Hello! Our Thanksgiving was spent here in Pittsburgh with Jon’s parents, who came up to see us for a few days! They kindly offered to come to us for the holiday, so we decided to stay here rather than drive down to NC three times in three months (we went for a wedding in October and are of course going for Christmas next month)! It was Becky & Kevin’s first trip to Pittsburgh, so we had fun showing them around. Unfortunately I didn’t take many pictures while they were here 😦
They got here Tuesday evening, and I made cube steak & gravy in the crockpot with rice and roasted green beans & mushrooms for dinner. They came bearing fun little gifts, like a Thanksgiving oven mitt and dish towel set, the six teaspoons from our registry we never got, photo coasters and a lantern!
cute little Lucas coaster!
Wednesday morning Jon had to go to work, but he decided to take a half day because there wasn’t much going on at the office. I took Becky & Kevin to the famous Giant Eagle Market District that they’ve heard so much about! We decided on our Thanksgiving dinner menu the night before and picked up all the ingredients we needed that morning. We went back to the apartment and they used our blender for the first time (we hadn’t taken it out of the cabinet since we got it!) and made a marinade for the salmon they planned to make that night.
Next we drove to Jon’s office, and then we all went out to lunch at Burgatory! It’s an upscale burger/sports bar place near our apartment that has been extremely busy since it opened a couple months ago.
And now for the sad news…right after Becky and I finished doing Stretch-X (one of the P90X videos with all stretching) that afternoon, she got sick and from then on called Burgatory “Puke-atory.” She and Kevin had been at Jon’s sister’s before driving up here, where a stomach bug was passed between Ashley, Lucas and Brandon, so it wasn’t much of a surprise. I was actually surprised that Kevin, Jon and I never got it!
So, Kevin made the dinner of salmon, asparagus and orzo, and Becky quarantined herself to a small corner of our living room the rest of the night.
Because the weather was so nice on Thursday, we decided to go out and show them the city and eat our Thanksgiving meal for dinner. We drove into downtown and then up to Mount Washington for the best views of the city! And we didn’t even need coats!
Father and son wearing the same jeans. Haha!
Next we drove to Oakland and stopped at Starbucks, and then drove through Shadyside and the Strip District before returning home to cook!
Our Thanksgiving meal consisted of turkey, cornbread stuffing, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, cranberry/pineapple jello and Sister Schubert’s rolls! I could barely eat a little of everything. And oh yeah, for dessert, I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies the night before, we made peanut butter fudge for me, cake for Jon, and pretended sweet potato casserole wasn’t also dessert!
We watched lots of Duck Dynasty – have you seen that show? So ridiculous but pretty hilarious and entertaining – and everyone else watched a lot of football and basketball, I think… 😉
Friday was cold and cloudy and rainy. Becky and I went to Hobby Lobby and Jon and Kevin went to Gander Mountain to scout some Black Friday deals, but that was the extent of our shopping. We hung out at home, had leftovers for lunch, and then went to Max & Erma’s for dinner. We finished the night with a glass of the delicious Derby Red wine we bought at the Farmer’s Market a couple of weeks ago from one of Jon’s co-workers!
We woke up Saturday morning to the first SNOW here!
It was pretty, but I am in no way excited it is already this cold here. There was no ice and the snow was gone by the afternoon, so no travel worries. Becky & Kevin left early, and then we had a quiet weekend to ourselves.
We were so THANKful to see family this holiday! Of course I missed my family’s traditions and now can’t wait to go home for Christmas!