My First Thanksgiving

Wow, that was an experience!

I don't know where to start from because there were just too many things happened within the past 3 days! OK, I shall begin from Thursday.

Sue came to pick us at 1130am and we went straight to her house. We did not expect her extended / related families to be there too! There were so many people there. Her husband Randy, her 2 sons David and John, grandma, her nephews and nieces, and her brothers and sisters. It reminded me of a family reunion, those that the Chinese will do on CNY eve. We had great lunch, too bad the photos are taken from my phone and it can't be transferred to this computer. After the meal, we played a board game called "Sequence" and then ping pong. We stayed till evening before Sue sends us back to Sherburne.

Then, I took a rest to get myself ready for the Black Friday sales. It was so hard to just wait for time to pass. I self-declared for a movie night. So I watched tons of video on PPS and Youtube. When the clock strikes 2, I headed down and there we took off to the Minnepolis city with my Vietnamese friends.

We reached our first stop, JC Penny at 330am. After half an hour, the crowds started to come and door was opened. I only managed to grab a pair of jeans.

This is just 1/5 of the que in front of Wal-Mart.

Next stop was SuperTarget, an hour later. And then follow by Wal-Mart. After that, we headed down to the Mall of America. We had lunch there and continued shopping till 2pm. All in all, it was the longest shopping hours I ever had - 12 hours.

Once we reached St. Cloud, I was already super tired. I only have an hour or so to prepare myself before Lois and Dick Hokanson came to pick us to our next destination, Little Falls.

We reached Little Falls by evening and we had a delicious dinner prepared by Lois. In the 2 days, Jasmine and I helped the Hokanson's to decorate their house for the Christmas Season.

Phase 1 - Grouping the deco into related categories.

My set of cookies. My first Masterpiece in my whole life.

Results from a work of a whole afternoon.

We too baked cookies. On Sunday, we attended Grace Covenant Church. It was also there I met the birthday boy, a mixed Russian-American, little Mark, who previously helped me with my Child Psychology project. I gave him a CD from Malaysia and he loved it so much.

Mark, Me and Mariah.

Go, Malaysia!

We returned to St. Cloud by 3pm. After an hour of rest, I decided to head to the gym, since I have not done so for about 3 days. Also, played badminton with some friends from Malaysia and Thailand after dinner in my beloved school cafeteria, Garvey Commons.

Candle light dinner.

There goes my very first Thanksgiving holidays in U.S.

If you were to ask me what I remember from all these events, I would say:
1. Sue's sister's dog is called Dexter.
2. Sue's layered jello was the best.
3. People are crazier than we are at Black Friday sales. Wal-Mart has the longest que.
4. The Hokanson's own a 6-acre land. Their house made me feel very comfortable, not like those you've seen on American TV shows. Lovely.

More pictures available at my Facebook page.

P/S: I know this is one of the longest post I ever had since I came to the States, thanks for reading till the end!

Cheers!