Patrick and Michelle Hinckley: November 2010

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Christmas Lighting 2010

here is our FIRST Christmas tree

It's one of my first REAL ones!

i decorated it myself from the very pricey ornaments from the Dollar Store!

It's a cat in a Stocking!!!

Oh Midnight we do love you! it's just too fun to torture you!!! :)

Saturday, November 27, 2010

This thanksgiving was our first thanksgiving on our own as a married couple. We decided to stay at our home and cook a dinner for another couple. I got up early cleaned the house, and then started in on the food. For the turkey because we were not having many people over I just got a turkey breast. So I go to put the turkey in and, well I have never cooked a turkey on my own. So I just put the turkey on a baking sheet and stuffed it in the oven. I put a meat thermometer in because all the places said once it reached 180 then it would be done, and it would take about 2 to 3 hours. So I just let it cook and prepared everything else. I made some amazing sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole rolls and cherry pastries. But when I went to go check on the turkey around 2 hours it looked done, it was the right temperature and everything and it looked pretty good! So we took it out and let it cool. I called my mom to ask her how to make gravy and she told me to take the drippings from the turkey. Problem ONE: there were NO drippings. The pan was completely DRY. Problem TWO: when the turkey had cooled about 15 minutes before we went to serve it, we started carving it. The turkey was SO not cooked, it looked like it had just defrosted and had never been cooked!! So what do we do? We are fifteen minutes from eating and our turkey isn’t done. We could put it back in the oven but at that rate it would take about 2 more hours! So we decided to start a new tradition. In out fridge we had a tri-tip steak from Costco, so we decided to just make that! It was awesome and only took 45 minutes. So our disaster turned out ok! Our new tradition is going to be shrimp (that is from Patrick’s family) and steak. I think I am going to like this tradition; I never really liked turkey dinners anyway! So it turned out to be a great Thanksgiving. We at yummy food, and watched the Cowboys put up a good fight! I am so excited for the holidays to come. Patrick and I are celebrating our second anniversary on the Second. We are going to be putting up our first REAL Christmas tree, and hoping our cats don’t destroy it within the first night! AND we got all of our Christmas shopping done online during Black Friday!! Finals are three weeks away and then we get a blessed vacation! Only two more semesters to go before I graduate! I cannot wait! Hope you had a good turkey day, I would ask advice to let me know what I did wrong with the turkey, but seeing as we are axing it from the menu, I will just let Pat be in charge of the Steak form now on! I’ll do the sides and dessert!