November

November absolutely flew by this year.

I spent the majority of it sick. Yes, that time of year again where I get sinus infection, after cold, after flu, after etc.... I love winter.

But rather than focus on the drab and gloomy, we did some great things this past November!

We took Ellery bowling again. She asked us, almost on a daily basis to go again ever since Bret and Tevs came to visit for BYU Homecoming and we went with them. She had a lot of fun and actually beat Millie the first game and beat me the second game. Yeah, we don't go very often cause we pretty much suck. But Ellery had fun and that's what's most important I guess.



November also brought Turkey Day... quite possibly my favorite holiday of the year, second to the 4th of July. We spent it at Millie's parents again this year and my little bro, Brandt, came up and spent it with us as well. It was good having him here - Ellery LOVES her uncle Brandt.
For Turkey Day I decided to attempt another deep fried turkey. Last year's attempt (my first ever) was... meh, at best. I blame it on the half frozen bird mixed with inexperience and weather so cold the oil never really got quite as hot as it should have, mixed with a bit of over salting in the brine. This year I decided to buy the bird well in advance and put it in the fridge with time to spare for proper thawing. I also decided to forgo the brine and do a Cajun style injection and rub. The result was - well, without tooting my own horn cause I gotta give proper credit to my uncle Chris Cool (who gave the the idea of deep fired Cajun turkey to begin with) - it was delicious!!! I'm looking forward to doing another turkey next year. Maybe even two! Guess it depends on where we're living and spending Turkey Day next year too.

I know it was sorely premature, but we also decorated our tree in November... November 1st. It's the least I could do for Millie, and Ellery, since this is our first tree we've bothered to get and decorate since we've been married. Naturally, this being our first we had to go buy EVERYTHING. We kept it simple, and low cost. The tree is a $15 dollar 6' artificial from Lowe's... can't beat that with a stick! We stayed simple with the ornaments and Millie did a great job making it look cozy. Add my two house Christmas village and train and presto, instant home for the holidays!



December is almost over. This year is almost over! Hopefully I can get a few more blogs in to keep caught up on our goings on before I inundate myself with another school year!