Thanksgiving Feast

Wow!!! We are all tired, full and happy.... Our weekend turned out to be very, very nice. We had a very pleasant appertif with the parents of Quincy's friend last night, they spoke a little English so with some "Franglais" we were able to communicate quite well. We then headed out to the dinner invitation that I was so uncertain about... as soon as I saw the people, I remembered that we had met them at the church dinner we went to more than a month ago. They were very friendly and had invited two other couples to dinner so we had a very nice meal and pleasant company despite the fact that it was exhausting because it was almost entirely in French. Josh and I both do great until we get tired and then it becomes harder and harder to understand anything! At 1 a.m., when the party finally broke up, we were both just in a fog and uncertain about anything that was being said. French dinner parties are a little stressful anyway because everything is served quite formally and the man always allows the woman next to him to serve herself first, he is also responsible for filling her wine glass, water glass,etc. I'm constantly worried that I will then pass the food on to the next man without the guy next to me getting anything. Josh is constantly worried that he will slip and leave her wine glass unfilled and to not allow her to serve first. Whew!! We got up bright and early at 6 a.m. to stick our 12 kilo turkey in the oven!! (It was supposed to be 10 but we got a 12 kilo one- it was huge!) Josh had to truss up the legs a bit with skewers and some string but it then fit in the oven quite well and tasted and smelled delicious! While the turkey cooked, Josh and I took off for a long bike ride in the beautiful morning air to wake up a bit and get some energy for our big day (my idea, not Josh's - he doesn't think that way....) We had a great time and really enjoyed our peninsula in the sea! We rode for 90 minutes before heading home to finish the cooking and cleaning for our dinner. Our friends were absolutely amazed by our huge turkey, loved the stuffing and the mashed potatoes and gravy (after being shown what to do with the gravy). They were quite interested in the sweet potatoes and really seemed to like them. They loved the homemade buttermilk biscuits and thought the green bean casserole was quite good. For dessert, we had pumpkin and apple pie which was truly the high point. They had never tried pumpkin pie before but most seemed to really like it, some kept their opinions to themselves. The apple pie was also quite well received. The interesting point was that it was the use of the cinnamon that seemed the most different to them. They all said that they use cinnamon only very rarely and are not used to the flavor! The 12 kids were all fantastic and played a lot of basketball and rugby out in our yard. The French kids were such good examples for our kids as they immediately got up and cleared the tables after dinner as well as promptly putting away any toys that they got out. We did have champagne as an appertif before our meal and had coffee in the living room after but the rest of the day was pretty American in our traditional way. By the time we finished with all of our "merci"'s and cheek kisses it was 5:30 before everyone left and we were beat!! Ready to hit the clean up hard and get to bed.