Happy Thanksgiving!

Here is our cute table with personalized name packets/activities for everyone to do. The decorations came from my lovely American friend Rachel which was so great because it's hard to find fall leaves and turkey decorations down here!

Varian and I and my cute belly. I'm 7+ months along here.

We actually bought a turkey this year - not very common here, and hence more expensive, but I'm glad we got it. For those of you who saw my facebook photos of last year's Thanksgiving, saw that I mentioned I cried in the supermarket when we vetoed the turkey and just bought chicken. Not that I don't like chicken but sometimes being homesick hits worst around holidays and traditions.

Also I'm so lucky to have a husband that loves to cook and is such a great chef! Ugh - I've never wanted to be the one to have to cook the turkey (too many bones and icky things) but Varian doesn't mind cooking meat (and loves eating it) and so usually that job falls to him. I did make up the stuffing this year which turned out to be a great success (yay!) and our lovely family brought everything else to help out.

Getting ready to eat. Lani and Mya were there too that night but my camera was going crazy and I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked. It was a lovely night though and great to be able to celebrate the Pilgrims and Indians and all the blessings that Heavenly Father gives us!

IT'S A MIRACLE!

So I always have lots of ideas of things to post but then downloading the photos and what not always slow me down until too much time passes and I haven't posted. So hopefully this week I'll get more caught up. BUT I wanted to write about 2 game miracles. 1) - I actually won a game of real life solitaire. I was beginning to doubt if it could actually be done...but it's true (and I've even won since then). I was so excited that I had to stop and take a picture of it.

Miracle 2) - It was an Alhambra miracle! This is a game that was introduced to us by Jake and Becca, the game gurus of the world, but has definitely not been one of my favorites. There are too many things to focus on, walls, colors, money, placement...etc. When we taught the Aston family I started out so poorly. I enjoyed the game itself but it would take a long time to play and then I'd terribly loose and so hence it wasn't becoming one of my top choices. But I've slowly improved my strategy on it and any time I win it's an alhambra miracle. :) Well the other night we played with Lani and Cameron and it was the most beautiful Alhambra game I've ever played. I broke the record for longest wall (22 baby) and highest score (122). Yes that city is completely closed off with the last piece I bought (I've got 2 other red tiles in the bank) and overall it was just an amazing game. Everything fell into place after a first few risky moves by myself and lots of perfect spending...ahh...it was amazing.