Finally, Thanksgiving in Review!

News flash y'all: WE HAVE GOTTEN A NEW WIRELESS SET UP THINGY-DO AND HAVE HAD A FEW THINGS FIXED ON THE NEW COMPUTER!! So, in short, I think I can be back to life on my blog(for now-must not anger the computer by sounding too cocky or anything...) Anyway, our Thanksgiving turned out awesome! Things got a little mixed up family-wise this year and so we found ourselves without any definite place to be for Thanksgiving dinner, which made us sad. But also got us thinking that we had several friends here who are from various parts of Africa, none of whom have any family here in the US. So we decided to have them to our house for dinner on Thanksgiving!! We live here in Blacksburg, Virgina, home of Virginia Tech (GO HOKIES!) and one of the awesome benefits of living in a university town is the international population that Tech draws. Through VT, there is something called the International Friendship Host Program in which you can be matched with international students as their host family/friend to give them some insight into typical American life. Last winter, we got matched with a family of 5 from South Africa (the dad is here for grad school)and this fall we were matched with a man from Malawi. The family from South Africa was unable to come for dinner, but we also have some friends from Kenya who have lived here for several years (not students at Tech, though) who were able to come so we had Kenya and Malawi represented at our dinner table. (ok, sunlight in our window and very dark faces make this picture somewhat hard to see-sorry)


Our friend from Malawi is here by himself and had to leave his wife and 2 daughters behind in Africa while he completes his degree. We had the blessing of speaking to his wife and children on the phone during our dinner-it was neat to be connected to someone in a village in Malawi across the world-thank you, Mr. Graham Bell!! Anyway, our friend had never experienced an American Thanksgiving and had also never in his life eaten turkey and he was very excited to try it! He also asked about why the turkey was part of the meal and what it was about so we got to tell him the story of the pilgrims coming over on the Mayflower and their dinner with the native Americans. We also got to mess with him a little bit. Early in the semester, we all went to a dinner together and we were discussing what kinds of foods he eats in Malawi that are different from here. He told us about eating hippo, elephant meat and....MICE. Yes, whole mice, with the FUR STILL ON. I was totally grossed out and he thought that was so funny. We have joked back and forth about it ever since, with him saying he was going to catch himself a squirrel and bring it to Thanksgiving dinner. So, this is what he was served at our house last Thursday:

Ha ha-it is candy, no fur! And our friends from Kenya brought a Kenyan dish that was SO yummy and we talked around the table for 3 hours-it was absolutely fantastic. The kids came and went and played and had fun and my mother in law was here and really enjoyed herself and talking with our friends about all things Africa, which was nice since she is still extremely apprehensive about our adoption. God was in the mood to bless us that day-He is so GOOD! Here is my oldest Thing and our friends' daughter getting ready to break the wishbone:

All in all, it was a great day with super yummy food and good friends and family-exactly what Thanksgiving is all about.




Oh, and getting a KILLER deal on a high efficiency washer and dryer on Black Friday, without even having to get up early! Told you God was in the mood to bless us! (yes, He can bless with major appliances for which I have to pay a bunch of money-y'all it was an AWESOME DEAL-a blessing, no???)