The Feast

This year we decided to host Thanksgiving at our house, with my parents and sister and her husband.
I'm doing a play by play because this was my first time doing the turkey.
First I cleaned it

 Wednesday night

so I could brine it overnight.  It didn't quite fit in my biggest stock pot but I just covered it with plastic wrap and hoped for the best.

 Then Thurs. morning I took it out of the brine and rinsed it again.
This bird was huge, as big as Chloe, well almost, it was 20 lbs!

 Placed some onions and celery inside for yumminess,

 rubbed down with butter (for more yumminess) and sprinkled with paprika.

After just a little over 3 hours it was done and beautiful!

First time carving a turkey too, a little trickier than I thought it would be but not too bad .

 Here's the spread, a little bit of everything, MMMM!

And the best part...the company!

Oh wait maybe the pie is the best part ;) hehe
Pecan, strawberry, banana cream, and of course pumpkin!
Had to try them all of course.

 And we ate and ate and ate!  It was a good day and not too stressful.  I had lots of help from everyone and everything turned out great and yummy!
I am not afraid to cook a turkey any more and will definitely do it again. Gobble, gobble!