Lotte-Sara in San Diego

It’s been a long time again since I’ve written a post on my blog. I like to keep you all informed about my life here, but I don’t know how many people are really reading it because I don’t get many reactions on my posts. But since people started to ask me to update by blog, I decided to make some time to give an update about last month’s happenings.

Like everyone knows December is a month of holidays. In The Netherlands we have Saint Nicolas in the beginning and of course Christmas at the end. Here in the US they have Thanksgiving at the end of November and also Christmas.

Thanksgiving
I was invited by Jeanette’s family to spend Thanksgiving with them. We celebrated at Jeanette’s Grandma’s place. We arrived there around 1:00 PM and we all hung out in the kitchen, eating snacks and chatting. Of course the turkey was already baking in the oven and later in the midday the rest of the preparations for dinner started. Besides the turkey we had mashed potatoes, beans, filling, and mashed sweet potatoes with walnuts. While the men where eating in the living room, watching football, the women were eating and being loud (there was also lots of alcohol involved) in the dining room.
I had a great day and I’m glad I had the opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving on the real American way with a great family.
The day after Thanksgiving is the craziest shopping day of the year. Stores giving away things for the first number of customers, crazy rebates on product when you’re early and very big rows in front of the stores. So we had to go also to start the Christmas shopping like everyone else, and get cheap presents. We woke up around 4:00 AM because Jeanette wanted a laptop from Best Buy, and they opened at 5:00 AM. I think we arrived there at 5:05 AM and the laptop she wanted was already gone. So we went to the other stores to get other good deals. I ended up home with:
- A Netgear 108 Mbps wireless router together with the Netgear WG511T (108 Mbps) wireless card for $42,38
- 3 dvd’s for $20 (Man of honor, Courage under fire, The Siege)
- A notebook 1GB memory card $100
- A bunch of new clothes

You can find some photos of Thanksgiving at the Thanksgiving pictures page.

The Sunday after Thanksgiving, Jeanette’s dad, Jeanette and I spent the day to set up the Christmas lights in the garden. It felt a little weird being outside working on Christmas decoration and the sun is shining and warm. And it’s America, so it was not just some lights in the hedge….
You can find photos of the result at the Christmas pictures page.
Every year the neighborhood has some sort of competition for the nicest/ best decoreted house. Jeanette’s parents’ house ended up at the first place (((-:

Susan’s party
Two weeks before Christmas Susan was giving a little pre-Christmas party. She invited all her colleagues so Sudhakaran and I went together. The was lots of good food and Susan’s boyfriend made some great glug (warm wine with fruits and spices). I made a picture of Susan with moose horns on.

Christmas
For Christmas I was again invited by Jeanette’s family to spend the holiday with them. This time we were celebrating at Jeanette’s parents’ house.
Of course this was also done the real American style. Everybody had a sock hanging above the fireplace and they were filled with small presents. The big presents were laying under the Christmas tree.
You can find photos of this day at the Christmas pictures page.