Turkey Day 8K

Happy belated Thanksgiving 
from Brittany, Lilly and Trevor!

We enjoyed Thanksgiving this year in Greenville and had a wonderful "dinner for misfit toys" with friends.  We missed our families a lot, but was happy to be able to Skype with them the next day.  

In the morning, we set a goal for ourselves to start the day off in the "negative" by running the farthest we have ever run by completing the Trees GreenvilleTurkey Day 8K!  The run was held at the CU-ICAR course by Millennium Boulevard in Greenville and man was it full of hills!

Map My Run graph: 5.08 miles and 170ft gain!

Brittany had been sick the week prior and was nervous about running, but we think the run actually made her feel better!  It was a beautiful 60 degree and sunny day in SC :-) Who knows, maybe the next step is a half marathon??  We will keep you posted.

After the run, Trevor made his famous Better Than Apple Pie Apple Tart for his contribution to our Thanksgiving dinner at our friend Andrew Colletti's house later that evening, where we enjoyed some incredible food, fun conversation, and a big bonfire. We left after dinner to bring Lilly over, who got a kick out of some new scenery and thousands of leaves to leave her mark on. I often wonder if that bladder of hers could get any bigger. If you can imagine a 50 lb dog expending every ounce of energy (and body fluid) on this task for over 2 hrs, then.. well, you have an incredibly accurate imagination. :-)

Original B and T recipe below:


Better Than Apple Pie Apple Tart
Yield: 1 tart

Ingredients
3-4 apples

2 Trader Joe's frozen pie crust, thawed (or any pie crust with no hydrgeonated oils)

1 Tbsp Smart Balance, melted

2 tbsp brown sugar 

2 tbsp sugar

Cinnamon and nutmeg to taste 

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2.  Peel and core the apples.  

3.  Cut apples into very thin and long slices.

4.  Toss apples in a bowl with cinnamon nutmeg brown sugar and sugar.    

5.  Spray pie pan with Pam spray.  Place one pie crust in pie pan and flour it well.  Cut a circle in the center of second pie crust, leaving about 3 inches around.

6.  Arrange apples in a circle starting from the outside of the pie pan and working your way in.  

7.  Overlay the 2nd pie crust and pinch together sides to cover crust.  

8.  Brush with melted butter.  Bake on 400 for 40 min turning every 15 min.

Optional Glaze: 

Combine skins from apples and cores in Pan on low 1/4 cup white sugar 1/4 cup brown sugar nutmeg and cinnamon to taste.  Simmer on low 25-40min and brush over tart when complete. 

And of course we couldn't just sit around for 4 days without anything to do....so we took on the "house project list" and chose to demo and re-do Trevor's closets!  

The owners before tried to create a sort of "California closets" type set up, however the unfinished wood and the lack of hanging space didn't do much for it.  We decided to demo the old closet and simplify adding 2 long bars and 1 shelf!  

The before

 We took 3 hours in Home Depot and finally decided on common pine wood instead of metal shelves, to give it a warmer feel.  We also worked with their paint department to find the perfect Rosewood stain, despite some reservations about it's smelliness. Believe it or not, it didn't smell up the house at all!  We highly recommend the water-based stain as it has a much lower VOC content.  One quick tip: we were sure to condition the pine first to help prevent "blochiness" in the stain,  which helped tremendously. Many thanks to the Home Depot staff for this pointer!

The conditioning process, just before staining

The after

The after (close-up)

Another house project completed!

Lilly had a great Thanksgiving too, but it seems she might have gotten a little bored and taken it out on Mr. Bear....poor thing.

Guilty Paws

What is your favorite Thanksgiving dish?  Leave us a comment below and we will be sure to try it out next year!