Thanksgiving was the best, as always. We started out the week celebrating our anniversary. We stayed in Rosemary Beach at the dreamy, Pearl Hotel, and when we arrived, there were roses and sparkles addressed to Mr. Bloom! Ha! obviously they were meant for me. The two of us sipped lots of prosecco, went on the best date we've had in awhile, and slept the soundest sleep we've slept in awhile. When we woke up the next morning, I rolled over to say happy birthday to Mark. He rudely responded, "don't you mean happy pie making day?" The day before Thanksgiving was supposed to be a day of pie making, but thankfully for Mark, we drank too many mimosas to stay on schedule and only ended up making the dough. We welcomed far away family to town for my grandfathers memorial and pulled names for our family gift exchange. But Mark had a great birthday, and Dagny ate too much cake.
The morning of Thanksgiving started out perfectly. We woke up to the loud quick notes of the Messiah. We made coffee and basked in the smells of my dad's prep work. He was making the wild rice, mashed potatoes, corn breads stuffing parts, cranberry sauce, and prepping two turkeys. All before 9am. You can imagine how wonderful it smelled. Clementine and J came over and we all went to the beach steps to drink coffee. My mom made her pumpkin donut muffins and brought them down still steaming. Look how cute she and Clementine are.
It was eventually time for pies. My dad had finished in the kitchen just in time for the Lions pregame show. Lindsay, Mary Kate and the boys made it over to cheers to Thanksgiving. Mark and I had to make the Highland Park Yellow Squash Casserole this year, so we started with that. Clem and Linds pealed and sliced 100 apples, while we cut and boiled 100 lbs of squash. The coffee turned to sparkles and the pie baking began. We each made an apple pie. Thats 4 apple pies. Mary Kate made hers for a friend, so we only got to enjoy 3. Clem made two chess pies and Linds and I made the chocolate pecan pie. Mary Kate also made two pumpkins, and one pecan pie! That is a lot of pie! And I still feel like I didn't get enough left over. With all the family in town we made enough for 30. It was a big dinner.
Dagny was the cutest champ all day long except for the one tantrum you see her throwing while holding a bottle of St Germaine. My mom has really nice legs. My pie was the prettiest.
The night ended with the greatest reunion of my dad and his siblings, doing the "blue," and an epic euchre rematch in which the Blooms dominated Billy and Linds. The rest of the week was bliss. We said good bye to Pappy Blue with song and spent the night reminiscing our greatest memories of him. His children, our parents, shared what they loved about him and what it was like growing up with him. He left a great legacy and everyone shared what they thought made Pappy Blue so special. He was a wise, wise gentleman, man of routine, loving husband, a polio survivor, strong, pristine, intimidating and a little bit scary, loving father and grandfather.
