Thanksgiving Weekend 2012
We have just had the most amazing time with 3 other Aussie families, also over here on Military postings, for Thanksgiving.
With Greg & Joala down in Panama City Beach, Florida and Tim, Corrine, Laurie & Charlene up in Maryland and us in Virginia we needed to find a nice place to come together midway!
So I jumped onto google maps, did a bit of looking and found Hilton Head Island in South Carolina!
After searching some accommodation options I came across a fabulous holiday house a block from the beach with a pool, hot tub and even its own mini golf! Everyone agreed it would be perfect so the booking was done! The house was quite spectacular, 6 bedrooms all with ensuites, great living areas and the biggest basement I have ever seen! With 8 adults and 5 kids, we were all set for Thanksgiving!
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| The front of the house! |
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| Living area :) |
We all arrived after long drives, at least 9 hours, on the Weds night. Had a quick catch up, shared a drink and laugh and called it a night! You can check out more pics on the house on this website, or even book it yourself!!!
Thanksgiving Day:
We started the day with a trip down the road to the local beach. The best beach for some good ole Aussie cricket, only we had no bat or ball! (Note for next time!) There was a quite a few people with the same idea, do the workout first, then eat and drink yourself silly lol!!
Here are some snaps of the fun on the beach!
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| Greg & Joala! |
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| Zara & Mitchell having a dig! |
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| The little boys having a race! |
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| The big boys having a race! |
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| Laurie & Charlene |
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| The kiddies |
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| The hubby and I |
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| Col & Laurie! lol |
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| Joala trying to piggy back Greg!! |
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| Joala and I :) |
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| Tim! Corinne was not well so stayed back at the house....to drink lol |
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| The crew heading back to the house :) |
After a morning of fun at the beach, it was time to prep for dinner!
Tim had a mega early start! He had spent quite some time boning the birds that would be the centrepiece of the Thanksgiving meal! He put together what we have called the Turduckensant! It was a turkey stuffed with a duck, chicken and pheasant! It needed at least 12 hours to cook, so ensure it was ready for sit down time at 4pm, he was up at 4am to pop the chicks into the oven! When we started the meal planning, it was a given that we HAD to at least try a Turducken, but Tim excelled himself!
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| The cooked Turduckensant! |
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| The inside, all meat ~ pure delish'nous! |
I had found a cute fruit turkey that I thought would make a good table decoration. it was really easy to put together and turned out really well! the kids enjoyed eating it after too!
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| The fruit turkey.......notice our little piece of Aus on the table lol! |
We had mashed sweet potato topped with melted marshmellows (devine!), leg ham, broccoli casserole, green bean casserole, seafood gumby with rice, rolls, gravy, homemade chocolate mud cake, malva pudding (OMG amazing!) & impossible pie, again amazing!
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| The feast! |
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| Myself, Col, Corinne, Tim, Laurie, Charlene, Greg & Joala! Adults table :) |
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| Korey, Mitchell, Rhyce, Zara & Lachlan....the kiddies table :) |
With very full bellies, a few drinks and many laughs the Thanksgiving day was almost over! Well........................................not for Charlene and I!!! At 10pm we headed off to hit up the Balck Friday sales!! Think Boxing Day sales on steriods! We got some amazing bargains, even stood in a line of about 500 people for one shop, but walked away when we realised just how long it would take for us to actually get into the store!! We grabbed a coffee at midnight from Starbucks to keep us going and made it home with a full car load at 2am!! lol
Friday 23rd Nov:
This morning the fellas all headed off for a game of golf, 9 holes. Joala & Corinne went off exploring and Charlene and I took all the kids to a local playground to burn off some energy!
At about 3pm the fellas returned.....apparantly the 19th hole took a little longer than the ladies anticipated! They all had a great time, but I think we had the best! You see Joala came up with the idea that we should venture out and find our own 19th hole for a few hours!
I really wanted to go and check out Hilton Head Harbour with the lighthouse, so we headed down there. It is part of a flashy Plantation so we had to pay $5 just to drive into the estate! It turned out that they were having the annual lighting of the Christmas tree, so parking was a little hard, but we found one in the end!
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| Hilton Head Harbour |
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| The lighthouse |
We headed to the harbour and watched a beautiful sunset.
Then like a vision from a dream we saw it.....THE 19TH HOLE!!!!! There it was on the opposite side of the harbour, 4 chairs screaming our name, right on the edge of the golf course and water!! PERFECTO! Off we went!
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| The ladies 19th hole! |
On the way over we ran into Mrs Claus!!!
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| Charlene, Joala, Mrs Claus, Sam & Corinne |
We made it to the 19th hole and set up for our little picnic! A lovely bottle of Verdi, you may remember we enjoyed this at the recent Navy Ball!! Joala also pulled out a small cheese plate and some crackers! Although it got a little cold, we really enjoyed just sitting there chillaxing and enjoying the moment!
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| Love the paper cups with turkeys on them lol!! |
We headed back to the car to join the rest of the crew for dinner, leftovers of course and enjoyed the lit up Christmas tree along the way!
We ended the weekend away with a trip to Savannah in Georgia! What a great little town, but more on that in my next blog!!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING Y'ALL!!!
1 comments:
I was happy to see that when I Googled Turduckensant, at least one person has tried this and has it documented on the internet. Well done.
Also, what a beautiful home.
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