Thanksgiving in Madrid 2011

Thanksgiving by the numbers at the Thuesens' house:

48 guests
17.5 pounds of potatoes
3 hours - time spent peeling potatoes, sweet potatoes & carrots
15.5 pounds of sweet potatoes
27 chairs in my house

20 minutes - how much time I think I sat down during the day

15 sticks of butter

0 - times the power went out (unlike last year, when it was somewhere around 30 times)

2 cans of cranberry sauce

2 regrets - not spending enough time talking to all the awesome people at my house, and spilling burning chicken stock on my Toms shoes
10 dishes made by me (with some help) in our 1 small kitchen
4 pounds of carrots
2 - 18 pound turkeys
3 cuts on my hands from slicing carrots with my cheese grater
15 bottles of wine
9 pounds of green beans
1 broken glass bowl
0 red wine spills on my white couch, unlike last year, which I didn't find until 3 days later :(
4.30 am - time we went to bed, after going out to celebrate our success followed by
1.30 pm - the time I woke up the next day, Sunday
8 loaves of bread for stuffing
7 visits to the grocery store to get all the supplies I needed
1 Amazing Thanksgiving with friends

 The carnage begins on Friday night as I start to prepare many of the dishes.

  My friend Bea, with her husband Jose & Jaime.  So glad I know them :) (Thanks Julie!!!!) 

 Brian and I with our language tutor, Cristina & her husband Hans.  She is the BEST tutor - we laugh so much during every class, and I am so thankful to be learning from her.  

 A full house.  We converted both our bedroom and the guest bedroom into sitting rooms as well so we could fit everyone in.

 I made all the food for the dinner part of the night, and had people bring drinks & desserts.  They did not disappoint!  It was all so delicious...

My team of helpers.  I couldn't have done it without you!  Thanks for all your hard work :)

This was my second year of making Thanksgiving dinner for 45+ people, and it went much smoother than last year!  I am so grateful that we have a home that we can use to show hospitality to people, and that we can use what has been given to us for so many greater causes.  Our church here, Oasis Madrid, hosts this Thanksgiving event every year as an outreach, and though it's stressful, I absolutely love it.  We'll really miss it in the years to come, but at least I now know that I can do Thanksgiving dinner for so many people with only a tiny oven!

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Minneapolis in September

In September, I went home for three weeks - to celebrate a big birthday for my mom, to meet my nephew, to take 2 architectural registration exams, to meet with my boss, to tailgate, go to Target, and to see lots of friends and family.  Each one of those things was a success (though I only passed 1 of my 2 exams, which was sort of a bummer, though I'm glad I at least got one more done!  3 down, 4 to go...).  I had an amazing time, and I wish I had more photos, but as most of you know, I'm really forgetful and left my camera in MN.

First off, I got to meet this little guy!  Mark & Marissa's son & the first grandkid in the family.  He's awesome, and I cannot believe how much he looks like my brother.  I'm an aunt!!!!

My first weekend in town, we went lawn bowling at Brits Pub in downtown Minneapolis to celebrate my birthday.  It was so cool to be out on a roof in downtown MSP enjoying the skyline with family :)

Ben is the coolest kid I know.  He really enjoyed being in the English Telephone booth (I think he was a bit overwhelmed by all the people at the pub and it was warm & quiet in there)...

 ...So we locked Grandma and baby in there and they were both pretty happy :)

 But not so happy when he couldn't get his mitts on Rae's glasses.  Sorry Benjamin, we all laughed at your expense for this one.  I'm sure it won't be the last time.

 Look at all my great family who came out to celebrate my birthday, I am so lucky & blessed!!!!!!

I think these are my two favorite men in the whole world.  Sorry Polo, your kid trumps you :)

After MN, I went to Kansas City for a few days to hang out with Harmony & Jeremy, which was amazing... then up to Cedar Falls, then to Ames & Des Moines and back to Minneapolis.  It was quite the trip, and I'm so glad I got to see so many of you!  

(By the way, if anyone has any photos of when I was back in the states that they'd be willing to send me, I'd appreciate it.  I left my camera in MSP at the beginning of the trip so I didn't get any other photos while I was taking my midwestern tour.)

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Venice!

Our last hurrah in Italy!

