Fun at the Wickhams - Part 2

The lovely chefs. They are the sisters of Daniel's dad.

Goat meat on the grill

 I'm in love with this huge industrial like kitchen with wood floors, stainless steel  appliances and over sized windows that let brilliant sunshine in.

 Pumpkin, walnut, coconut and cranberry casserole waiting to be baked.

This would be deep-fried. Yum!

Saw these two gentlemen practicing

Can't help myself from taking random pictures since the lighting was great

The deep fried turkey in progress!

Cute Aunt Dottie was out for some fresh air

Another random pictures

View of the living room cum dining place for Thanksgiving from upstairs

Aunt Dottie preparing white rice topped with wild rice

I'm not sure who brought the green bean casserole. I'm never a huge fan of green beans and never had this kind of casserole before but this is pretty good. Excuse the poor lighting. It doesn't do justice to the dish.

The turkey came out perfect. Aunt Dottie made some sweet walnut dressing that went well with the bird, I'm not sure what else went in there but to me, it's great. Here Aunt Barbara was pouring cranberry sauce out from the cans into the bowls and cutting cranberry jelly into small pieces. The only time I've ever had cranberry sauce was at Ikea in KL and that was with Swedish meatballs. The jelly reminds me of agar-agar and now I feel like having rose flavored agar-agar with evaporated milk and canned tropical mixed fruit. Sedapnya.

The glorious deep fried turkey

 We all said what we are thankful for

The Wickham's neighbors, Asif and Annie. Thanks to Asif, Aunt Barbara, Uncle John and another neighbor Tomas, we're able to enjoy some good turkey and goat. Most importantly for us, they're halal. Uncle John also asked Asif to say some short prayer before we started devouring all the great stuff.

These make me want to fast forward the time to next year and help myself with another full plate goodness.

Attempting to make all these in one day was madness. Just because I've never bake as much. I did plan to spread the work over several days but this time I'm blaming it on the blackout.

Andy the dog got excited to see an ilama and started chasing it. I think it's too much for the ilama and the poor guy had to go home

They didn't look so thrill when I asked them to stop playing to take some pictures

Lovely couple - Sam and his girlfriend, Robin. Sam is Daniel's cousin.

Aunt Dottie with her daughter, Briana

And then the whole family picture - Uncle Don, Briana and Aunt Dottie

Aunt Barbara busy putting the leftovers away. I just realized that I did not have any picture of the Wickhams as a whole family. I'm so sorry!

More random pictures. The cheese and cracker platter was really good.

Everybody helped to put the living room back to it's original cozy state.

What started as a simple 'jamming' session between Daniel and Uncle John turned out to a full blast where almost everybody started grabbing something to play with. Fun! Thank you Aunt Barbara and Uncle John for inviting us. It was great to have the opportunity to meet with the other Bonnin families and we all look forward to meet you guys again soon.

Fun at the Wickhams - Part 1

We went to Aunt Barbara's house somewhere in Portland for Thanksgiving which was the next day after the snow storm and power outage. Aunt Barbara is Daniel's auntie from his dad's side. We spent 2 nights there but the first night didn't really count that much since we arrived very late at night. I'll tell you why later. But it was all so much fun! They have this nice big place called  Blueberry Hollow, which is to me is like a small farm with some chickens that lay organic eggs, goats that provide fresh goat milk and meat, a cute little horse which has a name but I forgot, 2 funny geese, and a dog named Andy and oh some 60 something blueberry trees! Or is it 100 trees?  I'm not sure but anyway the blueberries are available for u-pick in summer. Thanks to Aunt Barbara and Uncle John and Asif, their Muslim neighbor, we're able to enjoy some halal turkey and goat meat. I love their house especially the yard, the spacious living room and the huge kitchen. There'll be some photo overload just because I took zillions of pictures and had a hard time to choose which one to put on here. Probably I'll divide this entry to 2 parts so you guys won't get bored, we'll see how it goes.

Front view. Inside the little barn opposite the cars is where you can find fresh goat milk and organic eggs for  sale and it's based on honor system so you can just leave money or checks in the jar provided. Next to the barn is the chicken house.

Look at that handsome couple! They're sure know how to pose for a picture

These two are pretty eccentric and funny, especially the brown one. Just look at how he walks.  Actually I'm not sure if it's really a 'he', nobody really knows for sure. As for now, I assume it is just because he likes to show off and acts as if he wants to chase you. But when you start flapping your arms and stare at him to show dominance over him, he turns around. Silly goose :-)

How awesome is the backyard?!

This is like giving you guys a tour right? Imagine how much fun it would be during summer, having BBQ outside etc

Aren't they cute?

The goat shed. I say they have pretty cool place to live :-) The boy in yellow snow hat is John, Aunt Barbara's son

The horse! Now I remember -his name is Rusty...I think

I'm pretty sure in summer this plot here would be full of fresh veggies. Look at that parsley and that's in winter people!

Blueberry bushes in their dormant state in winter

Does anybody know what kind of fruit is this? It looks like persimmon to me.

Let's go inside the house. It's pretty chilly out here.

First stop, upstairs to check what the boys were doing. They had fun for sure with the big boys. I think there were 10 boys in total.

Farhan decided he needed some time alone to play with the nerf gun. That was the most popular toy that day.

The adults meanwhile chose to simply chill before the other guests arrived.

Somewhere in between, I went to Aunt Barbara to this place to find some holly for table decorations. It was a nice short walk.

The holly that we picked, well Aunt Barbara actually. I just watched.

 Yellow and red, love the contrast.