Thanksgiving Weekend

Last year Jen and I were in Korea for Thanksgiving. We sat on the floor of a restraunt, chairs were not an option, and we ate Korean bbq and kimchi ( spicy, cold, fermented cabbage). Then on the day after Thanksgiving we went to a family friends house in Korea and had a wonderful traditional American spread.

This year we stayed in Shanghai and the whole weekend was full of adventure. Since Thanksgiving isn't a recognized holiday here I still had to work, but I worked from home instead of going into the office. On Thanksgiving day we went to a friend's house with about 10 other families and had a huge feast with all the fixings. There were even two turkeys there. One deep fried and one smoked. We stuffed ourselves silly but everyone called it an early night because we all had work the next day, no Black Friday here, and all but one of the couples at the party had a baby under 9 months old - 4 of us even used the same doctor!

The next day we helped put on another Thanksgiving dinner for some of the single adults and other couples. This one was pretty good too but it was minus any turkey. Turkey isn't something the Chinese eat so you have to get them at the import store. They are between $100-$130 USD! So we settled for a $3 duck instead and lots of pumpkin pie.

On Saturday morning we had a baptism for two ladies in our branch. They are both in my Sunday school class. I teach the Chinese Gospel Principles class at church. The one sister is Canadian-Chinese and the other is from China but is married to an American so they are allowed to be baptized in Shanghai. We baptized them in a swimming pool and held the meeting in a clubhouse. After the baptism about 15 of the guys in the branch got together for a Turkey-Bowl. We are all fat and out of shape but that didn't stop us from playing football for 3 straight hours. By the time we were done we only had one person get knocked out, one bloody hand, the wind knocked out a few people and a few scrapped hands and knees. Not bad for a game of two hand touch! Don't worry mom, I didn't get knocked out, but I'm partly responsible for the guy who did.... Sunday morning was the day of the Shanghai Marathon. I opted to switch to the half marathon because of my intense travel schedule these past few weeks left me unable to train. However, when I woke up this morning I was SO SORE from the footbal game that I had a very hard time getting out of bed. I made it to the starting line and used the first 5k as my warmup. The race went well and I made it to the end. The other good part about switching to the half was it allowed me to finish early and get to church. I miss Utah and all the Saturday races. Next up will be the Xiamen full marathon on Jan 2.

On Saturday afternoon Jen took her first run outside. We drove to the park where I ususally do my long runs and Will and I sat in the car while Jen went for a run. She loved it. She did a 5k loop and finished a few minutes quicker than I thought she would for her first 5k back. Once she finished she quickly started asking when she can start training more etc. I laughed and told her to settle down and take it slow. Will is the same way. He looks like he's ready to start crawling/running! He has so much energy that it will be very interesting when he is moble.

Long post with no pics. sorry. next time.