Black Friday part 2

The festivities continued as a whole crew of kids and folks came over to join in Thanksgiving fun. We ate soup and sandwiches, some delicious desserts, and of course Apple Cider (Aunt Sara's recipe, always a hit). Erica put together some fun activities for the whole family.


First up was pumpkin bowling, our family did not do so hot (Bella and I lowered our family's average substantially).


David meanwhile, showed good formed and represented us well. Go Coker team!


Sophia did a great job painting a pumpkin, incidentally you cannot see it in this picture, though the one to her right is looking pretty artistic.


Next, we went inside to play pin the waddle on the turkey. Sophia and others really didn't know what a waddle was or where it was supposed to go. If a waddle is actually turkey 'droppings' then she won the game.


Bella on the other hand redeemed herself from her bowling debut and was almost spot on with the waddle.


That is Bella's over the face of the Turkey!

We then sang some wonderful songs giving Thanks.

Another great night ended in exhaustion. Can we have anymore fun?

Black Friday part 1

11.26.2010

We woke up to another delicious breakfast and decided we would head out to the zoo. This place was really cool and has more than just monkeys (unlike ours). The kids loved it!


Erica and Elijah watching the monkeys play




He is too cute, love his cheeks!



Bella laughed at the monkeys


This girl is becoming more and more edible by the day. But I think she knows it, ut oh.


I love girl clothes, skirt, tights, cute jacket (all Sophia's hand me downs)


what a big bird...


The zoo has two snakes. Really lets just be honest and say 'had.' This snake is dead, as is the one in the other cage. Gross. We had to laugh at the frugality of this display.



feeding the animals together


Pure cuteness. A biased parent.



Sophia doling out the food


They all liked the deer


And really this could have been the most fun.


surrounded by mountains, awesome views




This really was another incredible day. After this outing we went back for naps and I really did go shopping, at Wal Mart. We have no such thing in our town. I bought some imported food goods (they did not have much), some gifts for the girls for Christmas, some office stuff, and of course ten roles of paper towels, the perfect amount to fit in our car!
Erica meanwhile prepped for hosting a kid's playgroup that evening, though it was for the whole family. More on that later. ..

Thanksgiving day

11.25.2010

The morning started with delicious breakfast. Erica is the master chef, as you will soon find out, and she is the best 'host' I know, so she served us amazing 'special breakfast' everyday! This morning we had French Toast that was incredible with her homemade Jelly and powdered sugar and syrup! One morning we had real biscuits with bacon. This reminded us of the story about Sophia: As soon as we picked Sophia up from school and got buckled up in car seats, etc. Sophia asked: 'Are we going to get a biscuit.' We really LOL at that one. Her whole context for getting in a car and getting on the road in the States usually involved us stopping for Hardees' biscuits for the trip. Since we never go on road trips here she was just reminded of what usually happens in such a scenario. We told her 'no, no biscuits this time.'

After breakfast we gave Elijah a gift: a wooden toy train with stackable shapes on top. Elijah is almost two months older than Bella, so they make a good pair. He is however in like the 100 percentile for his age, while Bella is holding her own at about 45%.





Erica had a little craft for Sophia: A Thanksgiving tree.


The kids then played with play dough together.



Sophia served me the Thanksgiving dinner she had prepared.


Then the real feasting began. Erica made like ten dishes, I made...one. And even that was almost a disaster (I spilled quite a bit of the sweet potato casserole inside the toaster oven, (my) David came to my rescue), it was salvaged and turned out fine.

David P carves the Turkey, it was absolutely delicious.


Erica gets the rolls ready. These rolls were also amazing, I did get the recipe!


Check out the spread:


Bella says: bring it on!


After nap time we went on an outing. To Wal Mart. Yes, Wal Mart. This is because they have a great indoor play place for kids. The kids had a blast.



Four out of the five are looking at the camera, not bad!


As we sat there watching the kids, I said to Erica: 'we are in Wal Mart on Thanksgiving, and it is so wonderful,' Never in America, I know.
This day was truly wonderful, David and Erica made it really special for us, and it was great just to be with 'family.' More posts from the rest of the weekend coming up.

Thanksgiving trip: Arrival

11.24-25.2010

The girls had a blast in the apartment we were staying in. Weather was colder than our city, but not that bad.




D and E took us out for Tempanyaki (I am sure I am spelling that wrong), a Japanese style where they cook the food in front of you. It was delicious!


We had a blast hanging out with this family. They challenge us in so many ways. We stayed up late talking, of course, and could have kept on talking. But we had the whole weekend to do that...Eating turkey tomorrow, yeah!

Thanksgiving trip: on the road

11.24.2010

We rented a car and got on the road by 11:30. The first hour was a little crazy as we were not on the highway yet. In fact we actually missed the turn to get on the highway, never having been that way before. Thankfully we could see it up and to our left on the mountainside and knew we were going the much slower way. We turned around and got back on track. We ate lunch in the car, which saved time, and only stopped once! The trip took us about six hours, longer than we had hoped, but we made it safe and sound.

Driving through some villages.


Road construction here hindered us some. They are extending the 'expressway.'


Can't drive too fast on this type of terrain


And then there is always the herd of water buffalo to watch out for


It was one way for a little bit


The expressway was awesome.


Yes people farm on these steep terrains.


we went through many tunnels, some over a mile long, I asked David about the engineering behind digging your way through a mountain and the stability of it all. He assured me, somewhat.


This countryside is just glorious.


Over the mountains and through the woods we went. Or through the mountains and over the woods...

Practice for the performance

11. 24. 2010

Sophia's class will have a performance on December 5th and they have been practicing every morning. We were on our way out of town for Thanksgiving so I had the camera with me. She had no idea I was there. When I arrived she was sitting down not really participating. A few others were also not participating. I asked the teacher why and she just said it was because they were tired. She then went and told her to get up.