Hike first, Eat later

In honor of Thanksgiving we decided to take a pre-dinner hike.

Photo Credit to Renee Behrendt

It was a very snowy, gray day.

We hiked 4 miles around the loop in the crisp air.

Our dinner preparations!

Hot mulled cider.  Yum!

Jarred's masterpiece, smoked Turkey.

Pete, testing out the mulled cider and supporting the carving endeavor with his presence.

My masterpiece, apple pie!  But we didn't stop there!  We had cookies, pumpkin pie, brownies and a Brun family tradition, Purple Durple!  And that was just the dessert menu.  For dinner we had the turkey, Parmesan garlic mashed potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, stuffing, acorn squash, salad, rolls, gravy.........

Approximately 27.5 minutes after this picture was taken we were all sporting attractive food babies and lumped (yes, I do mean lumped) into the closest available comfy chairs.  We spent the rest of the evening staring into space, taking shallow breaths and groaning.

On a more serious note, Pete and I feel so blessed to have these people in our lives and to have opportunities like this to explore the beautiful creation that we live in.  

(And it doesn't hurt at all that every single one of these people is a fantastic cook!)

Thank you to our friends who came, prepared food, and helped with the clean up!  And thank you to Pete, who jumped up as soon as he was done eating and washed all of the dinnerware before I even knew what he was up to!  You are so good to me, babe!

  I can't wait until our next holiday excursion!