Thanksgiving 2008

Happy Thanksgiving!!! Don't you just love this time of year? The crisp air, changing leaves, and visions of monumental meals? There is something truly magical about fall and I for one, am deeply grateful for the reduced amount of smog it brings to Southern California.

Dave and I are having the most wonderful break from our respective schools. It is rare when we have five days in a row to just enjoy each others company. The day before Thanksgiving, Dave gave me my Christmas present...tickets to go see the musical, Wicked. For those of you that don't already know, Wicked is a prequel to the Wizard of Oz story. The show is beautifully written with music by one of my favorites, Steven Schwartz. We braved traffic into Hollywood to the Pantages Theater and then headed back home driving away from the city..the day before Thanksgiving. Needless to say, we had spent several hours of driving before making it even half way home. We decided to pop off the highway into the town of Claremont for dinner. SSOOO great. A charming town with great Thai food and frozen yogurt. Yes, it was official. We were on a real bonefide date.


This is the first year (for Dave) that we haven't been with our families for Thankgiving. Normally I would be a blubbering mess as is my tradition, but this year we are just so completely thrilled for Christmas that Thanksgiving doesn't seem to matter all that much. Besides, we were going to try and create a Thanksgiving meal masterpiece all of our own. I've helped my mom make the meal for several years now so I knew that I could do it. I only called home about 100 times that day with questions about every detail.

Table before

Table after!!

The food turned out great! We had a wonderful time eating too much and spending time together.

The day after Thanksgiving brought a sudden urge to decorate for Christmas. After all, we are only able to enjoy decorations for a few weeks before traveling north to our families. We decorated while listening to Christmas music and drinking hot chocolate...so classic. We even made a little video: check it out!

Well, that's all for now. We are planning another lazy day of studying (Dave) and writing the Christmas letter (Cami). Next week will be a whirlwind for me as I try and get my choirs ready for our concert...one week away. Dave is feeling the impending pressure of more exams and will kick it into high gear any moment. Next weekend we are runnning a 5K race in hopes of fending off the Thanksgiving love handles that come every year.