family--It has been seven years since I've been together with both of my siblings at the same time, although I have seen them individually more recently. It's been 10 years since all of us, including Michael, have been together. They're a pretty good group, if I do say so myself.
• Getting a family picture taken--We found a professional photographer willing to take on such a large group for such a small job. He worked very quickly, so I was worried about the quality, but when he dropped off the CD of pictures, I was impressed.
  
• Baking pies with Mom and my SIL--We all like our desserts, so we ended up making 15 pies. For 19 people. I do still have one apple pie in the freezer, but only because of the next item (and only lowlight).
  
• Oven dying on Wednesday night--Actually, the oven heats fine. The door just won't open. (We had to pry the door off the oven to get out the meatloaf before it burned.) This isn't quite as bad as it sounds, because we put K and her family in the apartment, which has an oven. But instead of being able to use two ovens, we had to make due with cooking Thanksgiving dinner for 19 people in one oven. It was a little more hectic than I had planned. (On a positive note, my new, non-mustard-yellow oven is arriving tomorrow!)

It was my best Thanksgiving ever, and I'm so glad my family members were able to make the trip out here. Thanks, guys!