Thanksgiving Dinner!

Playing games before dinner. Me, Caleb, and Mr. Xing attempt Scrabble. Mr. Xing could use his dictionary. He came up with some funny words.

Chinese checkers.

Cards.

Time to eat. Most of the Chinese guests were "adventurous" and willing to try the strange food.

Enjoying Thanksgiving dinner.

Me, Katie, and Victoria.
Li Ma, Xiao Yang, and their two girls.
All the girls together. I guess we forget to get a picture of all the guys.Singing songs and Christmas carols in English and Chinese after dinner.

Thanksgiving Dinner!

Helping Mama Victoria get ready for Thanksgiving.

Katie and Victoria wrestle with the bird trying to get it ready for the oven.

25+ lb. turkey = 8 1/2 hours in oven. Smelled so good all day! Good thing the Rices have that great oven which is very, very rare in China.

Don't drop the turkey!That's not how you fix a turkey!
Brian carves the bird.
So much good food. Appetizers, bread, and drinks.
Everything you could wish for and more for Thanksgiving dinner.
Dessert! Apple pie, Cranberry Apple Pie, Pumpkin Pies, Brownies, Cheesecake, and Carrot Cake. All in China!

Just the food alone gave me so much to be thankful for! Mostly, I was thankful to be with Family. The Rices are my China family and all the people they invited to come share Thanksgiving dinner were Family too. Such a great time. Reminds me of dinners at my Grandma Gaugler's house. Noisy, hectic, people everywhere, tons of good food, family, friends. More post and pictures to come . . . so much to blog about!

Back Home at the Rices for Thanksgiving!

Although Katie and I technically only got Thanksgiving Day off, we did some work to rearrange and make up our classes so that we could go back to Meng Zi to see Brian and Victoria Rice and their family for Thanksgiving. Katie and I have spent every China Thanksgiving with the Rices and after a year it was just time to see them again. It was a short trip--we left Wednesday morning and were back Sunday afternoon--but so so good to see them! Here's a few fun photos of us all together first, then I'll post pictures from Thanksgiving dinner.

Getting to see Esther again and meet Grace for the first time! So sweet an so cute!

Helping Mama Victoria in her kitchen

Rachel and her friend Liu Xing

Esther and their Kitty, Xiao Feng (Little Wind)

When we got to their house, Brian and Caleb were out in some surrounding villages. They got home Thursday late morning. I love it that Brian rents those Chinese vans and drives them all over! It's not every waiguoren that's willing or able to drive in China!