How The Girls Cooked Thanksgiving

My first thanksgiving On My Own.

I did all kinds of crazy things to that turkey in an attempt to make it not be gross. I left it to brine for 2 days, made a special broth for it to cook in, and made herb butter that I spread underneath the skin to make sure the breast meat was juicy. I’m not sure what else I could do to that thing; but did look good once I finished. I was all kinds of proud. It tasted ok – everyone said it was great, but they had to or else they weren’t getting any.

There's a reason we keep sharp objects away from Courtney.

Court and I worked real hard – it was fun cooking with her, even though she was kinda forced into the whole thing. I think she had a good time too – Court can cook, she just usually feels like she has something better to do. Here was our spread:

• Turkey
• Gravy
• Stuffing
• Mashed Potatoes
• Sweet Potato Casserole – (which you should all be begging me for, apparently, bc it was gone in like 5 seconds).
• Green Bean Casserole
• Asparagus
• Cranberry Sauce
• Rolls
• Dyer Jell-O Thing
• Apple Pie
• Pumpkin Pie

Now, that is a lot of food for 4 people, even though one of those people was Paul. This Thanksgiving also marked My First Pie Ever. Which surprised some, as I am baker lady, but I just don’t get excited about pies. Pour some stuff into a crust and put it in the oven. Whoopee.

Still, I had no idea what I was doing so, as you can see, I actually brought my pie over to the computer to figure out how to do that lattice-work thing. Courtney was cracking up, bc the lady in the video would go too fast and spin her pie around and get me all lost, causing me to shriek. Seriously, if you are teaching something, slow down, people. I was about to give up and go pass a store pie off as my own.

In the end, all was well, and we ate until we fell comatose, as was David’s case. Which left me to call the Dyer fam, who were well on their way to having a good time back in Texas. It was good to talk to them, and hearing all the bustle made me have a twang for the big family holiday that we were missing out on.

Then I realized I was hanging out in my shorts a quarter mile from the beach in Hawaii and I laughed at my good fortune. So David and I hung out in the hammock and talked to family while my poor sister finished off the dishes. Thanks, girl!

Speaking of family, shout out to Amber for coming through with the Jell-O recipe so David had a bit of home to comfort himself with this holiday. Thanks, lady!

Fun With the Locals

Everyday I get up at the ass-crack of dawn to take a ferry in to work downtown. It is about an hour trip, and I get to sleep the whole time, so rock on. Usually I am riding with David, so I don’t really think about it. However, he took off the whole week of Thanksgiving, which is how I ended up waking up with this guy sitting next to me and watching me while I slept.

All I got out of the encounter was a “You goin’ home alone tonight?” I'm sure you will all be relieved to know that I managed to hold on to my wallet this time. (For those new to the program, please see “Trilogy of Crap” so I don’t sound like a complete jerk). Apparently he is a nice creepy homeless guy, instead of the last just creepy homeless guy.

Creepy Jerk Thief homeless guy.

Not that I'm scarred or anything.

*UPDATE* A week after this incident, I was accosted by yet another homeless guy, who was a giant and was trying to grab me while saying "I missed youuuuuuu." Luckily, a tiny 4'11" lady came to my rescue. I'm must have an invisible sign that says "Mess with Me" or something.

Texan Influx!

Our first visitors!

Amy and Mike came out with their grandmom and their adorable child, Thomas Joshua, better known as Tommy. Seriously, that kid will do just about anything if he isn’t sleepy.
He went swimming in the sea, hiking, and snorkeling (kinda) all the while proclaiming everything as “Beautiful!” It was pretty cute. We hung out in the lagoon, where I became Tommy’s favorite person when he found out he could treat me as his personal jungle gym. But really, he just put up with me bc I was a matching set with Uncle David. He LOVED David. What can I say – he is better with kids than I am.

We also attempted to go on a hike – the guidebook called it ‘easy’ and ‘short’ but I guess no such thing exists when you are a toddler and your legs are like a foot long. Especially if your new favorite activity is stepping on every slick rock you see, even though you are probably going to fall and break all your little bones. But he was a trooper - and so was Mike, since he ended up carrying him for half the time.

Here, Tommy is thrilled by one of the many chickens that roam around the island.

The reward at the end of the hike.

We hung out, ate, explored a bit, but they had to be on their own for a few days bc I had to work. Bummer. However, they had a good time – it isn’t hard. They went to the North Shore, and Mike made friends with a Hawaiian rugby team. The only big blip was Amy’s poor grandmother fell and broke her shoulder. I felt so bad for her, but she dealt with it as well as possible.

