<p>D is home! All is well. Dog was sweet with her. Little Bro is grinning from ear to ear!</p>
<p>It was so touching at the airport last night. Dozens of families in our demographic waiting for beloved college kids. Students in college sweatshirts streaming down escalator into the arms of moms and dads. Heaven to get mine into a hug after 3.5 months! </p>
<p>Safe travels and happy visits to all. Hugs to those who will not see their kids this week. Christmas is coming soon and the holiday break is longer!</p>
<p>Ds has also landed, around 10 pm last night - seems he got a bit taller. Anyone else with boys experiencing the no-shave-November? Wonder if that is only on his campus, seems a silly thing for a 1/2 asian boy child to attempt, just looks like he hasn’t washed for weeks. Not suave or debonaire at all. Today is cooking and more cooking.</p>
<p>For stuffing, we always (in our family) as long as I remember have a apple-bacon-sausage stuffing but about 8 yrs ago in the name of heart-heath, I tried to replace the bacon with turkey bacon and replace the sausage with portobello caps. It is actually now the preferred method and really tasty.</p>
<p>^^^See I STILL think we should have crashed AK’s celebration. I make pretty pedestrian stuff, although I sometimes add apples to the cornbread/breadcube stuffing. Am looking forward to tomorrow, like (almost) all the people coming to our house so that is a plus. Then after folks have gone home, D, H and I will settle in for a viewing of "Punkin’ Chunkin’ ". I blame that competition for D list engineering on one of her apps last year because she was so taken with designing a catapult.</p>
<p>Just think where we all were a year ago this time- I don’t miss College App season one bit.</p>
<p>Ditto, ditto, ditto! May last year fall into the black hole of “long ago.”</p>
<p>My D solved the getting up early problem (had to be up at 4 for a 6:40 flight) by staying up all night! She and her ride - who she said HAD to stay up because has absolutely no reliability with alarm clocks) had a great time watching videos and goofing around. Several people visited and hung out as long as they could. Luckily D is in a suite and the common room is generally “alive” 24 hours a day.</p>
<p>H is roasting turkey necks today and making his gravy in advance (there are no drippings anyway, since his BIL fries it). I guess I know what we’ll have for dinner! His family is southern and makes cornbread and sage stuffing. I do almost nothing, although D and I are going to try out a couple of cheesecake recipes. H’s family is the type that eats so much dinner that they don’t really care about dessert.</p>
<p>D1 is proud because she has mastered her dad’s bread technique and has been asked to contribute that to her communal Thanksgiving dinner. She loves to cook and is making a few other things. I just hope her BF doesn’t have trouble getting to DC today.</p>
<p>So excited to read about the safe arrivals of our students! It is wonderful to have them back in the nest (well, it’s nice temporarily). I thought that S2 would run off to meet up with friends, but he’s been hanging out with his brothers here at home. Nice!</p>
<p>AmandaK: I’m not sure if I’d notice a no-shave November here. S2 doesn’t have enough fuzz to notice. </p>
<p>I’m cooking Thanksgiving dinner today so that we can take leftovers to with us when we go to see my mom tomorrow. She lives in an assisted living facility about 3 hours away. I don’t want her to be alone, but can’t cook there, so this is our compromise. As for stuffing – ours is pretty basic – bread cubes (about 50% sourdough), onions, celery, parsley, romano cheese. Yesterday I made 4 pies, so today I’m focusing on the turkey and sides. Roasted green beens, corn casserole, carrots cut into matchsticks with chives, mashed potatoes, etc. Yum!</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for your well wishes and crossed fingers! DD is @ the airport and (I’m afraid to say this out loud), her flight is still listed as on-time. </p>
<p>As for last year’s application season, I think it’s similar to child birth… I vaguely remember it, I know there was pain involved but I’m pleased (most of the time) with the results. OH, and DH was there but didn’t play much of a part other than to tell me it would all be all right…</p>
<p>Safe travel and happy landings to all–DH left about 45 minutes ago to head down to retrieve the boy. I should be home from work before they get back here so I will have time to stop by the store to pick up some goodies…make up his bed so he has somewhere snug to sleep…get started on the Thanksgiving cooking…aaaaggghhh, panic, why didn’t someone tell me this day was approaching!</p>
<p>Oh–that’s right. I have been following the TG countdown every darn day, just not doing anything productive about it!</p>
<p>Apologies, have not managed to keep up here as I’m in housing crisis mode but thought some of you might appreciate today’s editorial in the (London) Times. Happy Thanksgiving, American friends! </p>
<p>November 23 2011 12:01AM</p>
