Thanksgiving Celebration

We were very blessed to have a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving celebration right in our own home! We had four American friends over - Kelly, Shauna, Tanya, and Rachel. We didn't eat until about 4:30, but the girls arrived at 3 to help me cook the last of the meal, and it was so much fun cooking all together!!! Of course, my tiny kitchen only holds about 1, but we managed to squeeze 4 of us working in there all at once - we're good friends!

In this picture, Tanya, me, and Kelly are working on the turkey. We decided not to try to do a whole turkey, so we just bought some turkey breasts and I found a yummy-sounding recipe on cooking.com called "Turkey Breast with Mustard Sage Crumbs." So Tanya placed the turkey breast on the pan, I coated it with Dijon mustard, and Kelly put on the crumb topping. Good teamwork, and the results were DELICIOUS. Meanwhile, Rachel was at the sink peeling potatoes.

Once the turkey was in the oven, Kelly went to the living room to work on the table decorations, and Justin helped her. She wanted to make origami turkeys, but they turned out to be more difficult than expected. Between the two of them, though, they managed to end up with one perfect turkey, and he was definitely a good addition to our Thanksgiving festivity! In this picture, he's really enjoying his apple cider.

Justin also, being the gentleman of the group, brought home some beautiful flowers to adorn our banquet, so I arranged them in a teapot for display.

Our table was a sight to behold once it was finished! We had the turkey breasts, green bean casserole, broccoli casserole, mashed potatoes, candied sweet potatoes with apples, Stove Top stuffing, cranberry sauce, and croissants! We're very thankful to Tanya, who had brought over many American items for the celebration, which enabled us to do the green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce! She also brought the festive paper plates and napkins, which made cleanup much easier!

In this picture, from left to right, are Rachel, me, Justin, Kelly, and Shauna (Tanya was our photographer!). The food was all delicious, and we had a FANTASTIC time together - eating WAY too much. After the meal, we watched a little bit of football we had downloaded... You can't have Thanksgiving without watching football, right?! Then we ate dessert - apple pie (made by Tanya) and pumpkin pie (by Kelly)! Both were delicious. And then we rounded off the evening with a vigorous round of Phase 10 before saying goodnight.

It was such a fun evening, and we are SO thankful for the dear friends God has given us for our time here in Moldova.