And hung this little vignette of bird art (in a grouping of three naturally). Trust me, they are all straight, this photo is an illusion:

My daughter took care of the place cards and through some mediation with the two kids, we were able to determine seating assignments:

A sprig of rosemary tied to each napkin gave off a tremendous scent and set the mood:

As did some wine, football, my roaring wood burning fire (never gas) and good conversation. I think the discussion here was about how awesome the sconces looked in the dining room. Or it was about how damn interesting this blog is:

First course (and my personal fave) was butternut squash/apple soup accompanied with maple bacon and homemade croutons (my food photography leaves a lot to be desired, sorry):

After a bit of a break, all of the food was out and it was time to gorge ourselves:  

We pretty much ignored each other as we ate our asses off:

It was a great day as we all enjoyed each other’s company without a care in the world. My mother and the two kids would appear to agree:

My nephew entertained us all as only he can and it was a riot to have a young one running around in our house again:

There may be no better sleep than the one had on Thanksgiving evening and this year was no exception. Wine/beer/food/tryptophan/pumpkin pie will put you into some serious REM sleep and it felt GOOD. And, we still had three more days off. Nice!

Friday was all about sleeping in,  followed by an excursion to the movies. It felt great to just chill and it felt great to eat the leftovers that night. All was right in the world.

Saturday was an absolutely perfect weather day (upper 60’s) and we made the most of it. Even the bulbs were thrown off by the warm temps:      

My daughter was ready to join me outdoors for some gardening chores and she couldn’t wait to show off her new tools:

I also promised her I would share her cool “gardening boots” with you all:

While she planted some acorns in some containers, I managed to perform some serious hard labor as I reduced my never ending topsoil mountain to this:

Which looked like this only a day ago. It may not look like much, but that soil was damn heavy and wet:

After busting my arse for an hour or so, I threw in the trowel (I may trademark that phrase) and took some photos of plants that were still providing some visual stimulation:

Feeling this good about my garden and being outdoors this late in November was a welcome pleasure. Scratch that … family, good food, no work and the garden were a welcome pleasure this past weekend.

Hope yours was just as enjoyable.

John