Thanksgiving Hangover

{Speaking of Thanksgiving, we are thankful to have such caring teammates. My mom so aptly described this picture as  'one picture, a thousand words' since it gives those a glimpse of the special chemistry here. Photo by Romain Robini}

    Forgive us for being a bit quiet here, we are still struggling from Thanksgiving. Since the team had practice and a team function on Thursday night, we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving on Saturday so no one was in a rush and people could eat and take in the experience for as long as possible. We invited the entire team and some friends and the guest list quickly shot up to 20 adults and 5 kids, mostly French. All week we fielded questions from teammates like: What does turkey taste like? What is stuffing? What does Thanksgiving mean? Is there really a pumpkin pie? And while we tried to answer every question accurately, I do admit to making a few answers up as the week wore on, sorry. (Reminds me of a few years ago when we threw a baby shower and Shaun's coach pulled him aside during practice to ask him, What is this baby shower thing, did they already have the baby? TOTAL CONFUSION) A few of us wives decided to bear the brunt of preparing the entire meal and I can honestly say, it was freakin' delicious. We had (o.k., bear with me here) 35 lbs of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, potatoes au gratin, chicken wings, mac n' cheese, meatballs, deviled eggs, potato salad, goat cheese bread, baguettes, quiche, apple and pear tart, 2 pumpkin pies, Red velvet cupcakes, chocolate brownie cake, fruit salad, wine and champagne. Whew..... there was enough food to feed 50 people to be honest with you. The frenchies were most curious about the stuffing, the pumpkin pies and how the Red Velvet cupcakes got their vibrant red color. We spent about 4 hours eating, laughing, explaining traditions, watching football and did I say laughing? At the end of the night, everyone prepared themselves a few meals to go and we all headed back home to nurse our turkey hangovers and sleep it off. The only thing I regret was the limited amount of photos I took since the last thing on my mind after cooking for 2 days straight was taking pics, so you will have to take my word, it was a smorgasbord of food. We had kicked around the idea of going around and having people say what they were thankful for but decided against it and added a French twist to the evening by popping a few bottles of champagne and toasting in unison. Shaun and I have always been about immersing ourselves and experiencing as much as possible so it was nice to be able to give a little bit back, even if it was only for one night. Another successful Thanksgiving down!!!