Thanksgiving

Here's hoping your Thanksgiving was as feastful as ours.
All 6 of our children plus their significant others and children (minus Riley's girlfriend and 2 of our granddaughters) were here. Rod's sister, Teresa, and her family also came. We did the traditional feast at "Grandma's" house (Rod's mom) and had a abundance of good food.
As usual, we overdid on the pie making. Nora alone made 12 pies - 7 pumpkin, 2 apple, 1 cherry, and 2 banana cream and Rod's mom provided three fresh pecan pies. The pecans come from her own trees. Two days before, Rod cut up and steamed a very large pumpkin then pureed it in the blender. We never use store-bought canned pumpkin for our pies. Nora also does the apple pies from scratch. She adds some sugar, cinnamon, and cloves to the sliced Granny Smith apples and lets it sit for the apple juices to flow. She then pours off the juices into a pan and heats it up to carmelize it. After the apples are put into the shell, she drizzles the "carmel" over the apples before placing the top crust on. DELICIOUS!!! Our banana cream is made with homemade vanilla pudding, too.
Please click on this link to view photos taken during the day
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=18s0ijij.beh4hlhf&x=0&h=1&y=8zoqtl&localeid=en_US

Did you know? Tylenol formulas

Here is some needed information for anyone with young children or grandchildren that Nora sent me.
http://www.epinions.com/review/Infants_Tylenol_Concentrated_Drops/well-review-2C57-3A67EA4-397F5541-prod6

The new Mr. and Mrs

Introducing Mr. and Mrs.

Michael and Michelle Anderson

After much time and effort, the wedding of our son Michael to Michelle Baugh on Nov. 8 went smoothly. They wanted an outdoor ceremony to be held in Grandma Anderson's front yard. Our weather in November can be very unpredictable but you couldn't have scheduled a more beautiful day.

Michelle had many family members travel here from Wyoming, Colorado and Pennsylvania. They all camped out in RV's and pop-up trailers in our field. On our side, my sisters came down from Utah (escaping the new snow they had just received) and all of our progeny, minus one granddaughter, were here, too. What a houseful. You can view a few of the many photos taken that day here -------> http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=18s0ijij.afzfu3yj&x=0&h=1&y=-bx6dg5&localeid=en_US

Our grown-up family ~~ Margo, Riley, Trevor, the DAD, newest daughter Michelle, Michael, the MOM, Derek, Nora

Best get finished . . .

I can't believe I haven't finished telling about our DC trip. There are still two days of sites we saw to report on.

Friday, October 17 ~~ the weather turned decidedly fall-like, at least for the DC area. Where daytime temps had been in the low 80's, this day proved to be in the low 60's with a fairly good breeze blowing. Rod and I ventured north across the Pennsylvania border and visited a battlefield site from the Civil War -- Gettysburg.

July 1-3, 1863, 165,000 soldiers met on the 6,000 acre battlefield. More than 51,000 became casualties. This was the northern-most point the Confederate Army fought. Just over 3 months later, Pres. Lincoln came to dedicate the new national cemetary at Gettysburg delivering his most famous speech.

I'll leave you to look up any information about this conflict but I found it very interesting. I understand it can be very hot and humid in this area during the summer and knowing how hot and humid it can be in Arizona in July, I tried to imagine what fighting conditions were like back then; having to walk miles, fighting under terrifying circumstances, and the smell of the thousands of decaying bodies. Hopefully you can read some of the information panels shown in the photos I took

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=18s0ijij.5zt0hsbv&x=0&h=1&y=i1m9ky&localeid=en_US

Later that evening we picked up Martin and Sybil and drove to Vienna, again, to visit my cousin David Van Valkenburg and to finally meet his family. It had been over 10 years since I last saw him. We were treated to a wonderful Chinese dinner (his wife is Chinese). He has been doing research on the Van Valkenburg line and said he did not have a photo of our Grandfather who died while our parents were very young. I knew I had one from Grandma Van's family photos now in my possession. When I got home, I actually remembered to look for them and was able to send him copies. He is getting ready to publish a book on his findings.

Saturday, October 18 ~~ Departure day. Our flight wasn't scheduled to leave until 3 PM so we were able to go back to the Mall and visit two museums. We briefly visited the National Museum of the American Indian and then went to the National Air and Space Museum. Having grown up during the "space race", I was interested in seeing the displays. We could easily spent hours there. There is an auxillary museum located in Virginia with larger displays and planes.

I saw the space capsule in which John Glenn first orbited the earth on Feb. 20, 1962 (the day I was baptized) -- seen here ---------------------->

and the Apollo 11 capsule for the first walk on the moon. Talk about being claustrophobic. I remember watching the moon walk happen with my family.

Take a minute and view my photos http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=18s0ijij.9yl3duqz&x=0&h=1&y=x9kis8&localeid=en_US