Thanksgiving

On November 27th, we hosted our typical "orphans" Thanksgiving meal for our family and friends. As usual, we had a TON of food and a lot of fun with everyone!

Chad made a sous vide turkey for the main dish. He bought 2 turkey breasts, and had the meat counter take out the bone and take off the skin. Then he wrapped the two together with twine to make a "tube" of meat, which was then well-seasoned. After that, the whole thing went into a gallon-sized bag and put into the slow cooker. I think Chad said it was in for about 3 hours, but it was slightly underdone when we took it out and sliced it. Another 30 minutes (or so) in the oven, after it was sliced, took care of that though. Next time, I guess we would plan to have the turkey cook for at least 4 hours in the sous vide.

Chad also used the bones to make a turkey stock (to use in the gravy) and he baked the skin between parchment paper to make it crispy. He said that the taste of the skin was like a mix of pork rinds and a slight burnt bacon taste.

While the food was all cooking, we had some games going. Cecilia decided to sit with all the guys to watch them play their game, along with Baby.

Here's our spread. We had sous vide turkey, crispy skin, gravy, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, apple, sausage, parsnip stuffing, vegetarian stuffing, cranberry sauce, cornbread muffins, creamy pumpkin baked rigatoni, 2 kinds of sweet potatoes, and rolls. Later, we had a pumpkin/sweet potato pie, and an apple pie for dessert. We were all STUFFED by the end of the day!

CalTrain Ride

On November 24th, I decided to take the kids on a ride on CalTrain. They had been asking to go on a train ride for a while, and Cecilia was off of school for Thanksgiving, so I decided to go for it. They had a BLAST and would love to go on another train ride soon. We rode from the Sunnyvale station to Milbrae (which is where you would transfer to BART to ride to SFO) and then back. It ended up taking about 2 hours total for the trip.

Here is Cecilia getting really excited, and it was only for the train going the other way!

On CalTrain

Smile!

Silly face!

Sad face!

Happy face!

Waving goodbye to our train. Then a train going the other way pulls in!

The kids pretend to be whales

On November 23rd, the kids were pretending that they were whales after breakfast.

Train Show

On November 22nd, we took the kids to the Great Train Expo, a model train show, at the Alameda County Fairgrounds. We weren't sure how the kids would like it, but it turned out that they LOVED it! Even now, over a month later, they still ask if they can go back to the train show again. They were having so much fun that they didn't want to go home.

Cecilia looking at the buildings for sale. Some of the stuff was VERY expensive, so we had to keep reminding the kids that they could look but not touch.

Grant found some train books. He stood there and just flipped through the books for about 10 minutes. 

The detail on the model train setups was amazing! One of the displays was based on a real railroad that had run in the area and included details like a paper mill (with a cutout in the roof to see all the machinery and such inside), a papermill, a bald eagle nest on one of bridges, a grizzly bear den under another bridge, and even water barrels on the bridge. 

Later, we discovered some Lego trains.

We saw some bigger model trains

More trains for sale.

An amusing model

There was a guy from Seattle that had driven down with his wooden train set up. I talked to him for a little bit while the kids were playing with the train sets. He is a aeronautical engineer by day, but got into the train hobby when his kids were little and really excited about trains. He apparently had tons and tons of train and track pieces, so he started building his own track setups. And now he has a whole website devoted to how to make setups like this, along with the train cars, the decorations, and the actual tables the pieces are all connected to. You could tell that he was really passionate and really enjoyed watching the kids all playing with the trains! 

Looking back on our way back to the car

Within minutes of being back in the car, Grant was asleep.

Cecilia took a little longer to fall asleep, but she was probably asleep within about 15-20 minutes (of the hour drive home)

Fixed LEGO Pneumatic Pump

This one's for Enno.  Grant really wanted to play with my old LEGO pneumatic dump truck.  It's been assembled for 15 or 20 years, sitting in the basement of my parents' house.  It needed some minor repairs and adjustments, but otherwise still worked!  Well, after about one day of use, I heard a popping sound inside the pneumatic pump and it stopped working.  We figured out that, internally, the rubber o-ring/piston had come detached from the rod you push.  I found some LEGO enthusiast forums online and saw that others indicated it was possible to fix the pump.  (A replacement would have been at least $20 - LEGO doesn't currently release any sets using this part.)

So with some effort, help from my dad, and, sadly, damage, I got the top of the pump off, cleaned the inside, relubricated with silicone grease, and now it works again!  Not as well as it used to, but this is better than just throwing the part away.  :)



p.s. you can see that the rear door doesn't open and shut like it used to...  the support for the rear pneumatic output is cracking.

The kids play Wii Fit

On November 21st, the kids decided to play Wii Fit. They always have a lot of fun, and it is always really cute to see them doing it!