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happy thanksgiving

It's T-giving Day already here. And I say "already" because it's still Wednesday in the ol' US of A. But I could say "already" to mean that I can't believe we're already celebrating another T-Day in this country. Which is true, I can't believe it.

Last year we had our good friends John and Caitlin with us in Wuhan. Caitlin was pregnant with little Sam. It was a good celebration with them and our other friends in Wuhan. One of my favorite memories of that day was how John kept giving Maddie anything she wanted off of his plate. She ended up chewing on a turkey bone for the majority of the meal.

This coming Sunday will be our traditional celebration with our friends here in Xi'an. We're even having some sort of Pilgrim and Indians reenactment with costumes and all. Maddie and I are Pilgrims. Phil's an audience member.

Today we're going to school. I'm sure if I had wanted to skip today in light of the holiday Phil would have been right there with me but I didn't. This afternoon the Tompkins are coming over for pumpkin pie and T-giving cookies. I made the pies last night. I decided to bake both at the same time in my oven (much smaller than a normal oven) and even though I rotated them, one always had to be really close to the bottom heat coils and they both burnt a little on the bottom. That's disappointing but now I know and the pies for Sunday should be perfect.

Tonight at 5pm Phil, myself, our Dutch neighbors - Yaap and Else, our Canadian friends on the 10th floor - Donna and Dave, and the Tompkins - Jason and Natasha are going to our favorite Japanese restaurant for dinner. It's the type of place where everyone sits around the chef and he cooks up your steak, chicken, salmon, and veggies. It's absolutely delicious. After dinner the Canadians and Dutch will come back here for pie and coffee. The Tompkins will head home since their babysitter has school the next day.

So, we'll celebrate with Americans, Canadians, and Dutch. We'll celebrate by eating pie and Japanese food. We'll do all this celebrating in this country where most of it's people have never seen a turkey much less eaten one. I can't wait.

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