100!

Put up the balloons and streamers, light some sparklers, and bust out the bubbly--we're at post 100! Whodathunk this little photo blog of mine would last so long... and oh, the places we've been, the things we've seen! This may in fact mark the end of an era, however; tomorrow I'm going to go take a look at new digital cameras at the shopping centre, as my poor Pentax Optio30 is... well, dead. And after 6276 photos and nearly three years (having received in Christmas '04), it may very well deserve its rest. However, the camera I spotted to replace it is simply the newer Pentax Optio model that still takes AA batteries and SD memory cards--hey, old habits die hard, okay? Plus, I have all these snazzy battery chargers for various continents that I might as well keep using.

Post 100 also marks a curious rite of passage for the North American woman; namely, cooking your first turkey dinner. I seem to be making a bit of a fuss over this 'rite of passage' thing, but when religious customs and cultural traditions are few and far between (if they exist at all in any moderately uncommodified fashion), the few that do surface must be recognized and appreciated accordingly. I also suspect that this is a bit of a throwback to the domestic woman, the Angel of the House, the 'can she bake a cherry pie' expectation--but you know what? 1) Screw you feminist theory, I like turkey. 2) I can vote. I can express my opinion in any form I like. I am free to do and choose what I like... and I chose to cook a dinner for my friends! 3) I've seen more cooking initiative in my male friends over the past five or so years than in my female friends, and we ought to keep the scales balanced. (Couldn't decide which direction to take that argument, so you get all three.) Or maybe I'm just a traditionalist enough to care about these things--and to insist that the men carve the turkey? Hmm. This all brings back memories of the long table in Aaron's dining room with the high school crew carving up turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes. Yum!

I digress. Moral of the story: Cooking a turkey and providing the staples for a 14 person Thanksgiving dinner isn't lacking in stress, and Katie and I had a magnificent day drinking wine and doing our best to interpret and do justice to our family recipes.

Katie and I had the turkey roasting in the oven by 2:30, just on schedule. three hours later it was juicy and ready to be carved up--Luke obliged by doing the honours. :)


at last--candles lit, glass of Yellow Tail Merlot in hand, other peoples' contributions unveiled, and Thanksgiving dinner was ready to go!


to make this pumpkin pie, we had to roast our own freakin' pumpkin... ye gods. at least we didn't end up using pumpkin baby food as we feared we may have to. I guess I'm a little ridiculously proud of my pumpkin pies, but then again, pumpkin pie alone makes me waaaaay too excited. ;)


with full stomachs, we retire to the roof to enjoy the Sydney lights--moi, Luke, & Katie


some of us spent the night, and the next day we three (and Jeremy) went over to Paddy's Markets in Darling Harbour... it was a beautiful, sunny day and the perfect relaxing end to our Thanksgiving extravaganza!