Kids, a Snowman, and a Snow Covered Sailboat

The kids came over again today on this long snowy Thanksgiving weekend.  (I just realized that I had also written just a few short months ago about a snowy Memorial Day weekend... will we ever catch a break?) The grandchildren spent some time this afternoon out in the backyard building a snowman with Grammy. Their attention was split between building the snowman and the sailboat sitting under a few inches of snow.  Eventually, their attention went to the kayaks standing tall and strapped against the house. Those boats seem to constantly call their names whenever they visit.  Today was no exception.

A note of interest here:  I was the same at my grandparents' house... the boats always beckoned... I can still smell that home on the water and hear the waves lapping at the boats, dock and bulkhead. There is just something excitingly intriguing and special about boats, trains and airplanes... especially to kids.

We did the usual "Sunday dinner" at the house this evening.  Sheila's parents joined us for dinner as well.  

It's been quite the long weekend of big meals!  I definitely need to do a bit of dieting this week before we jump into Christmas meals. Our Christmas calendar begins next weekend with dinner and drinks out with friends in Stowe. We're looking forward to that even though the thought of food is a bit revolting at the moment.

Our long weekend started with Thanksgiving dinner at Sheila's parents' house with 23 guests for dinner. 

On Friday we had barbequed pulled pork with my special and a bit unusual sweet cole slaw with whiskey soaked golden raisins.  I also made some homemade french fries for that barbeque meal.

On Saturday, I made a full Thanksgiving dinner but, instead of turkey, I roasted a whole chicken. That allowed us to eat some more of my homemade cranberry sauce leftover from Thanksgiving as well as my Apple Harvest Salad with candied pecans, dried cranberries, apple slices and a sweet Apple Vinaigrette dressing.  It was a great meal but far too much food far too soon after Thanksgiving!

Then today I cooked one of my favorite dishes from some delicious recipes my grandmother taught me decades ago when I was in college.  I made her Italian meatballs and tomato sauce. I served this with penne, a loaf of bread and some homemade garlic butter.  I think we'll all stink of garlic for the next week!

As always, right after dinner the kids headed to the shower to clean up and get ready for bed. After getting cleaned up enough to smell like clean babies again, they ran around the darkened house with flashlight light-sticks.  

Anyway, I've included a few photos from today of some snowman-building in the backyard with the kids.  The snow in the yard just keeps getting deeper and deeper while I am left hopelessly waiting for some warmer weather so I can do some much needed work outside...  We'll see what comes of that...