thanksgiving guests 2000-11-25

~daver: autumn 2000: thanksgiving guests

November 25, 2000: thanksgiving guests

For Thanksgiving this year, Nancy and I were joined by my brother Tom, his wife Chan, and their friend Mary. They made the drive down from Washington State, arriving late Thursday afternoon. (It was just as well they didn't try to arrive the day before -- traffic on the Bay area freeways was completely gridlocked all Wednesday afternoon and evening!) So after letting them get a good night's sleep, we had our official Thanksgiving dinner on Friday.
	I made pancakes for everyone for breakfast, then Nancy took charge in the kitchen. After all the concentrated work she's been doing lately to finish her Master's Thesis, it was welcome recreation for her to switch over to making the turkey, homemade stuffing, pecan pie, rolls from scratch, etc :-)
My assignment was entertaining our guests until dinner was ready (It's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it :-) We played a game of Mille Bourne, which Mary came from behind to win, and then switched over to Clue Museum, which Mary also won.
	And then it was dinner time! Everything was delicious, and of course we all stuffed ourselves. Well, everyone but Chan, who saved room for pie. But the rest of us outvoted her, and decided to go for a walk to the park with the puppies, to work off dinner so we could have pie too :-) It was a beautiful cool fall afternoon, with the leaves changing colors and falling they way they do in Iowa in October. We let the puppies run around the park till they tired themselves out, then headed back home for dessert. Nancy's pecan pie was great, and I (however immodestly) think my pumpkin pie was OK too.
In the evening we started a game of San Francisco-opoly. Early on, it looked like Tom and Chan were going to get the first monopolies, so I made some bold strategic trades with Nancy and Mary so that I got the first monopoly. My strategy didn't end up working exactly as I had planned, and I was the first player bankrupt :-) After that, it was a pretty close game for quite a while, but eventually it came down to Mary and Nancy, but then Nancy landed on Mary's big properties a few times too often and so Mary won. There were a few raised eyebrows at Mary winning every game we played, but she'll still be welcome next time she comes to visit :-)
The next day, Saturday, we took Tom, Chan, and Mary to visit one of our favorite Bay area places: the Hakone Japanese gardens. (I previously put up pictures from my first visit to Hakone, in the spring two and a half years ago.)


Afterwards, looking for lunch (and ice cream), we walked around the nearby downtown Saratoga shopping district. Browing in the yarn shoppe, here we see Tom puzzling over some obscure knitting device, but he never figured out just what the contraption was for. (Personally, I decided that I didn't really Need To Know :-) After lunch, Tom, Chan, and Mary headed back north on their long drive back to Washington. It was really great that the family's West Coast Contingent could all get together for Thanksgiving, especially since Tom and Chan can't make it back to the midwest for Chistmas this year.
	By the way, I'm sure that you are all curious about the logo on Tom's sweatshirt. (Well, OK, I know you aren't, but I'm going to show it to you anyway!) I guess you can take the boy out of Iowa, but you can't take Iowa out of the boy! :-)
And while I'm at it, here are some puppy pictures from this weekend. Maggie's becoming quite the cuddler (right), and I finally got a couple of shots of Willow grooming Maggie :-)

	Hank's not so fond of cuddling on the couch -- he'd rather lie on the floor nearby, chewing on his favorite rope toy :-) But they're both very good puppies, and can do Sit, Stay, Down, Off, Leave It, Nap Time, and Let's Go pretty well, though they're still working on Heel, Fetch, Stop Chewing On Your Sister/Brother, No Really Leave It All The Time Not Just Right Now, etc :-)

~daver: autumn 2000: thanksgiving guests