Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Careful!

Today has been a quiet day, but yesterday was a total blast! Tony and I got up real early Christmas morning, so we could have everything ready to go when our friends/volunteers showed up, to help us prepare our dog's Annual Christmas Dinner.

Brandon came out at 7:15, to help Tony clean the dog pens while I stayed inside and cooked the  20 pounds of  mixed vegetables and five dozen dinner rolls.

Kris and her husband, Jim, "The Mountain Man" Bobbitt, showed up first and then the other Jim showed up with his lovely wife Diane and her son and his two beautiful daughters. Then June and Ellen arrived with season greetings. By 8:45, Diane and Kris were cracking up eggs like professionals, while June and her sister Ellen added the stuffing, the olive oil, cheese and the garlic into the four buckets. And to say the least, everyone was pitching in and having fun.

Before Chef Tony was ready to add the steaming vegetables, Tony, Brandon, Jim's granddaughter and a few others took turns mixing up the food, with our heavy-duty drill using a long cement mixer paddle.  After the peas, corn, carrots, lima beans and green beans were added to the buckets and had been mixed in—we went outside to serve our dogs their Christmas dinner which included a warmed dinner roll and one of Diane's homemade dog treats.

About thirty-minutes later, all of the dogs had eaten their delicious dinner and wanted seconds, so we served up second helpings until we ran out of food. Because everyone had Christmas plans, June and Ellen were the first to leave, but before driving away, Ellen told me that she had left her Christmas gift for me inside The Cabin and she hoped I liked it.

Then Jim and his family thanked us for letting them come out to help and then they wished us a merry Christmas and left. Kris and Jim, Brandon, Tony and I then stood outside and had a fun visit mainly talking about Jim's gluten-free, 9 grains loaf of bread that he had made for especially for us on Monday.
Because we were having so much fun, Tony and I invited everyone to come inside the trailer, so we could visit some more.

When we came inside The Cabin I saw Ellen's Christmas gift that she had left for me, so while Tony made fresh cups of Keurig coffee for our friends I opened up the pretty gift sack and pulled out a t-shirt, that made me laugh out loud. Then I turned it around and showed it to everyone which made them laugh, too. Here's a picture of the front of my new t-shirt—that I love so much and is so very true, as you well know.


After we had all quit laughing about it we drank coffee and talked about all kinds of things including the cute pink napkins that Ellen had also given to me, with cute little white pigs on it.

After The Mineral Man and his super sweet wife left to go home. I cleaned up the kitchen while Tony and Brandon surfed the TV trying to find a football or basketball game to watch and then they helped me put the turkey into the roasting pat and then I prepared our Thanksgiving dinner.

We ate at 12:30 and Brandon was so cute, because he kept telling me how delicious it was during commercial breaks. I think our informal dinner was tasty, but I must confess that the best part of our dinner was Jim's bread and Brandon's homemade pecan pie.

When we had cleaned up the kitchen, Brandon plugged his electric guitar into my amp and then I plugged my acoustic guitar into it and we jammed for several hours, because we were having such a good time. 

Brandon is an exceptionally talented guitarist and he can play the lead to any song I threw at him. On a scale of 1 - 10, with 10 being the highest, Brandon is an 11 and I am maybe a five, in my dreams. Anyway, Tony and I really enjoyed Brandon spending Christmas day with us and for cooking his mouth-watering pecan pie. And that is about it for tonight, because I plan to watch The  35th Annual Kennedy Center Honors.

Y'all have a great evening!

2 comments:

Eileen said...

Nancy and Tony, I'm so sorry I missed the exciting Christmas dinner for the dogs this year! I didn't go to bed until after 1:00 am on Christmas Eve and when I got up at 8:30 am, I felt terrible. I texted Lisa to give my regards, but rain check on it, and she said she couldn't go either. I have a gift for you and Tone that I'll bring out tomorrow if ya'll will be around. Friday am I'm helping Ellen take all the Fruit pups to get their first shots at the vet's! Unless she's changed the date/time. I sure hated missing but I'm glad to learn from your blog that you had a nice group of helpers with you! Next time you and Brandon jam, you need to record it! I love all the music you two played! See you soon! Eileen of the FAB 4 VOLS!

cousin nancy said...

Good morning, Eileen. We all missed you and Lisa yesterday and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow. This morning Brandon and I talked about recording ourselves and maybe we can get Tony to make a video of us playing our guitars. Our rescue ranch's volunteer band, L-Bent and Husky Bound need to get together and practice and you need to borrow (long term) my drums, so you can practice.