After Cinque Terre, we hopped on a train for 7 hours and went to Venice.  Let me tell you, I love this city.  It was completey overrun with tourists (they get an average of 50,000+ tourists/day) but I don't care.  I realize it's a city made up of more tourists than natives, but it's still so engulfing to be on this improbably floating island, surrounded by the tempestuous sea, embracing the decaying glory of an urban Renaissance city while surrounded by the remnants of a golden society...

 Gondola with a Pallado-designed church across the canal.

 Seriously, who builds a city on an island (and keeps using that city) that floods dozens of times a year and residents?  Crazy, yet awesome people.  These buildings are amazing, historical, and so full of character, and the canals have so much activity always happening on them.  I've never seen anything like it.  

Nighttime at the Rialto Bridge - the main one in town (the bridge during the day is pictured below).  It's amazing to watch the absolute traffic jams on the canals with gondoliers, ferries, taxis, water buses and personal watercraft attempting to navigate this place.  We sat, fascinated, for 30 minutes as the sun set.

 Crazy full of tourists. 

  This is from our last night in Venice.  Kay's feet were really tired, so we found a convenient place for her to rest. :)

St. Marks Square & Cathedral with the Ducal Palace to the right.  Seriously, a magical city.

 

Brian and I spent our last few hours in Venice away from the crowds, sitting on a bench in a park, watching the water traffic go by.  It was such a lovely way to end a busy trip to Italy.  Now that we've hit all the major tourist spots, we'll hopefully go back in the future and just feel the freedom to bask in the pasta, whoops, tuscan sun.

I hope that everyone who came to visit us this summer knows that I hope to blog about their trips here, but understand that it's been way easier to blog backwards (because of my memory) and this week I had some free time to slug out Italy (I think I wrote 6 posts in one day)!  We'll see how motivated I can stay...

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Cinque Terre part 2

The second day in Cinque Terre, we scheduled a cooking class, and went to the market in the morning to pick out our ingredients with the instructor and discuss the menu.  In the afternoon, we explored some of the other cities in the Cinque Terre, and then in the evening, headed to our cooking class to learn how to make some delicious things.

Manarola.  Wish we had more time here, the perfect place to go swimming!

Riomaggiore

 Brian's working really hard as you can see.  This Italian woman was great to work with, though we wish she had spoken a little more english.  It was plenty to get us by until Claudio, our shopping buddy from the morning came back and joined us for dinner.

We made stuffed sardines as the main course of our 10 course meal... they were really amazing.  I'm not going to bore you, or me, with all the photos of the food, I know that's overkill.  But let me tell you that if you know anyone who is going to visit Cinque Terre, I would absolutely recommend this class.  We learned a lot, we drank a lot, we ate a lot, and we really had a fantastic time.

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Cinque Terre

After Lake Como, we took a train down to Cinque Terre.  Though it was SO overrun with tourists, especially during the day, I still loved it in the evenings and for the environment.  So charming, and nothing like it in the world.

The view from our balcony, which was at the absolute highest point of the entire town.  I counted; we had to ascend 280 stairs to get to our room.  It was worth it!

 The view from the harbor looking back into the city.  Our place is located somewhere near the top of that hill in the background.

 We are a classy bunch, aren't we, sitting in the harbor with our beverages?

love him.

 What a good looking family...

We hiked the route between the cities, and as we descended into the last town, there was this dude in a hut, serving up fresh lemonade & lemoncello with lemons from his own farm.  Guess what this girl ordered?  Lemonello, of course.  Seriously Rich & Kay, you acted surprised at this?

After the hike, we went for a swim in the city of Monterosso al Mare.

 As night approached, we were given absolutely amazing views when we got back to our room. 

 Did you hear that about three weeks ago, Cinque Terre was almost completely destroyed by terrible flooding?  The city that we stayed in, Vernazza, has had most of it's main street washed away, and filled with 3-4 meters of silt - the entire first floor of most buildings are completely destroyed.  It's an incredibly sad situation.  We're so thankful that we got to experience the beauty of this place before this tragedy.  Thankfully, only 2 of the 5 cities were really damaged, but it will take a long time for them to recover.  Click here to see some of the before and after photos of the damaged areas.

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