carolina style, all the way

Aaron and I celebrate things with hot dogs.  When we got engaged we ate hot dogs.  When Carolina won the national championship we ate hot dogs.  To celebrate vacation in Thailand, we ate hot dogs.

I love this face.

Our fourth anniversary, however falls on Thanksgiving....so this time we'll celebrate with sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, and cranberry sauce.

I love life with this hot dog loving guy.  These four years have been my favorite four years of life (including college - which was pretty fun).  Aaron adds fun, challenge, growth, patience, grace, laughs, adventure, and a new understanding of Jesus to my life.

He and our four years of marriage is what I'll be saying I'm thankful for, when asked at the thanksgiving table today.

pilgrim days

Thanksgiving was great.  To kick off thanksgiving, Wednesday night we had a simple meal with some friends in the city. We ate bean soup and cornbread, instead of all of the casseroles that we're used to these days on Thanksgiving.  We all played the part of either a pilgrim or an indian.  Aaron revisited his pilgrim days, and I revisited my childhood of playing in the woods and finding arrowheads.

I'm welcoming them to the harvest

it was funny at the time, but now i'm not really sure what was going on in this picture

 Also, I realize that it is considered politically incorrect to call Native Americans, "Indians" AND where we live actual Indians, from India, more readily come to mind when I hear the word "Indians", but for some reason I could not talk about Thanksgiving without saying Indians.  It just kept slipping out.  It's like I was brainwashed as a child.  The mascot for my elementary school was "Indians."  The Waxhaw Indians.  It was awesome.  But not nearly as awesome as my high school mascot - the Rebels.  I think you see where I'm coming from now, and can understand why I can't seem to let go of Indians in the thanksgiving story.  Maybe if I had grown up going to the school of Native Waxhaw Americans, this would not have happened.


Thursday we got together with some of foreign friends in town for Thanksgiving dinner.  It was kind of like the first thanksgiving in that it involved people from different cultures coming together to thank God for our blessings (4 countries represented at our dinner), but this one involved a lot more butter.

pre-thanksgiving video watching

That's right we had football on the slingbox.  Thanksgiving was complete.

carving the turkey

post meal book reading by Victoria

enjoying the meal

Friday after Thanksgiving friends came to town, and we spent the next few days enjoying the western restaurants in our city, watching our friends play football (aaron's shoulder kept him out of the game), making barbecue, and just loving hanging out with them.  We'll get to see them again for Christmas.  They are literally like our family in China, we see them every couple of months and during the holidays.  This Thanksgiving, I am really thankful for them, knowing that these years of us all living in China are sweet years.

unfortunately I don't have pictures of two of the guys that go with these ladies
so the ladies will just have to represent all of them.  Also, look at that cute little guy.

It was a nice sunny day for football.  That's right.  That's the sun.
I took a picture of it, and I'm not blind.  We debated for a long time about
whether that was the sun or the moon.  Also, it's only that yellow in this picture
because i saturated the color when editing it.

the only guy, besides mine to make the pictures.  sorry guys.

"and I pray that someday, I can find me a redneck boy."
that mustache was my "early christmas present."

Christmas decorations!

barbecue!  smoking hickory chips on the grill.

We got a 5 kg pork shoulder for this barbecue.  We realized, a little to late, how important it is to let the butcher know you want the butt end of the shoulder - hence the term boston butt.  Our butcher didn't know american cuts, and I didn't tell him the butt end, so we ended up with the whole shoulder (the curve of the shoulder), taking away some of the meat I was expecting.  Last time we fed like 10 people with 5kgs of meat.  This time 5 kg didn't even satisfactorily feed 6 people.  Fail.  You live, you learn.  And apparently in China, I am learning a lot about butchery.

Dando gracias

I'm hanging up these laces for the next month, as I spend three weeks in flip flops and sandals and then two weeks in hiking boots. But wanted to express my sincere gratitude to my mom who bought these shoes for my birthday. They have been the perfect China shoes, waterproof and perfect for the cold and sometimes wet weather, as well as for all the walking around I have done in the last month. I have worn them everyday since December 6th. They were good to me while we were in America, and actually served the purpose they were made for a few times, but here instead of trails with roots and rocks, these shoes have been dodging puddles and tiles in the sidewalk that squirt up water all over my feet when I step on them.

Thank you, mom.