A very falafel Thanksgiving!

This was one of the best grown up Thanksgiving that I can remember. When we were kids we would shuffle between both sets of Grandparents. The Schaller's would be a bit more serious of an occasion with prayer and 20 people talking about all of our cousins, which I am still questioning..how can we be related to this many people with so many different last names? The Quandt's would be much smaller, my uncles would be throwing rolls across the table at us, "god dammits" would be flying from the kitchen and laughter could be heard a mile away.

Since we've all "grown up," Thanksgivings have been a little different. In my early 20's I experienced the "biggest party night of the year" and not been able to choke down Thanksgiving dinner the next day. Over the past few years I have spent turkey day in NYC or upstate NY with my uncles which was fabulous. Before Jason and Carrie moved to Orlando, Carrie would hammer out some of the best meals of my life. Since they moved (sadddddddd) we luckily get to spend our holiday with Adam, Marcy and Kacey. We do this on the west side of the state or like this weekend, up at Kacey's favorite place, da cabin!

Because of Thanksgiving day conflicts like work and races we had our official Turkey Day scheduled for Friday. Mama, Daddy and I headed up to the cabin on Thursday listening to the Lions vs Packers game. We got our asses kicked but we still had a great time snacking on Avalon pumpkin cookies and enjoying the sun.

Up north Michigan leaves you very few options for a Thanksgiving meal and as we found out the only thing on the menu in all 3 restaurants was Turkey. Weird. Now even though my mom can rival the Old Man in A Christmas Story for being a turkey junkie, she did not want to eat it on Thursday because she would be having it Friday at our feast and all the way through next Wednesday.

As we cruised through downtown Traverse City a purple light that read "Falafel" caught my eye. Perfect, a non traditional Thanksgiving, this is just what I was hoping for. As we were seated in this little Middleastern restaurant the waitress came to us and said "the chef is working on your plates.." "Ummm, plates of what" I asked. "Turkey!" Just our damn luck, a middle eastern joint is serving turkey and mashed potatoes. Well, our luck turned around when we sweet talked the waitress and she came back with a menu and this news "order anything you want, the chef will hook you up!"

Deb and I went for the falafel and pops went right to the shwarma. This is just what we were hoping for. (We really wanted Chinese food but all of the restaurants were closed..have they not seen A Christmas Story?).

After free pumpkin pie and baklava we tipped our waitress big time and cruised back to our little cabin in the woods. Friday came and so did Adam, Marcy and Kacey. We had a really delicious Thanksgiving meal, a few glasses of wine and some pumpkin cheesecake that I am still trying to digest. A very relaxing weekend was had by all and we all caught up on our sleep.

All I can say is watch out Christmas...all 3 Schaller kids will be home and things are gonna get wild! A Schaller 10K is in the works that will be followed by 200 push ups and planks. Oh and I'm sure the rolls will be flying at dinner.