Ernie's Homemade Rolls

Today we had Zoe and our friends Derek and Gabby over for Thanksgiving.

A lot of photos were taken.

Now the trick is setting up the blocks and taking a halfway decent photo before the bulldozer notices the undestroyed structure.

Lydia's social media post of these pics listen Ernie's favorite things as:

"trying new foods

looking at faces

rolling both directions

twisting his wrists

FaceTiming

Baths

Being in bed on time"

Lydia did a good job cooking some good stuff. I usually do something that is hard to screw up like the green bean casserole.

When he was done eating we gave Ernie the Wernie a turkey bone to chew on.

After dinner we played some board games. A hoot was had.

Thanksgiving Pregnancy Bomb Drop

Today was the big day of our Thanksgiving pregnancy reveal. We'd been hiding for so long that I wanted everything to go smoothly, and I'd say it pretty much did.

We don't have Bud Select out west, as it is brewed for the Lou.

I set up a tripod with my phone on it to take a family photo, took a few, then I pretended like there was an issue and went to "check the camera". I then set it to video mode to capture everyone's reactions.

Lydia brought out a couple of pies she decorated and then all hell broke loose.

She ordered some custom paper plates to go with the set. There was some small confusion as to whether we were having twins since there were two pies. Luckily that was not the case. While we had already chosen the name Ernesto John we decided to keep that under our hat until he was born. Since it was a family name we were pretty set on our decision and so didn't really need or want anyone else's input on the matter. Plus I thought it would be fun to retain another little secret mystery since we let this huge one out of our grasp.

Lydia could finally stop hiding her little baby bump. That was nice.

Raisin Cane's is pretty much our go-to family meal these days. I do not know how my family made their gigantic Thanksgiving feasts for 40 people and I do not wish to know.

Lydia's brother Austin even made an appearance once he heard the big news.

Our friends Viry and Lolo made a later appearance and so got a little aftershock reveal. This is fun, I should have secret pregnancies more often.

I met up with Seago at the best restaurant in St. Louis: Bulrush. I gave him the distinct honor of telling him about the troll in person before letting loose the dogs of war on social media. It's funny these days everyone is running their own amateur public relations agency.

We then went to work eating our set menu while my phone caught actual fire with all of the lovely texts and messages from well wishers. This fun acorn dish contained honey roasted parsnip and pawpaw chile.

goat and caviar? What the hell do these titles even mean?

Venison and mushroom

collard greens and potato mousse.

Chef Rob Connoley was on hand as always to talk about the dishes and do some banter. He is such an interesting person that I wish I could hang out with him socially. It sounds like he goes out and forages a lot of the ingredients personally. We talked a bit about the movie "The Menu" which involves a fancy restaurant visit that goes awry and I encouraged him to go see it.

walleye and pumpkin

chestnut mousse and sorghum cake

For some after dinner drinks we go weird with it and headed to Clayton's Cafe Napoli. It was a breath of fresh air from going to Soulard or something for the 500th time. The clientele was a fun mix of fancy people and trashy people. Several who thought they were one were actually the other. The night ended with Seago throwing up all over the wall outside the Hi-Pointe Theatre which I consider a big win.

St. Louis on a Mission

We went back to St. Louis for Thanksgiving to see both of our families and finally do our big baby Ernie reveal.

The plan was to work from the airport and then from the plane. It did not go well. For one thing I bought internet service and it was very very bad. Just kept disconnecting over and over annoyingly. There also isn't enough room to type once you put a laptop on the trail table in front of you, which I had not anticipated. Anyway, not going to try this again. I suppose that this is one reason why business class exists.

Lydia's mom and Doug are super nice and endearing and want to spend like every waking moment with Lydia when she's in town, which is cute. Fine. On this particular trip we had a secret baby on board though, and so I was stressed out about seeing them. Lydia is a master of dressing to conceal at this point, though, so everything went smoothly. Less smooth was the thanksgiving dinner from Sugarfire Smokehouse that they were so kind to pick up. It was really bad. Their family has this habit of picking up hot food for us, putting in the refrigerator until it's thoroughly chilled, then giving it to us piping cold. It's like skipping the initial pleasant part of eating out and going straight to leftovers.

We booked the same large airbnb above Southwest Diner that we hosted Christmas in last year. It went well and so here we are again.

You can't beat the decor in this place.