Via West Thanksgiving Recap

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us here at Via West! We just spent a fantastic holiday weekend at Via West full of football, friends, and food! We went shopping at the Via West Market to select ingredients to make stuffing and pumpkin pie for our Thanksgiving feast.

We decorated masks to be sold at this year's Via Ball since the theme is Mardis Gras Masquerade.

 We made journals and photo albums, and we practiced our football skills. We then stuffed all of our Thanksgiving turkeys with our homemade stuffing.

We made vases to use as centerpieces for Thanksgiving, and we put our football skills to good the test with a campus wide scrimmage.

Everyone then dressed up to sit down to our wonderful homemade feast (thanks to Deli Dave and the kitchen staff!), and we shared what we are most thankful for this year. We finished the night off by dancing away all of our calories at the Turkey Trot!

To see more pictures from this weekend, please visit our Facebook page.

Via West Gives Thanks During Joyful Respite Session

Via West had its third respite session of the season this past weekend, which was Thanksgiving themed.  Participants had a chance to experience all aspects of Thanksgiving, starting with shopping for a traditional dinner.  Our "Via West Market", complete with baskets and food prices, allowed our participants to gather and pay for all the components for the dinner.

Later in the weekend, using a traditional recipe that incorporated fresh herbs, our participants made the stuffing for dinner and even took turns stuffing the turkey!  Participants chopped, sauteed, and measured ingredients safely and efficiently.  Everyone also had a chance to bake mini-pumpkin loaves which were warm and delicious. To top it all off, everyone got to take home a cookbook and apron as a memento!

Finally the time came for the feast, and everyone's hard work was apparent in the beautiful decorations, table settings, and food.  Everyone participated in the decoration and set up of the banquet tables, and to make a good evening great, all participants shared with the group what they were most thankful for.

It was such a wonderful weekend! Check out all the pictures on our Facebook Page!