A little late this week because there were SO MANY PICTURES. OMG.
That's a good problem to have, right? Anyway, Thanksgiving this year was quite different from any other time before! My cousin, SiLea, who is studying Resperitory Therapy at Ohio State University, came down to visit us with her boyfriend, Paul. This week's post is about our Thanksgiving festivities, together with these two. Let's get to it!
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SiLea and Paul arrived Wednesday evening, so there wasn't anything much to do except get them settled in and get caught up to speed on what they'd been up to lately. This was also our first time meeting Paul, so we had a pretty good opportunity to get to know him.
Thursday
We had a bit of time before the official Thanksgiving meal preparations, so I took them on a quick tour of SIUC campus. There were lots of gorgeous fall colors, particularly around the lake and Altgeld <3 Quite a few geese as well. Practically no people, and the weather was great. Essentially, it was the IDEAL walk-at-your-own-pace tour :)
I apparently suck as a tour guide though, because I know NO facts about ANYTHING.
Aside from "oh this looks cool" or "this is a popular spot", don't ask me any other questions lol
Ash with the pretty Altgeld scenery :)
We had a minestrone-ish beef soup of sorts for lunch, coupled with naan. :)
After that, it was game time! We played a few rounds of Sushi-Go (I only played one round and went off to finish grading assignments from work). When I was semi-done, we played Taboo. It was refreshing to be back on the same team as Ashriel after years of being forbidden to do so (by people who were afraid we'd kill them all).
Sushi-Go warm up game.
Playing sushi-go.
Taboo...START!
Surprise, surprise, guess which team won? :P
Guess people have good reason to keep us apart. :(
Ash and I averaged out around 11 points per round (1 minute time limit).
Then came dinner! Kim from Malaysia came over to join us for the meal. Poor thing was alone otherwise :( Pictures would do a better job of sharing what we made, so take a look!
Rachel Ray style mushrooms in olive oil and garlic, with a sprinkling of salt.
HAVE to be eaten freshly cooked out of the wok!
Dad plating the turkey with some greens to make it pretty (not for eating lol)
In the bottom corner, you can see a dish being passed around the table.
Dad taking a picture of his work. Also, pass the potatoes?
Kim taking photos. Still passing potatoes lol
Mandatory turkey pics. A little pale on the breast this year, but still delish.
I was trying to convince Dad to break out the blowtorch to brown it lol XD
Look at this ultra-super moist breast meat! <3
And yes, I DID just do that XD
Pecan and Kentucky Derby (Pecan + Chocolate) pies
Almost gone...
Family photo + Paul
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Friday
Ash went out Black Friday shopping this morning, so she wasn't with us when Dad and I took SiLea and Paul out to view some Carbondale sights (away from town and traffic)!
We took them to the water tower in Giant City Park first :)
Going up!
View from the top
We took them to Giant City Lodge next. We weren't going to be eating there, but it's nice to look at anyway, right?
Going in.
"Candid" shot lol XD
Through the door...
Adorable "couple" seats on the second floor. Also, it's all Christmas-y!
LOVE THE LIGHTING.
Gorgeous stairs...can I do a shoot here? I'll need to look into this.
Pose in front of the mantelpiece!
Christmas tree!
Last but not least, you can't go to Giant City Park and NOT hike.
We went on two trails, Stonefort and Trillium (had to turn back part of the way in to make it back for lunch).
Stonefort trail
Dad :)
Mandatory pictures on the stone forts.
Trillium trail photo.
Our last stop of the day was Castle Park. SiLea was especially excited for the PokemonGO! gym and took it over lol XD We were especially excited to see that there was someone there working on new paintings for the castle, so I snapped a few quick pictures. Loving the vibrant colors :)
The one rare occasion where SiLea (about 5'4"...?) is taller than Paul (6'3") lol XD
Aww...
Dad :)
Subtle security cam in the dragon's mouth lol XD
As this was SiLea and Paul's last full day with us, we made the most of it. I was gone for quite a bit of this, but snuck some photos here and there. Mom took some as well. They made mooncakes and did other things that SiLea has been missing since coming to the States, resulting in Paul getting a full hands-on experience of Asian culture that is actually quite rare lol XD
Making mooncakes!
See, this is how we do this...
Ta-dah!
Proud SiLea with her completed mooncakes.
Yellow = yam (eh), Green = mung bean or the occasional green tea (jackpot), Red = red bean
Standard dinner at the Loh house.
Stir-fried spinach with ikan bilis (dried and fried savory anchovies you eat whole), lor bak (soy-sauce braised pork, eggs, and mushroomy fungi), and saba (salted mackerel). With rice, of course. :)
Last dinner!
We're starting mahjong! Surprisingly, Paul kind of knew some of the rules already.
He enjoyed it, I hear :)
SiLea and Paul left on Saturday morning after a char-siu bao (Chinese BBQ pork bun) and red bean paste bun breakfast. We prayed for them and sent them on their way. I included some kusudama ornaments as an early Christmas present for SiLea.
The excited expression on her face is always worth seeing. For those of you who've known me for a while, you'll know that one of my top motivational gifts is giver, which is only enhanced by the fact that I enjoy hand-making things :)
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Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Comment below with what your family did! :)
To those struggling with finals, I wish you the best!
~Ariel