Thanksgiving in Elk Ridge, Utah

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I am down here in Katie's house right now. (Katie's one of my roommies.) It's been a pretty fun week. One and a half days 'til we go home. I'm just going to recap some of the things that have been happening.

Thanksgiving was fun. Lots of food, mostly familiar, some new. Katie's grandmother is from Louisiana so her mom puts on more of a southern Thanksgiving, but it still has all the essentials of mashed potatoes, stuffing, and of course, turkey! She made some of the best sweet potatoes I have ever had in my life! They were covered with a praline-type topping. (Mum, you're gonna love it! I'm getting the recipe.) Yeah, it was good. I made an apple pie, which 11-year old Bonnie helped me with. It came out beautifully! And man, it tasted so good. Katie asked me to make something that is more what we have. (I automatically thought of oyster-stuffing, but decided that with two kinds already, that would just be detracting from the meal.) So I made something I have always liked, and must be by far the easiest of all the dishes: peas and sweet onions in cream. I've never made them before, and wasn't sure if it was really cream, or what the real name of the onions were, so I just went by what looked right. (Dutch onions. Crazy.) I just emptied the peas and onions into a dish, stuck 'em in the microwave for 10 minutes, poured 1/2&1/2 over them, warmed them up again, and stuck them on the table. Everyone really liked them. I was like, well, it's not like it's really hard or anything.

A lot of the time I spend with Katie, her 17-year old bro. Matt, and all of their mutual buddies. The boys are hillarious. I was sitting in the back of the car with Matt, Brad, and Cloward, and Matt starts "singing" along to some techno song on the radio. He was making one noise, so Brad and Cloward joined in with the harmonizing noises. I just sat there and thought, "Wow, I'm in the back seat of a car in Utah with Levi, Todd, and Lincoln." That's exactly what it was like. I was even cracking up like I would with those guys. It was fun.

Earlier tonight, 13 of us went to play lasertag in Provo. It was so much fun. The first game was kind of lame 'cause we were mixed with another group, and they had these little kids (like 10-13 year olds) that just would not play fair. They kept taking off their vests and putting them under their shirts so that the sensors couldn't be hit. Or covering your guns if you were in close-combat. It was lame. The second game was just with us and other people from our first team (that we didn't know, but at least they were cool). It was pretty fun. I accidentally hit Kevin right in the eye. Yeah... that was embarrassing. Oh well.

All us ladies of the house of Shallenberger went to Pudding on the Rice (obviously a rice pudding place) which really impressed me. It was way good! (The amarretto... amazing!) Then to Pirates of the Carribean 2. Not an Oscar-winner, the writing needed some boosting, but at least it sets us all up quite nicely for the third one. Besides, Johnny Depp is way too good an actor to let a little thing like mediocre writing get in the way of entertainment.

All in all it's been pretty fun. Yeah, I wish I was home with my family for Thanksgiving, but the Shallenbergers have been good to me. They've got a house full of 7 kids (all with varying degrees of ADHD... and I'm not kidding - each one is diagnosed) so it's kind of crazy. But they're a good family, and are full of hospitality!