Thanks in Shanghai

First of all, sorry this blog comes weeks after the event! But we are so busy here! Not enough time in the day... But we are getting ready to head home for the holidays and I thought I better get up to date if I could! So sit back and enjoy the story of a Little Shanghai Thanksgiving...

We celebrated Thanksgiving here in China, with Turkey, two different times. On Thanksgiving evening, we went up to the clubhouse and ate turkey. You can see in the picture that we had turkey and all of the trimmings. Yummy! The turkey was very moist and the sides were really faboulous. Very good! Though it seemed weird since Natalie went to school that day and Tom went to work. But it was good to have real American Thanksgiving Day food. Natalie had fun until she spilled Sprite onto the table and her lap! Then she cried and snoozed on my shoulder for awhile. You know the kind of parents we are, take a picture of the kid when she is at her worst! We chatted quite a bit with a couple who had gone to Purdue. She was from Fort Wayne and he was from Lebanon. Such a small world!

Saturday we went Ceyda's for a carry-in. Many of our good friends here made it so it really did seem like family. Of course we had lots of food and ate WAY too much. Ceyda's husband Haken made the turkey, which he marinated for 24 hours before cooking so it was marvelous!

You can see that we all had a great time and the men looked especially hungry before eating!!! We also had a lovely day and a few of them even took out the football and tossed it. Of course you can see that most of the kids enjoyed the day watching videos downstairs.

So what to be thankful for? Lots of things.

• Thanks to Tom for letting his wife de-stress and adding years to the end of her life
• Thanks to our family for understanding why we have to be so far away for so long
• Thanks to my friends in the U.S. for making me feel less lonely
• Thanks to my sisters for chatting at weird hours to accomodate us!
• Thanks to our daughter for making our lives complete (even with the tears!)
• Thanks to ASC for delivering wine to my house (don't worry, it is just a coping mechansism!)
• Thanks to the Fansets for the 3 seasons of House (isn't House just a wee bit HOT?)
• Thanks to my friends here in Shanghai for making this adventure much more than just an experience and for making the Holiday's wonderful!