Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hurray, today is Thanksgiving! Been looking forward to this day for quite a while; my first Thanksgiving in America!

First, since it is a holiday, I was able to sleep in until around 10:00. After getting up, we all started cleaning up the house to prepare for our party in the afternoon. Cleaned up my room VERY well so hopefully it'll stay that way for a while. :P

At around 1:00, the four of us left for Hawaii Kai to go to Aunt Jean's friend's house. Reed lives with his son, Chris, who we found out is also going to Kapiolani Community College! That was very interesting and we were talking about college for a while. Chris is also interested in video editing so that was really cool, too, especially when I was telling him about the Newsies project last year.

Reed and Chris also have the most adorable dog named Benji. She (yes, her name is Benji *wink!*) is a mix and soooo cute. She was so curious, especially about all the food and kept getting herself in trouble as she tried to 'just look'. :P

On the left is the whole group, excluding Naomi who is taking the picture and including Chris' girlfriend, Kay (who is from Okinawa and going to UH), and on the right is a picture of Aunt Jean with Reed.

We left the house after eating a delicious 'late lunch' and headed for home. Maki and I went to buy some last minute drinks and such for the party while Erin and Naomi got the house all ready. At exactly 5:00, Yuriy was the first to arrive. Then Ericson soon arrived with the delicious turkey, candied yams, and gravy he had made. Naomi went to pick up my cousin Ayumi and by the time she came back, Brandon, Christi, and Yoko had arrived. There was just sooooooooooooooooooo much food! You won't believe how much food was left over afterwards. And of course I have to mention the deserts: cherry pie, pumpkin pie, apple pie, lemon merangue pie, cream puffs, fruit salad, pumpkin crunch, brownies, and more!

While eating dinner, Brandon and Chrisit had brought Madagascar so first we watched the short movie called The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper. And asides from the short Ice Age Scrat movie, this is the best animated short movie I have EVER seen! It's positively hilarious and you will honestly die laughing. It's kind of 'scary' in a sense (especially for poor Erin because it features this SCARY poodle named Mr. Chew (LOL!). :P Seriously, the penguins were so cool. And when we watched the actually Madagascar movie, I think the best parts all had the penguins somehow in it. ^_^

(Was funny, when the movie finished, everyone got up to go to the kitchen [picture on left] and Yuriy was the only one left in the living room so he looks so all alone [picture on right]). :P

After the movie, Aunt Jean arrived to stop by for a few hours and Tina also came by. Ayumi was getting tired so Naomi took her home before we started a game. Matt and Ardell also came by just in time as we were starting to play 'Cranium'; a type of board game similar to Hoopla. Some highlights included:

1) Brandon pretending to be Shirley Temple and being VERY lucky that Naomi was finally able to guess at the last second (I have a video clip of that if anyone wants it... :P)
2) Tina trying to 'hum' a song and pretending to be the Lone Ranger
3) Erin drawing the most beautiful convertible... except we all thought she drew it with her eyes closed, which she was supposed to be doing but didn't. lol!
4) Maki drawing a watermelon and my guessing it in about 1 second (we know each too well; I was the only one who thought that the watermelon she drew with her eyes closed looked like a watermelon). *wink*!
5) Ardell 'humming' "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".... sort of. :P
6) Christi as John Travolta
7) I still can't believe Naomi's imitation of Jackie Chan won over everyone else's to get her team to guess who she was first...
8) The different drawings of Star Wars
9) Yuriy, of all people, having to sculpture a violin out of clay
10)
... and so much more...

A really great game; the winning team was Brandon, Yuriy, and Naomi's team though everyone was really close behind. Afterwards a few people stayed behind, all of just talking and having fun conversations (and 'playing nicely' with pillows...). Oh, and about the group picture of us on the left... I am NOT posing like that on purpose. Someone flipped me over the couch from behind, so excuse the strange look on my face... *wrinkles nose*

Everyone was out of the house a little after midnight and after cleaning up, I was able to video chat with my parents for a bit.

So, that was the end of a wonderful Thanksgiving day! I would like to thank everyone who was able to join the party; I had a really great time and in a way, it was sort of like an 'open house' for me because I hadn't been able to be there for the 'real' open house a while back. ^_^ Hope to some time have another occasion to open the house again for fellowship!