I know I’m a little late (hello! Christmas is in 6 days!) but I wanted to post some pictures from my family’s Thanksgiving.

For one, MrC always deep-fries the turkey. One word: YUMM. This also helps mom out b/c it means that the oven is free for all the other things she cooks.

The one bad thing about deep-fried turkeys getting more popular is that the cost of oil is going UP. And when you need 4 gallons, it can set you back a good $40!!!

MrC found this AWESOME injection recipe from Crisco’s website. Click HERE to see it. I don’t remember if we used it on my family’s turkey or not b/c they are picky eaters, but we used it on his family’s fried turkey and it was A-MAZING. (We are some fried turkey FOOLS!)

Here is the finished product:

Yes, please.

After food was ate and lottery tickets were scratched (another Family tradition- everyone gets 2 lottery tickets at their place setting), we took some GIRLZ-ONLY shots.

Me with my 5 sisters and my mom. I’m not sure what Sister#2 is pointing at. 

Then my camera got ’stolen’ from my sister and lots of random shots were taken. I like this shot of my sister (#4) and her boyfriend:

I think it’s neat that my camera caught her camera too.

Have I mentioned lately that I LOVE MY CAMERA? I mean, yeah, you can buy a better one, but for $200 (they’re originally $230 but you can catch them every once in a while for $200) the Nikon L100 is a great camera!

So do you guys deep fry your turkey? Or go the more traditional route?

I love going to Gatlinburg.  I love scenic views of any kind, water, mountains, you name it, I love it. And Gatlinburg definitely has the mountains! Around here, Gatlinburg is a nice mini-vacation spot. It’s about a 5 hour drive and has lots of shopping, views, and shows.

This fat raccoon showed up on our first night. We were in awe about how round he was. Apparrently he gets fed quite a bit.

I think he heard us talking about how fat he was and he stuck his tongue out at us.

We also went to a show while we were there. It was called The BlackBear Jamboree. It was their Christmas show. We aren’t usually in to that type of stuff, but the friends we went with wanted to go so we went too. There was a glitch in one of their songs so we definitely knew they were lip syncing, but it was still neat to watch the dances.

This was the view from our bedroom. It was beautiful.

The cabin we rented was a 5-bedroom, 5-bathroom log cabin called The Grizzly’s Den (and it’s for sale for $1,250,000… ya know, if you have that layin around and all). MrC and I got there at 11:30 at night and we had a heckuva time trying to find it. Garmin didn’t recognize the address (or even the ROAD- it just showed us driving in mountain space) so it took us a good 30 minutes before some of our friends drove out to find us. It was a beautiful cabin, just very high up in the mountains.

It also had an 8 person hottub!

I loved the HUGE logs used to build this cabin.

Where do you guys take short vacation trips to?

At the lake, we try to keep a ‘fun’ atmosphere. So when it’s late and we’re all sitting around drinking discussing the classic novels we’ve read and the lecturers who have inspired us, we’re usually outside, surrounded by (what I like to call) TACKY LIGHTS. If you’re not familiar with these, they are similiar to Christmas lights, but have a plastic decoration that covers them, making them even MORE FUN than Christmas lights.

Behold, our Tacky Light Collection so far:

Flamingo Lights.

 Martini Glass Lights.

Fishing Bobber Lights.

Mill Lite Bottle Lights

Pumpkin Lights.

DragonFly Lights

Spider Lights.

This past weekend we took them all down and I cleaned them. You’d be suprised how many spiders were calling the Flamingo insides  their home. I’m sure we’ll add on to our lights as we find new creative ones. So which ones are your favorite?

I was recently in a wedding. My friend Keri (who is 5 years younger than I am), that I met when we both worked at Cracker Barrel, got married. She asked me to be in her wedding (the first one I’ve ever been in) and told me that ’she needed me because I would be the honest one.’ hee hee. I guess if you’re gonna be known for something, Honesty isn’t too bad!

Here’s a picture of the flower girl. I used Picasa3 to edit it.

I was trying to do this in Photoshop, but couldn’t figure it out. Picasa3 did a fairly good job though!

Her color was persimmon, which was an orangey-red color. It was beautiful and perfect for fall.

And finally, one of Mr.C and I.

Our chickens love leftovers.

They especially love mashed potatoes.

They usually get overexcited and get some up their nose. That leads to some ’sneezes’.

 I hope ya’ll have a great weekend! 

Found these remains at the lake last weekend. I think it’s a cicada, but feel free to correct me!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. A long while. And a lot has happened… (We had buffalo burgers- and they were awesome! I had four chickens disappear in ONE day- including Speckles, the broody hen. The ‘baby’ chick is now probably our 2nd biggest chicken- 2nd only to the rooster!) but I still don’t have a job.

One thing about not having a job is that I get to watch the trees change daily. Last year at this time I was travelling. A LOT. I remember the leaves being green one week and it seemed like by the time I got back home (a couple of days) all the leaves had fallen already. And while I would, honestly, rather have a job than watch the trees change, it’s been nice to  see the beautiful colors. (And I am trying to remain positive and optimistic… even though I’ve been out of work for almost 9 months now)

My sister Katie got this shot while we were at the lake this weekend. You can see that they are starting to drain the lake. She fell in love with my camera too. (Nikon L100) You really can’t beat the features for the price!

In other I-Love-My-Camera news, my sister and I got pictures of each other’s eyes. Weird, I know. But I love the color of my eyes. They’re hazel, and I think they resemble sunflowers. If only my vision wasn’t so very horrid, they wouldn’t be half bad!

I see you.

You used duct tape to hold together your clothes-pin bag that the mice chewed through the previous winter.

Feel free to share your own ‘redneckedness’.

Note: No turtles were injured during taking of this picture. Also, no cats got wet.

FYI: It’s hard to take a picture when you have three dog leashes attached to your wrist.