The last day I was treated to an awesome snorkel boat trip with everyone, so that was a blast. I can't believe I forgot my camera. I took way too few pictures while they were here.

I, the ever-jaded local, was less than impressed by the snorkeling, but it was fun watching the tourist surface and shout “TURTLE!” and then everyone would swarm over to him. It kind of reminded me of sharks in chummed waters. Since I’m used to seeing turtles everywhere, I enjoyed the fellowship more than the snorkeling. However, I was a total tourist earlier in the trip when we saw some honest-to-goodness WHALES. I was beyond excited, as that was totally new to me. And they were RIGHT BY our boat. They surfaced a couple times, and then finally dove down giving us the classic tale shot that really made the experience complete. After that there were a bunch of wild dolphins swimming around the boat showing off, but after the whales I was like, meh. So we tooled up and down the coast drinking mai-tais the rest of the time and hung out. It was good hanging with Amy again – it had been awhile, but just like old times. Mike was a bit different – I’d say more driven and intense than I remembered. That guy has so many irons in the fire I can’t even keep up. You know those eccentric millionaire guys? I’m excited, bc I am totally going to be friends with one. Amy, please build me a shack on your property – I can take care of your horses! It’ll be fun! Speaking of eccentric, Mike went out and got a tattoo to remember Hawaii by – you can see it below. It’s pretty cool – I’m way to big of a weenie to ever do something like that. Needles?! No thanks.

So they are back in Texas now, and I miss them. Thanks for coming to visit, guys!

The Lord Giveth….

So on Nov 1st, the Lord decided to reach down and bless me by answering my increasingly desperate prayers all at once. On this wonderful day, I received not only a place to live that just happened to open up across the street from my sister in a neighborhood that has no openings (that's a pic of her house from my front door!), but He also bestowed upon me A Job. I might seem to be poking fun, but I seriously believe God had a hand in my housing situation. Everything just seemed to work out to the best degree possible.

After realizing that lots of money will only get you a shack in someone’s backyard (seriously) we decided that we might need to Go Outside Our Price Range. Even then, I was literally starting to rip my hair out and stress on a previously Courtney-only level. (Sorry Court – I love you! But you know it’s true. :)) I was certain we were going to live in a scary hole of a place and no one would visit us, not that I would blame them. I was even asking Paul to off or otherwise use his policing-powers to get someone kicked out of his subdivision. Then we stumbled upon the idea of Going Way Outside Your Price Range. So now we live in a freaking awesome place that is so kick-ass I can’t even find the words. I feel like I should post all the absolute Ghetto-Fabulous pictures of places that were only mildly too expensive so you can fully understand the awesomeness of this place. I am so excited about this I reverted back to the ‘80s for a minute there. TOTALLY RADICAL! Or was that the early 90s? Maybe it was TOTALLY TUBULAR!

Or something.

I dunno, I was a dork for a reason, people.

Were we in Dallas, the apt. would be nice, but out here it is A Palace. 2 bed / 2 bath! Seriously, once I was walking out the door to go look at a place only to be stopped by Paul, whose reaction when I told him where I was going was, “NO! You cannot live there.” Apparently he used to get called out to that complex all the time when he was on patrol. Nice.

Anyway, so now we have an awesome place and you have no excuse not to come visit. We live on a resort, so you can always stay in the hotel nearby if you would like. As Court puts it: ‘Resort living, ramen eating.’ Hmm, it sounds much wittier when she says it. Anyway, here is the website to the resort: http://www.koolina.com/ . I’ll post some pictures when we actually have moved our stuff in. Right now it holds a phone book, a couch, and a leaky airbed. Not exactly Better Homes and Gardens.

My Office!

Once we had an idea what our rent might be, I was impressed heavily with the need to find a job IMMEDIATELY. I went around for a little while, and then got hired at my first interview at Pueo Group Contracting, which was great. It is downtown, next to David’s building, and across the street from the harbor where I get dropped off in the morning. Nice. It is a contracting company (mainly with the government) and is part of the Native Hawaiian Economic Alliance, which means there are lots of Native Hawaiian employees. I really feel like I need to get a tan so I can at least fake it. Right now I am totally Uber-Whitey. It is a small office, but everyone is very nice. As for my job title, it is something like Office assistantadvertisingpressagenteverythinggirl. I even got to meet with a senator to show her some advertising thing I made to get her approval. I am all kinds of connected out here now. They are sending me out to Kauai for a few days to help secure some subcontractors for a job or something – I’m still not sure what they actually expect me to do. That should be interesting.

Thus, we are all squared away now. If only I had something to put in my house, or to wear to work….

Here are some pictures of David's office, right across the street from mine.

