330/365 Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We celebrated with family, fun and LOTS of food. The day began with a delicious breakfast and ended with yummy pies. In the middle we had great appetizer, LOTS of turkey and good time.

The morning began early. We needed to get the birds out of the brine and get breakfast in the oven before the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade began. The birds (yes, plural) soaked in Alton Brown's (recipe found here). We did two birds, one 19 lbs and one 11 lbs. The big bird was roasted, the smaller one was fried. We also did nearly a dozen turkey legs that were smoked on the grill.

The Wonder Cat was THRILLED to have my family here. He adores my parents and doesn't quiet understand that they don't live here. He loves the attention he gets while they are here and spends weeks looking for them after they leave.

Our breakfast was The Pioneer Woman's Blueberry Baked French Toast - so good! Recipe can be found here.

Then it was time for the bird to get hot.

Some of my cute Thanksgiving towels

We had plenty of appetizers to snack on all day while the birds were cooking away

Mom grabbing a pickle

Matt is still dreaming about the salami

Owen kept himself out of trouble by nesting into the grill cover we stuffed under a table. He made his own little Wonder Cat burrito

The table set up

The food!

The Wonder Cat enjoying an after dinner drink.

326/365 More fall

More Fall decorations

324/365 Fall is here

Some of my fall decorations

And my lovely husband

314/365 Orange

Fall is full of oranges! We went to our friends house tonight for dinner and fun with friends and they are decked out with the fall decorations.

Warm flower arrangements

Tall turkeys

And pumpkins galore!

292/365 Our Fall Decorations

I have a few fall touches in the house.

The pumpkin display

Fall candles

290/365 An Armstrong Fall

I got to visit some of my favorite people today! In addition to having a great lunch and enjoying each other's company - we also visited a pumpkin patch. It was truly a wonderful day!

277/365 Fall at the Cabbage Patch

A quick trip to Kim's Cabbage Patch brought us some lovely glimpses of fall.

Tons of pumpkins and decorations

Since Dad wouldn't play along - Mom and her new husband.

Corn plants

Lovely mums

276/365 A fall day

What a BUSY day! We spent the morning at a corn maze. Being a Miami girl - this was a first for me. I'd seen such things on TV, but never seen one in real life. But there are a few nearby, so we decided to head over and check it out.

Let me just say - if you have never done this, you must give it a try! It was so much fun! Hot and sweaty, but very fun! We went to Long and Scott's Farm in Zellwood - I highly recommend them.

http://www.longandscottfarms.com/maze_adventures.html

Here mom and I are waiting for our video to show us how to not get lost.

Yes, those are 3D glasses. They had a whole puzzle element to go along with the maze.

The entrance to the maze area

Mom and I walked through the tunnel.

Matt went down the 60 foot slide. Yes, seriously.

Then went got a glimpse of the maze itself.

Look at that poster. The top is the big maze, 6 or 7 acres. Takes more than an hour to get through - and that is for the people who work there and know which way to go.

The bottom right corner is the kiddie maze - only one way in and out and it goes in a wheel pattern. They said it would only take 15 minutes - so Mom and I decided that was the one for us.

Entrance to the kiddie maze

Matt went into the big maze!

Here are pictures from the tower bridge in the kiddie maze over looking both mazes.

View from inside the maze

You can see that even in the kiddie maze - the corn is up over our heads!

When we finished (30 plus minutes later) we headed over the shaded farmers market to wait for Matt.

Mom

Me

When we finished that adventure, we headed over the the Winter Garden Musical Festival. It's a huge street festival going on for three blocks in downtown Winter Garden. We caught a preview of Plaid Forever and discovered our friend David Foust was playing with them!

After enjoying the music, we wandered around and explored the displays.

We found a vendor selling nothing but Dad shirts! For those of you who don't know what a Dad shirt is - think loud, bright, obnoxious and Hawaiian style. My dad loves them and can be found haunting Goodwill for shirts that others have deemed unwearable.

Matt's reaction

Mom realizing that she will be going home with new Dad shirts

After leaving the festival, we explored a little. We saw this guy on the way

We also explored a small cemetery. It's in Oakland, Florida and you get to it by taking a sharp turn off the road nearly down hill. No roads, no parking lot - not even a dirt road. But some of the graves are very new.

I discovered the children's section - heart breaking.