<p>Dont some people make the dumbest decisions? Patrick Witt, a student at Yale, faced a choice. He could lead his team out against Harvard in a match so steeped in college football folklore that it is known simply as The Game, or he could attend his final interviews to bag a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford. Guess which of the two Witt chose? He chose to play football. Yale lost.</p>
<p>No, that wasnt the dumb decision. This is: the Rhodes Trust was so thrown (We have candidates every year miss games for the interview, it said grandly) that it refused to reschedule Witts interview. Witt felt he had to withdraw his application. In a test of priorities, the Rhodes Trust has shown that it, and not Witt, has the wrong ones. Its a matter of principle, Witt tells The Times. It wouldnt be right as the quarterback, the leader of your team, to turn your back on them for something thats entirely selfish in nature.</p>
<p>In founding the scholarships, Cecil Rhodes said that he did not want merely bookworms. He sought candidates who had success in manly outdoor sports; also people of moral force and character and of instincts to lead and to take an interest in his schoolmates. It could be a prize crafted with Witt in mind. As for Oxford, while it chooses not to interfere in the selection process, its reticence in this instance brings dishonour on the university.</p>
<p>Witt is not just Yales quarterback. He is among the greatest in Yales history. He realised that had he opted to skip the game, he wouldnt have been acting like the person they selected to interview. It is sobering that this student can recognise what the Rhodes selectors cannot: Patrick Witts choice should be all the proof the trust needs to reassure itself that it has found a worthy Rhodes Scholar.</p>
<p>No notice of facial hair but since boychild is 100% asian not surprising. </p>
<p>I’ll be in the kitchen all day making my stuffing - which isn’t fancy but we like it, lima bean casserole, pumpkin soup and polishing the silver which takes forever. </p>
<p>I hope all the kids who are finding their way home today have a safe and easy journey.</p>
<p>I’m not missing app season at all. When I go over for a peek at the 2012’s thread I want to scream at all of them to stop obsessing over every little thing and that it will all work out in the end.</p>
<p>Emilybee - brilliantly said. Most of us (moi too) did obsess over such minutia. I think all of our kids are happy for the most part. I guess it is a fine line of enough effort, but not too much. Finding that line is the hard part.</p>
<p>In hindsight, I don’t think I would have or wanted my son to have handled the process any differently. I am glad we visited the schools before applying, happy with his list, glad for the effort put into scholarships and grateful for the time we spent together during the process.</p>
<p>I’m woefully behind, but I could not agree more with emilybee’s post as well as FlMM’s! I loved the journey with Bluejr but am so glad that is part of our shared history and behind us now. Pepper, I made so many mistakes, but I figure that’s all part of the process as well. After all there’s still Bluejrjr!! EB…want to share your pumpkin soup recipe after the busy holiday? I’d love it, PM me. I’m a huge fan and am still on the hunt for a perfect recipe! :)</p>
<p>Amanda, so glad the elf was found. I’d never heard of this tradition and I would have been apt to loose it as well. I am currently without a decorative plate in the kitchen because I moved and stored the normal one to put up a cute Halloween one…too soon for the holiday one but no one can find the everyday one. So the stand sits empty. Urgh. Certainly not as urgent as your elf, but just saying I’d lose the little guy!!!</p>
<p>Worst mom of the year…fist day to sleep-in in forever (or so he tells me) and I have to wake up Bluejr to take him to the dentist. Sorry. You’ll thank me when you live those extra years because of good dental health. Yea, that’s what I’m going with this morning.</p>
<p>Hugs to all my ipeeps and their not so little peeps as they return to the nest. Very special gentle hugs to our friends whose peeps will not be joining them this Thanksgiving. My thoughts are with you. {{{{{hugs}}}}}} My wish is that they found a surrogate family to spend the holiday with, or something meaningful to do on Thursday.</p>
<p>Love hearing all the reunion stories and hope everyone traveling today arrives safely and on time! We travel tomorrow to DS - just too complicated with his schedule for him to travel to us. Means no cooking - although DH last night asked for stuffing, mashed potatoes and brussel sprouts for dinner one night next week, hold the turkey! We have been speculating on DS facial hair - could well be there. Ditto need for haircut, but we’re with him just a short time so I’ll hold my “nag” on that until he comes home in Dec.
Hugs to those not seeing their kids this weekend; this is our first time in over 3 months and I well understand how hard even another month would be.
