Thanksgiving Day 2007

The aftermath of an in-oven fire (left)
and the revised batch of sweet potatoes.
How do you like your sweet potatoes? Extra crispy?

In the rush to make it to Thanksgiving Day dinner on time, Mom accidentally left the sweet potatoes in the oven a little too long. How long? Long enough to catch the marshmellows on fire. She yelled to Dad to ask what to do. Dad told her to throw baking soda on it.

"And ruin the whole thing?" Mom responded.

Instead, Mom and Emily blew out the flaming dish. A little scraping here and there and some fresh marshmellows on top and you never knew what had gone wrong.

Thanksgiving Day at our house began with a big breakfast and a hearty helping of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Dad asked Emily if she knew what Macy's was.

"No, but their name is ALL over the place," Emily said.

The parade was a three-hour affair, of which we watched about 90 minutes. When we switched away, it was to watch new Price is Right host Drew Carey. Most of the girls had never seen the show before, so Dad frequently paused the TiVo to further explain each game, as well as to give the girls an opportunity to bid on the prizes or make guesses related to the games.

In one game, Emily guessed the amounts the audience member guessed, while Dad correctly predicted the actual amounts - which were also the same as what the audience was yelling. In another game, the contestant did a cartwheel before she even played the game (which she went on to win). As it turned out, all six contestants won their games (only the 77th time in show history this has happened) and each showcase contestant won $1,000 spinning the wheel. Emily, Dad and Lauren each made bids on the showcase, with Emily winning being the closest (without going over) to correctly guessing the actual showcase amounts.

This was also the second time that we have not gone to Grandma and Grandpa YD's house for Thanksgiving. We did, however, parktake of a nice meal at Tante Angie's house.