Happy Thanksgiving!!!

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving up in Chester, CT with the Gastler/Bhandari/Palmisano clan.

Aunt Deb made a 25 lb turkey.



It was STUFFED with stuffing.



And it was Lillifer's first thanksgiving!



Yayyy! (So cute seeing Grandma photobombing/looking on so happily.)



This turkey smelled soooooy good.



Uncle Felly did the carving.



Kristen did the amazing table setting...





And then we poured turkey drippings into the gravy...



And it was the most delicious gravy I've ever had in my life.



YAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY



We loves a turkey leg!



I'm so grateful to be welcomed by this amazing family.



Heaven on a plate.



Even Izzy got a few scraps.



AND then! Connie brought out a birthday surprise for me... Meatball "Cupcakes"!!!

The most beautiful delicious birthday cake I have ever had in my life!!!!!



Yayyy!





Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I'm off to Vegas!

Hurricane

I fled the city because of the Hurricane not because I was worried about my building falling down or anything...but because of the flooding that was supposed to occur. I didn't want my car to get hurt since I leave it on the street.

So I drove up to Connecticut to hide out at the Gastlers.

On my way I stopped at McDonalds at one of those rest areas on the freeway. (This was on Saturday morning, the hurricane was supposed to arrive late Saturday night/Sunday morning.)

Normally these places are annoyingly packed. On Saturday it was deserted.




The Gastlers live right by Mohegan Sun, so I went there to kill some time and play poker.

Mohegan Sun is 20 times more beautiful than Foxwoods and I'm coming here from now on.

It looks like a Vegas casino!






The morning of the hurricane we got a ton of wind and water. But you couldn't really tell any of this at the Gastlers where we enjoyed home cooked delicious food, movies, reading, and several games of bananagrams.




The power was out throughout Connecticut, but their house has three generators so we barely even noticed.

Outside, things were blowing all over the place though. Mostly leaves and branches.





And a few bodies here and there, whatevs.




By the late afternoon things had settled down and we were able to go outside and survey the damage.




No major damage, I was both relieved and disappointed.




When I got home, most New Yorkers seemed irate that the media had "overhyped" the hurricane and that everyone had been over-prepared.

Only in NYC would people actually be irritated that a hurricane ended up being a relative non-event instead of leaving a trail of death and destruction in its wake.

Gastler Retreat 2010

The last time we went for a Gastler Retreat was July 4th of last year, so we were long overdue for another group visit.

We arrived at the Gastler estate greeted by 30 pounds of chicken parmesan.

This was just the first 10 pound vat...




These were the other two.



It was nuts!



After eating our faces off, we made a fire by the pool and played beergames into the night.







The next morning we awoke to brunch and had story time with special guest Elin Woods Nordegren reading from her new tell-all People Magazine article.




We played all day in the pool.






Played tennis and beanbag games in the evening.



And then out came foods and wine.




And we changed into our white clothes for a White Party Luau! (Labor Day is next week so it was our last chance to wear white.)







A spread of sausages and burgers and other grilleats and corn salad and chickpea patties for the herbivores and some tortellini and ohmygod I have no idea how Connie and Kristen are not majorly obese.





Everyone looked so pretty!




And we presented our favorite family with a beautiful canvas of themselves.



I love a white party!



Drunkfaced. We went outside to the poolhouse for dancing.




Todd found whipped cream.




So much fun.








Nick is hilarious.



More singing and dancing!









More whipped cream!






Priya was first to pass out. And someone had the idea that we should all touch her and sing to her as she slept.



SO strange.

We sang K-Ci and Jojo's "All My Life" at the top of our lungs.




That's all I remember.

Next thing I knew it was morning again and there were freshly baked banana breads and muffins and I was in heaven.

We spent the day playing Pool Volleyball and getting sunburned.




I love the Gastlers! Thank you for the best time ever!