Happy Thanksgiving weekend to you all! We’ve had a nice Thanksgiving break and a somewhat peaceful weekend. I love love love the holidays! I just cleaned my entire kitchen (including all the cabinets, table, chairs and bar stools) and swept and mopped my floor while listening to Christmas music. Yay! Christmastime is magical, especially if it can make cleaning a little more enjoyable! 😉 Yay.
Anyway, I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had a great day. Kev and I started the day off by going to an hour and a half “Turkey class” at the gym! It was a lot of fun! We did a ton of cardio and weights. We also had a fun pushup and burpee contest at the end. Here are a few pics…
Here are most of the people from the class. Our instructors are sitting on the floor in front (in the purple and in the yellow.) I love them!
Here’s Kev during the pushup contest. We paired off and one of us participated in the contest while the other one helped to count. Then we switched! We had two minutes to do as many pushups as we could. The instructor said, “I don’t care if you do them on your knees, just do as many as you can!” So, most of the class did them on their knees. I was able to do 65 and I think the winner did over a hundred! Lame….I mean wow!
Here I am doing burpees! Burpees are such a great, yet freaking HARD exercise. If you aren’t familiar with them, click here and you WILL be familiar with them! This little contest killed me. We did as many burpees as we could in one minute. I did thirty something. I can’t remember how many the winner did!
Overall, it was a very fun workout! I’m so glad we went. I love starting my Thanksgiving off with exercise! In fact, two years ago I ran a fun 10K Turkey Trot with my sister. It was forecast to be -2 degrees! I was so scared! Eeek. It ended up being around 8-10 degrees. I bundled up like crazy, but ended up getting HOT. It was such a fun run!
Here we are after the race. Yes, I look like a ninja or a Pakistan lady or something. Too funny. It made for a memorable race!
*******************
Anyway, we had Thanksgiving dinner at my parent’s house. Look what we saw on our drive up to their house…
Pretty cool. I had to take a pic for my 14 year old. He is obsessed with cars!
Anyway, back to Thanksgiving dinner. I brought sweet potatoes and rolls! I made Candied Coconut Sweet Potatoes. Click here for the recipe.
Super yummy, but not healthy at all. It’s pretty much sugar and butter with a little sweet potatoes mixed in. 🙂
I also made the best rolls on the planet. I’m not kidding.
I found the recipe several years ago and I’m now the official “roll bringing lady” at all the family parties. It’s such a good recipe. Once again, it’s not healthy at all though! But heck, it’s Thanksgiving! If you can’t live it up on Thanksgiving, I don’t know when you can!
Unfortunately, I don’t remember where I got this roll recipe. I would love to give “someone” credit, but I don’t know who to give credit to!! Trust me….you will love these!
The Best Rolls on the Planet
(Makes 48 rolls. This recipe is huge! I usually half it.)
Mix together and let sit for 10 minutes:
4 T. yeast
½ C. + 2 T. warm water
Mix together very well in separate bowl:
6 eggs
1 C. oil
1 C. sugar
Warm milk in microwave until warm, not scalding.
2 C. warm milk
Add egg mixture and warm milk to the yeast mixture. Mix all together until combined.
Add 1 cup of flour at a time until combined together.
10 1/2 C. flour
2 T. salt
Knead for 5 minutes. Allow to raise 2-3 hours.
Separate dough into 6 even balls. Roll out each ball on a lightly floured surface until the size of a dinner plate. Using a pizza cutter, cut dough into 8 pizza slices. Roll each slice downward (starting with the fat side), wrapping skinny bottom piece down and around to make pretty crescent shape. Place 3 rolls across and 8 down, 24 on each cookie sheet.
Allow to double in size while covered with clean dish towel (about 15 minutes.) While raising on top of oven, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake one sheet at a time. Bake 6 minutes on bottom rack and then 5 minutes on middle rack until light golden brown. (Before you take them out, double check the bottom to make sure they are golden brown. You don’t want them to be too light, or they could be doughy). Once they are perfectly golden brown, brush tops with melted butter.
**************
There ya go! I hope you love them!
Anyway, Thanksgiving dinner was great! All my aunts, uncles and cousins came and it was so fun. My mom’s been having Thanksgiving at her house for as long as I can remember. I love it so much. My cousins, sister and I (and all our spouses) still sit at the kids table! Lol!
I forgot to take a pic of my plate (I was too busy enjoying the food!), but I assure you I ate my Thanksgiving share and then some! It was awesome. Strangely enough, I didn’t even have dessert…or a roll! I was just too stuffed. I considered the sweet potatoes my dessert! I did have a couple bites of pumpkin pie later on though.
I was going to go shopping Thanksgiving night, but I was too dead tired. I came home and shopped on the internet for a bit and scored some good deals though!
Well, that is our Thanksgiving in a nutshell. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving full of food, family, fun and shopping!!
Just for those of you who don’t already know…..Melanie is one of the hardest workers at the gym 🙂 And she totally beat me at the burpee contest on Thanksgiving morning!!
Thanks Sarah!! You are a freaking animal and one of the BEST instructors I’ve EVER EVER had! I’m so grateful for you and your classes!!! 😉