Fried Bird

Before I write about Thanksgiving, I want to note that last week's wedding was among the best I've been to recently. I told the groom, Drake one of our E.R. nurses, it was the people (meaning guests) that made it great. Knowing about 75% of the guests definitely contributed to my enjoyment. There were actually so many E.R. employees there that I wondered who was actually working at that time.

Anyway, Thanksgiving went down at our house, which was a first for us. Megan and I still had active extended families, so it was pretty rare for us to host a major holiday. Megan's parents, her sister, my parents and Derek were all guests. Mary and her family, who hosted Thanksgiving at their own house, joined us briefly via video chat.

Megan put a lot of work into Thanksgiving dinner. She made her Mom Mom's stuffing, boursin mashed potatoes, green beans with mushrooms and pancetta, stuffing and, if that wasn't enough starch, dinner rolls. Derek brought the wine and my mom made the salad. Megan's mom made the sweet potato casserole and the show stopping desserts: pumpkin roll and apple pie. I made cranberry sauce (i abhor the canned stuff) but the most exciting part for me was I got to fry the turkey.

Don't worry. I didn't lose my eyebrows. The stories about fried turkey fiascos definitely scared Megan and me, and the two of us spent the week prior researching how to do this safely. I had a lot of help on the day of cooking, primarily from Charlie and Derek. Funny enough, it smelled like fast food french fries every time we checked on the bird. I highly recommend frying turkey, by the way. It tasted better and took less time to prepare. One other benefit that I did not think about was that it freed up our oven for other cooking tasks.

The only downside to hosting Thanksgiving is that despite sending many of our guests home with leftovers, we ended up eating Thanksgiving food for four consecutive days. I definitely could have been worse. After all, everything tastes better fried.

Sharing snacks with Paige

Drake & Stephenie's wedding reception

Drake & Stephenie's wedding

It's snowing!

Who's that?

Celebrating Megan's b-day (one day early)

Megan multitasking - texting, web-surfing, watching tv

Parents' visiting night at Paige's school

Celebrate a Marriage with a Marriage

Why do I repeatedly celebrate the day I took my written Emergency Medicine board exam? Well, this year I worked the night of our Wedding Anniversary, so Megan and I went out the following evening. We had to skip out on a few other functions to do so. Sorry, Drake about missing your Bachelor party and apologies to the ER docs for missing the interview dinner. Just like two years ago, Megan and I saw a movie followed by dinner at Harry's Savoy Grill.

This year we celebrated our wedding by witnessing the fictional wedding of the titular character in the film Rachel Getting Married. As a testament to the realness and complexity of the relationships presented in the movie, Megan and I found ourselves siding with different characters. Watching it, we really felt like we were actually at the wedding, almost to a fault. Megan and I agreed we really didn't need to hear EVERY speech during the rehearsal dinner. Regardless of the minor flaws, we both loved the film. It utilized a hand-held video approach (natural lighting included) that really made us feel like a fly on the wall. Performances were great. True to hype, Anne Hathaway really did deserve the Oscar nomination she would likely get. What did get lost in the hype was how good everyone else was too. One performer that really stood out was Rosemarie DeWitt who played Rachel. Megan and I believed she deserved as as much recognition as Hathaway. Since the movie revolved around the relationship between the two sisters, it owed it's success to both performances.

Since Megan was gracious enough to watch a film with me (she's not always a movie person), we spent the rest of the evening doing one of her favorite activities: shopping. One item we walked away with was a new painting for the family room. No, it was nothing unique, just a $60 picture from Bed, Bath and Beyond. I liked the way the flowers seemed to be emitting light.