It's the Great Pumpkin

So begins my attempt at pretending it is the holiday season. It just doesn’t feel right without the nippy air blowing against your face as you burrow down into your sweater. David says we are going to crank down the AC on Christmas Day, wear the one sweater we brought, and drink some hot wassail.


But we are not there yet, so in shorts my sister and I headed off to a pumpkin patch to find the canvases for our astounding carving abilities (not really). I don’t care what anyone says about convenience – picking up a pumpkin as you walk into the grocery store just doesn’t create the memories that come when you head out into a field yourself to hunt down the perfect one. Which sometimes involves strategic planning and always involves running. Luckily, our legs are longer than most 5th graders. Ha ha! Take that, kiddos.

The Pumpkin Selecting Process:

Search

Find



Inspect



Deliberate



Select

Or in Courtney's case, choose two since you can't decide.

Oh wait, make that three becuase this one is cool and warty. She was very excited.

Anyway, our husbands conveniently found other things to do, so we headed off into the patch by ourselves. It was nice, with all the noise, kids, and hayrides that over the years have replaced horses with smelly tractors. After many goofy pictures, and changing pumpkins like 5 times each, we took our treasures and headed home to schedule their lobotomies.

A few nights later was the big day, and after much deliberation we set to carving. As you can see, I have to give Court mad props for her howling wolf, as all we had to work with were steak knives. I’m still not sure how she did it. I’m not patient enough for that. Hence, Scary Snake Man. Much easier.

However, he was not too scary, as he failed to intimidate Paul’s Pirate Pumpkin in an arm wrestling match (which I lost. Big surprise).

I absolutely love pumpkin seeds.

Here is Courtney, high on sugar. Somwhow, the amazing Wilson genes were called into question regarding our jumping skills. Naturally, Courtney's sugar-addled brain decided a jumping contest was in order to prove we could actually jump higher than 2 inches (we can't) and as usual, Paul decided to spice things up by attempting to light our feet on fire as incentive. I wish I could find that picture.

So that’s it. Pretty tame. The scariest thing about this Halloween was how much a pumpkin cost.

***Here's a warning, people: This might be a theme for the first few months as we adjust to living in a high-priced area. My girlish shriek of incredulity has become common at the local grocery store. It is going to be like a party once we move back to the mainland.***

David was in CA, so we chilled in the house and watched a movie; it was a Will Ferrel flick, so we got our calisthenics in as we repeatedly leapt up from our seats to turn down the volume during inappropriate parts lest we emotionally scar the cute trick-or-treaters looking for candy. Unfortunately, I think I was Court’s best customer.

Hiking

Remember how I said trying to find a place to live had been stressing me out? After flipping out on Courtney about how David and I were going to be homeless forever, she decided that we should get out and go for a quick hike before she had to go to her next job. So we went on a really easy 5 mile loop hike that was close by, because as we all know, I possess toothpick legs.





We had a nice time with the dogs - Lily was amazed to discover the world isn't flat after all - and it was pretty easy-going. Court pointed out this fruit called strawberry guava that was growing wild along the trail, and since it was about to go out of season for another year it became my little game of hide-and-seek on the trail. We'd be going along, and suddenly Court would realize she was all alone bc I had seen a patch of red and climbed a tree to get them. It was fun.





Bear was upset that she couldn't follow.



We're kind of goofy.



All was going fine until, with my infinite grace, I managed to twist my ankle pretty good a mile away from the end of the trail. Those who know me well are probably not surprised.

THIS was a bit difficult to get over on one leg.



Anyway, Courtney, (very quietly) started to freak out, bc she was now going to be late for work, which prompted her to insist on carrying me on her back for some of the way back. She was DETERMINED. We eventually gimped out of there, and Court made it to work on time. So much for a nice, stress-free time! Oh well, it was still good to be out.

We Own A Car Again!

Hallelujah, we once again own a car of our own. As many of you know, David and I were totally pimping out my grandmother's Grand Marquis the month before we left. Nice. (Although we are very thankful that we didn't have to rent one. Thanks, Grandmom!) What's funny is what rental car they had for us when we arrived in Hawaii - yes, that's right; another Grand Marquis! A few days later we tried to trade it out and ended up with a minivan. Getting closer to our age demographic, but still not quite there. So I am excited to say we finally found one to call our own. And here it is in all its glory:



I decided against a Wrangler bc it is kind of impractical since it will be our only car. Not to mention it's noisy. But, we kept it in the family and ended up with a Liberty. It has 4x4, so watch out, wilderness!



Note the large trunk area - since we are apparently going to be homeless, I've got dibs on the back. Although we will let the guests use it when they come to visit. Classy!