I stayed home on Friday to receive our shipment. We sent it off on July31 so we were very much looking forward to some different clothes to wear as well as our belongings. The shipment arrived just in time for Thanksgiving (Canadian) which was nice because I had a few decorations but added to the stress a bit because we invited a Canadian family over for a turkey dinner and the apartment looked like it had exploded! Anyway, we pulled it off(i.e. stuffed a lot of things in the master bedroom!) This was my first turkey and of course I had to choose to do it the year I move to China! We did find a frozen 13 lb turkey at a western market as well as stove top dressing and gravy. I am one of the few expats that has a built in oven, most have glorified toaster ovens. So with much nervousness and a lot of guesswork I prepared my turkey (and very much missed my mother!) Here's the turkey thawing in my bathtub!
Here's me in my very tiny kitchen, basting my turkey which barely fit in my very tiny oven. Luckily Mark did not humiliate me by taking my picture when I was freaking out taking all the gross stuff out of the cavity!
So other than the turkey taking a really long time to cook (our guests waited for 45 minutes), everything went well. We had fresh rolls from the french bakery, fresh potatoes from the vegetable market downstairs and my Canadian friend brought homemade pumpkin pie. Here is a picture of the kids table, Abigail and her new friends Emma and Ava ( I was too frantic serving and clearing to take a picture of the adult table)
So the apartment is looking more like home now. The kids' rooms are finished. I always leave the master bedroom for last so it may never get done - it didn't at our last place. Anyway, here are the kids' rooms since I didn't include them with the other pictures of the apartment - you should be able to figure out whose is whose!
That's all for now, we're off to bed. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, we miss you and love you and most certainly are thankful for all of you.
