glückliche Danksagung!

Or Happy Thanksgiving to those of you have haven't spent the last week in Germany! We got home late Tuesday/early Wednesday from our 24 hour trip home from Paris. We were exhausted and slept most of Wednesday, finally able to function like normal humans today - just in time for Thanksgiving. Thankfully, we'd already bought our food before we left so there was nothing we needed from the store (other than some breakfast food) when we got back. So, around 11:30 am I got started with our pre-cooked ham, finishing the sides (green bean casserole, mashed sweet potatoes, and rolls) around 2:00 pm for a late lunch meal.

To wash it all down we cracked our bottle of sweet Riesling that we brought back with us from Bernkastel, Germany. I'm glad it was an easy meal to prepare since the boy came down with a cold yesterday and I didn't want him anywhere near the food prep today. And good thing it was tasty because we'll be eating it all weekend!

Make sure to click over to Chris' blog to see our vacation pictures. We downloaded the photos to his computer so he could edit them, so he also got to upload them. Lucky him!

Food truck party

In Chico there are a group of food trucks that get together in one location once a month for a food and live music extravaganza. This month it was tonight at the Elk's Lodge down the street on East Ave. They started at 4:30 pm, right as the sun was starting to go down. We got there at about 4:45 pm and immediately ran into some friends that we ended up sitting with. After surveying our food truck choices, the boy hopped in line at a taco truck and I headed off to the Filipino food truck.

I had the most fabulous adobo meat over rice and another dish of shredded chicken and spinach in coconut milk over rice. Soooo good (and gluten free)!

Chris went back for seconds at the Korean food truck and got spicy pork tacos while I went to the gluten free bakery booth and bought a weekend's worth of pumpkin bars.

It got dark and cold pretty fast so we tried to stay warm by bouncing our feet to the beat of the band that was playing classic rock. We finally called it a night at 6:30 pm, at which point I could no longer feel my toes. Just another late night for a pair of old fuddy duddies!

Spooky Senorita

Between retirements and resignations, there's fewer and fewer of us at work who dress up for Halloween. But us last four hardcore Halloween die-hards still donned our silly costumes yesterday.

Our missing cowgirl didn't make it in time for the photo shoot!

I wore my pollera dress so I'd be ready in case any passing Carnivals broke out! Even our Thursday morning donuts from Krispy Kreme were in the spirit.

I got home right after work and had about a half an hour reprieve before trick-or-treaters starting showing up. I didn't feel that we had as many as in years past, but they were all very polite.

Now that we're down to less than 2 weeks until our trip, I stopped off at my bank today and pre-ordered some Euros. I didn't know you could do that, but a co-worker told me about it. I cashed in $1000 for 697 Euros that will be delivered to the bank by next Wednesday. What a "fantastic" exchange rate!?! Tomorrow I'll stop by Verizon and find out about international service for my phone. I really want to have the mapping and texting capabilities overseas. Then it's time to start making packing lists. It's going to be here before we know it!