Canadian Thanksgiving And A Visit From Ethan

Columbus Day weekend and Canadian Thanksgiving are always on the same weekend. We usually have our Thanksgiving Feast at this point as opposed to at the end of November when American's have thiers. (If someone invites us over or if we have guests or what not we don't mind doing it a second time however!) This year was super great though because my brother Ethan flew out from Canada to spend the weekend with us. When we went to up state New York and Canada in July he was involved with the Hill Cumorah Pageant so we only got to see him for about a half hour. Since he is getting ready to go on his mission when he turns 19 at the end of January he decided to come and spend some extra one on one time with us and his "favourite" (and only!) nephews. When he told me over the phone when he was coming I pointed out that it was the Thanksgiving break...he chuckled and said, "well, yeah. if you guys do anything...". Silly boy. I have been planning this for months. Some people sew and some people scrap book, but my hobby is menu planning, setting tables and reading recipe books. This year I decided on a menu of feta, cranberry and walnut salad with a dijon vinagrette, homemade rolls and pumpkin pecan maple leaf shaped muffins (thanks mum for the nifty pan!), turkey with sausage and mushroom stuffing, gravy, garlic cream cheese mashed potatoes, southern style green beans with bacon, carrot souffle (thanks for the recipe Kristi, everyone loved it especially Asher) and apple pie with fresh whipped cream. I also had a lot of fun setting the table, I printed off some really great place cards from the marthstewart.com website and had an excuse to break out the fancy place mats and napkins. Ethan is really great to have around. He is wonderful with the boys. He holds and plays with Asher and is very patient with Liam. On Saturday night he came with us to the UNCG soccer game and it was lots of fun with him there. He and Bevan are also good friends so it is really nice to see them building thier relationship. We are all really flattered that he would use his time and resources to come and visit us. He will be missed when he leaves on his mission, (he is putting his papers in next month so we'll soon see where he is off to!).