First Bruner Thanksgiving

This year I celebrated two monumental things in my life on one very special day. I celebrated my first Thanksgiving as a married woman with my husband, and I spent my first holiday away from my family. It is great to have a new family, it is twice as much fun to have two families than just one. But, I think it is going to take a while to adjust.
This Thanksgiving I learned so much more about Jon's family. We decided to never do holidays together until we were married so we could put off the switching back and forth business. So, as this was my first big holiday away from home, it was also Jon's first holiday to have me around. Jon's family does things pretty similar to mine, but it is neat to see all the traditions that they have. The biggest one was the difference in recipes! I know that every family does there own signature Thanksgiving dish, and The Hickl signature dish is something I look forward to year-round. It was as if I had a whole different Thanksgiving meal experience! One cool thing that Jon's family does is cook the turkey in his grandma's very very old oven. It is soooo different! It looked like a giant metal crock pot. But I just loved that they still cook it in there! And it tasted wonderful!
One thing that I'm not used to is visiting both sets of grandparents over the holidays. Since my mom's family lives in Idaho it is always an either/or scenario. After we spent Thanksgiving day with Jon's mom's side of the family, we spent the next day with Jon's dad's side of the family. It was great to get to see all of them as well, but it was tiring. We did get to have two Thanksgivings in one so it was well worth it!
One thing I really missed this year was having a ton of leftovers! Even if we go to my aunt and uncle's house for Thanksgiving my mom still fixes some things at home so we can have Thanksgiving for days. I missed not having all the leftovers to gorge myself on. I was actually surprised how little I ate this year! Usually I come away with at least a 3 lb gain, but I felt about the same this time around. I'm sure I'll more than make up for it at Christmas.
As sad as it was to be away from my family for the first time, I survived and had a wonderful time celebrating with Jon's family. I'm so glad that I married someone who's family is so similar to mine so I always feel at home. Here are a few pictures from Thanksgiving:

Katy and I in our apron's working hard on the Thanksgiving Feast to come!

Jon and I worked hard to make this beautiful apple pie.

My first Bruner Family Picture!

Ma-ma working hard in her apron to make sure her recipes were perfect


Yay for our first Thanksgiving!

Overall my first Thanksgiving away from home was wonderful and I am so Thankful to have such a wonderful new family!