It's December already!!!

Time has seen to fly by here and we can hardly believe that the end of the year is so close! We had a great November with some fun activities, although they were slightly curtailed by Erin's attempt at novel writing. Thankfully it is December and she can take a breath to begin to enjoy the Christmas season! But first we'll recount you with some short tales of our Thanksgiving adventures.

On Thanksgiving Day we decided to treat ourselves to a very non-traditional feast (really, when will we get the chance again?) and we went out for lunch at an Indian place our friends had raved about. It's called Mumbai Grill and it really was excellent - we can hardly wait to go back! We feasted on 3 kinds of naan bread (butter, garlic & cheese), John enjoyed eating mound after mound of rice with his hands, Michael ordered Butter Chicken Tikki Masala, and Erin had chicken with a thick cashewnut paste.

And of course we had to get a couple of mango lassi to drink! Woo! It was a serious Thanksgiving dinner. I, for one, enjoyed not having to cook anything, just enjoy time with my boys (and I'm sure baby-girl enjoyed it in my tummy), John loves it anytime we can get out and he can show off for other people, and Michael wanted something exotic and different, so we all had a really great time.

The weekend after Thanksgiving we went to a REAL dinner with other Americans at our church and seriously pigged out on turkey, ham (real ham in a Muslim country is a rare treat and we were embarrassingly thrilled about it), sweet potatoes, salads, rolls, pumpkin pie, the works! We don't know how people got half of the stuff, but most of them work for the American Embassy here so they can probably get things shipped that we can't.

John hardly ate a thing... he was just so excited to be around a gaggle of screaming kids. This is a pic of him with his favorite friend Zach. He's the only boy at church close to his age (they're about 6 months apart).

I think he got tired of it eventually, though. At one point I went to check on him (the apartment of the family that hosted the dinner was HUGE and I had to wander a bit to find him) and eventually I walked past a darkened bathroom and started to walk away and I heard him whimpering for me in there. He had apparently wanted to play hide-and-seek but no one knew it. I have absolutely no idea how long he had been waiting in there, poor thing. Sometimes it's so hard being a kid when you can't talk yet.

All right, that's probably enough adventures for one day. Although it is probably worth mentioning about the HINDRAF (Hindu Rights Action Force) rally that went on a few weeks ago. Consisting mostly of Indians that gathered, some media outlets reported as many as 10,000 supporters came, hoping to deliver a petition to the British Embassy on a Sunday afternoon. The Malaysian government was not happy about their plans and had vehemently forbidden them from gathering, suggesting something about inciting racial tension. People gathered anyway and the riot police were called in, eventually using chemical-laced water hoses and tear gas to drive the rally away. Honestly, we were hardly aware of the goings-on, except for the fact that our apartment (and our church) are located about a mile away from the British Embassy. The street where it is located was entirely blocked off and anyone (especially Indian) attempting to enter it was immediately arrested. Wisely, our church leaders decided to cancel meetings that day and instead encouraged us to worship in our homes. Not the least of their concerns, I'm sure, was the fact that we have quite a few Indians in our congregation who would have had considerable trouble just getting to church, regardless of whether or not they were participants in the rally. As we watched and read about some of these things unfolding, we were reminded how grateful we are for the country where we were born. There are many rights, responsibilities and blessings that we often took for granted in the United States and we recognize more and more that it really is a promised land. Just another thing to add to our growing list of things to be thankful for.
As always, click on the picture below for our family photos. Once again, they're mostly of John... it's a good thing we're having another kid soon because we need someone else to liven up our photo albums.

Nov 2007