Giving Thanks, Drinking Cider

 

Our family Thanksgiving celebration this year included a cider-making competition, as you loyal blog-followers already know. Above, we have the label Cora made. Nice work, don't you think? 

(A Violetism story from the art-table photo - Violet motioned to the hole puncher and asked, "Have you used these before, Mummy?" With her cute raspy toddler voice, it struck me as such a mature, articulate question.)

 Here are the Thanksgiving cooks, in Bill and Patty's new house. We certainly feasted on some delicious food!

The company was great, too. Nick, Melanie's boyfriend, joined us, as did Bill and my mom's brother Bob, and cousin Elizabeth and Jerry.







After filling our bellies, we went for a walk and just missed the sunset, but caught a nice view of dusk over the Pacific. Bill and Patty's new house is walking distance to the beach in an incredible neighborhood. They are so blessed! And so are we!

 

When we returned, it was cider time. You can see the small cups, set out for a blind taste test. Sadly for Stacey, Elizabeth and Jerry's cider took home the prize mug. Stace attributes our loss to the fact that our American judges aren't accustomed to traditional hard English apple cider. He has a point. Our cider was definitely a proper English cider, alcoholic, and very dry. We enjoyed it more when a bit of apple juice (as a sweetener) was added in. Still, the experience was a lot of fun and we're looking forward to doing it again next year.