Pumpkin and Spice

I was fully intending to post my turkey recipe prior to Thanksgiving, you know, when it might have done some good. But I was a little busier than I anticipated- I worked every day for eight days before Thanksgiving, so there was a lot of pre-holiday prep work that occupied my evenings (when I might have had time to blog), plus with family coming into town there was a lot of cleaning to do. I kinda overestimated my free time, I'll be honest.
Well, there's always the Christmas turkey.

(Also, before we go any further, my "h" key is sticking, sooo... if any words are missing "h's", that's why.)

The holidays are rapidly approaching- it's truely the most wonderful time of the year! I love that once you hit October, you get a holiday every month until Valentine's day! Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas/Hannukah, New Year's, Valentine's Day- it's the best. It makes me feel all Hallmark card squishy inside.

 This time last year, I was in Utah with Sissy, and we spent our Thanksgiving with a co-worker and her family. This year, my parents are coming from Kansas, my brother is coming from Kentucky, and my in-laws and sister-in-law are coming from a couple streets over to our apartment for a big family Thanksgiving. It's going to be my first year hosting the Big Dinner, and I'm a ball of excitement and nerves.

I love Halloween. I love vampires (though not so much Twilight-y vampires...) In honor of the holiday, and my beloved gothy bloodsuckers, I created a bloody cheesecake for our Halloween party this year.

A hazelnut flavored cheesecake with a red chambord (raspberry liqueur) flavored swirl is topped with with a "bloody" splash of frangelico spiked raspberry coulis. The flavor is smooth, rich and creamy, and the sauce offers a tart, bright note. In fact, it's really lovely enough that if you left out the red food dye in the cheesecake, it would make a delightful dessert for any occasion.

I hope that you all had a great Mother's Day weekend- I hope you all treated your moms well, showered them with love and gifts and let them know how fab they are. I gave my mom a call, but since she's coming to visit this coming weekend (Yay!) we're postponing our Mother's Day celebrating until then. I'm super-excited about the present I got her, because I know she'll love it, but she reads my blog (hi, Mom!) so I can't say what it is yet!

Kyle's mother lives about three miles away from us, so we did celebrate with her. Of course, I baked her a cake. I decided that I wanted to decorate her cake in an orange color scheme, because I think that Kyle's mom looks beautiful when she wears oranges. (Not many people do, but it's a great color on her.) Since the outside was going to be orange, it made sense to make the cake orange flavored as well.

As much as I like my job/externship, it's been a difficult couple months. Starting a new job is always an adjustment, but I also had to adjust to moving to a new city, in a new state, 2000 miles away from my husband. It's been hard, but thankfully, I didn't have to spend my Christmas alone. My parents, my brother and Kyle all came out to Utah to spend the holiday with me.

They rented a condo, so I temporarily moved out of my "dorm room" and in with them. Their first day here, we had to hit the local Albertsons to pick up provisions, as well as a ham for Christmas dinner. While we were there, we saw former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in the produce section (he has a home in Park City.) Kyle was totally excited about our "celebrity" sighting, but wouldn't go ask for a picture.