Thanksgiving at our house today

Thanksgiving Dinner went great, but sadly our photos didn't do so well! Most were blurry, and the others had bad color, probably due to the light coming in through the windows. Our minds weren't really on taking pictures at this point anyway, as we were ready to dig in! This picture came out the best of the bunch, so this is the one you get to see. We were just starting to serve up, and you can see Russell handling the manly duty of carving the bird.

With several young female guests, we had a lot of help with the dinner preparations, and everything came together fairly smoothly. It was an unusual meal, as everyone other than me was 25 years old or younger, but it was lively and fun!

We had a few minor disasters during our preparations. Yesterday we did most of the baking. First thing in the morning, the water spigot at the hot water heater started to leak, and Russell had to turn off the water to make repairs. So, we were washing dishes out at the pila (an outside concrete sink). This was less than convenient.

Later, we had a small flood in the kitchen (somehow a plastic tube, which runs from the plumbing under the sink to the other side of the kitchen, to be used with an automatic ice maker, got turned on. Since we don't have an ice maker, it was just putting water onto the floor for a while, before anyone noticed. Since the end of the tube was inside of a cabinet, everything from there had to be removed and dried.

Today, as we went to put the thermometer into the turkey, we discovered that it had been broken while sitting in the utensil drawer. Then, after the turkey had cooked for a couple of hours, someone accidentally turned off the oven, thinking they were only turning off a timer. Fortunately I discovered this after about half an hour, and we didn't experience too much delay as a result.

Perhaps the most unique part of this event was that Russell invited his Honduran girlfriend. This was very nice, as we haven't had much of a chance to get to know her. It was also difficult, since this was such a specifically gringo meal. I know these foods aren't especially liked by Hondurans, so we felt bad about that. Iris is also quite shy, so although we tried to bridge the language and culture barriers, with the addition of shyness it was difficult. Hopefully she will grow more comfortable around our large and boisterous family as she gets more familiar with us.

Russell has handled this relationship in an especially mature manner, asking for her parents permission as well as ours, before starting to court Iris. We're proud of him, and we want to do everything we can to forge a friendly relationship with her, in case this blossoms into something permanent. I can hardly believe I have reached this stage of the game, where I am thinking about in-law relationships and such.

So, we ate traditional foods, watched It's a Wonderful Life, enjoyed the company of friends, and thanked God for our blessings. At the end of the day, we were treated to an especially colorful sunset.