Happy Thanksgiving to all!</p>
<p>:) We have passed the outer markers, the flaps are extended and the landing gear is locked in place. The kids are landing! :)</p>
<p>Our S is on his way to the airport and we expect to see him around 7 PM as GF is picking him up at the airport. He informed us he will be home and then is meeting a large group of his friends to plan Black Friday shopping and football. The HS football team is playing in the D-2 state semi-finals this Friday night and the game is local so many of his HS Class of 2011 are planning to go as “Alumnae”</p>
<p>Glad to hear everyone is avoiding serious travel delays and that the kids are landing safely at home.</p>
<p>Happy Thanksgiving to one and all. We have been fortunate to have our son home since Saturday night. He is working today after having spent two days visiting teachers at school, enjoying the time for recreational reading and attending two Mizzou basketball games with his dad and me in Kansas City.</p>
<p>I love reading all your stuffing recipes. We are just not “into” stuffing as a family so I have never embellished more than onions and broth added to the Pepperidge Farm bag.</p>
<p>Our menu includes pumpkin soup, sweet potato casserole AND mashed potatoes, green beans cooked in bacon, crescent rolls and a new pumpkin pie recipe. I don’t really care for pumpkin pie but this one is in a gingersnap crust and has coconut milk and sweet potatoes in it. I wish I had more than one oven so I could do some other vegetable dishes but my DIL is bringing broccoli casserole from her family’s recipe.</p>
<p>I’ve signed out of work today to plan the hour-by-hour list of tasks in the kitchen. I love the organization of this meal almost as much as the eating of it!</p>
<p>Thanks Samuck to the article.
Our student (attends Y) was saying that it was a lose/lose thing for Witt…because to not be at the game undermines a pillar used to measure the candidates…and missing the interview, he’d lose the opportunity. </p>
<p>As for the accident pre-game, news reports say the driver passed the alcohol tests etc. AND there is reporting that the model of U Haul trucks made in 2006, 07 and 08 have had numerous other citings for accerator issues/pedals etc.
Horribly tragic. I feel for that young man and his family. What he is facing and how that impacts his lifetime.</p>
<p>Cooking–ah yes. First night was pesto (trofie). Second night skirt steak. Last night fondue. Tonight: Roasted beef tenderloin. Tom. Turkey day. Fri…undecided.</p>
<p>Cooking for me is a pleasure. I plan to get some things done today so tommorrow is quieter. I need to dig out the dessert recipe. My mother gave it to me a few years ago…made with a pumpkin custard base, topped with a spice cake mix (dry), pecans and then melted butter. Easy to assemble and the whole thing bakes together. Crazy calories yet a nice dessert. </p>
<p>All of these stuffing recipes make me wish I was making some for myself.</p>
<p>Just got back from LGA. I was treated to a chorus of the fight song and the greek alphabet, but not much else. …and he’s out already.
Long night here. Older D from San Fran is texting me photos of her new hearth with the stockings for bf & dog at 1 am and S is texting me at 5 am telling me he is on his way. Then I think I better text him to not fall asleep at the airport since he was so early. Flight was actually early, but a gate wasn’t available, no traffic, but glad we sprung for the non-stop. Thinking of a nap now, I’ve had a sinus headache all week and haven’t slept well at all, more than my normal not sleeping.</p>
<p>Might do some Black Friday- S needs some shirts and I’m hoping I can talk older S into revamping his wardrobe before he transfers to the UK next month. </p>
<p>Now I can say Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy your students this weekend.</p>
<p>Ohiomom - I think you deserve the Thanksgiving Day Award for bringing your feast to your Mom!!! I hope you all get it there safely without someone eating the pies on the way!</p>
<p>Samuck - what a stupid org if they can’t reschedule things, seems pretty petty, I’d think they’d just want the best candidate, not the most subservient.</p>
<p>Have a nice nap, ldinct - sun’s almost out from behind the clouds here, waiting for a nice sunbeam to lie down myself.</p>
<p>Well, we brought DS one home from airport at 10 last night. He and DS 2 are catching up with each other… nice to see. He brought two loads of dirty laundry home in his duffel and I actually enjoyed washing and folding them for him. My nurturing instinct is in full drive. I got up early and baked a Trader Joe’s coffee cake before the guys woke up. Delicious by the way! Today we are running a few errands together then he will veg and play Xbox. DS has lost “freshman 15.” He says he feels good and is eating but he is skinnier than I’ve ever seen him… 6’2" and 155 lbs! It is my mission for him to relax and eat this week-end! I used to be amused by my mother’s joy and eagerness to pamper when all her kids came home. Now I get it… wish she was still with us so I could tell her that. Enjoy your Thanksgiving everyone!</p>
EB…want to share your pumpkin soup recipe after the busy holiday? I’d love it, PM me. I’m a huge fan and am still on the hunt for a perfect recipe! :)</p>