Durham Thanksgiving

It had been about a year and half since we last were in Durham. A trip back "home" to visit old friends was being talked about for months, and we finally made good on this plan.

For the U.S. Thanksgiving long weekend we took to the road to Tobacco Road. It was so good to be back in Durham (NC). With so many memories in this city - our first home, wedding, Ethan's birth, Kelly's residency at Duke (to name a few) - being back felt more like home than our current place of residence.

We left on Wednesday night (11/26) and split the road trip in two, staying overnight in Asheville, NC before continuing the next morning to Durham. The entire trip takes about 6 1/2 - 7 hours, which we felt would be too much for Ethan if driven continously.

Jessica offered her place for us to stay, even though she would be out of town visiting her family for Turkey Day in Baton Rouge, LA. Jessica would come back Friday evening and we spent all of Saturday together, which was great fun.

The average American consumes about 4,030 calories on Thanksgiving Day. I certainly managed that, if not the first evening, most definitely after the second, as we were treated to two Thanksgiving dinners! On Thursday we were hosted by the Kugler family (Eileen, Gary, and sons Jason and Jeff). Dinner was traditional - turkey, mashed potatoes, brussel sprouts, stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy. On Friday, we were at the Mostaghimis residence for a Persian-American fusion dinner combining favorites such as khoresh-e-bademjan (persian eggplant stew dish) and oven-roasted turkey, and tadik (crispy persian rice) with sweet potatoes. Yuuuuuuuuuum! For the record I had seconds both evenings. Heaven! Oh did I mention there was shohlezard (persian yellow rice pudding)... darn, I want some right now.

Saturday with Jessica included breakfast at home (bacon and egg McJessica muffins, pancakes, Earl Grey, left-over shohlezard). We then went to the science museum, butterfly conservatory and insectarium where Ethan had a lot of fun roaming around and exploring. We were not alone, as it seemed every family in the area thought it was a good Saturday-after-Thanksgiving thing to do to take the kids to the science museum. We had to park across the street it was so packed.

Saturday evening we dined at Merlion. We ate Char Kway Teoh (Singaporean noodle dish), ginger beef, a tofu dish and honey glazed prawns. After Ethan was put to bed, Kelly, Jessica and I ended up talking until 2am, bringing back fond memories of our time at Duke/Durham.

But sadly our trip had to come to an end eventually. On Sunday, again Jessica made us some egg and bacon breakfast muffins. Kelly, Ethan and I went to the Baha'i Center while Jessica went to her church for Sunday service. The program at the Baha'i Center in Durham was on the topic of marriage and chastity. The discussions were lively, and the selected readings very thought provoking -- I know several friends of mine that would benefit from these Baha'i writings.

Some usual suspects were at the Center - Catherine Davis, Dilsey, Angelica, Parvaneh, Anyema and Sherlock, Shegund, Ayla, Lee Moavenzadeh, Daria, etc.. It was nice to see everyone, and so comforting to be the in the company of our former community members. Several other friends we knew ahead of time would be away this weekend which was a pity - including (but not limited to) Amani, Elyse, Nahal and others.

Lunch was had back at Jessica's (left-over Merlion food, left-over Thanksgiving meals Persian-Chinese-American fusion, and STILL left-over shohlezard :-D). Our truck fully loaded (with recent purchases for the baby's arrival) and Ethan showing signs of napping, we took to the long road back home, under pouring conditions, making our way, slowly, back to Blue Ridge.

10 pm Sunday evening, and a truck full of things to unload, we were "home" at last. A very worthwhile trip.

Holiday Meals With Friends

Josie and Sarah and company invited us to join them in their Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners in their home this year. And so the turkey I had purchased to cook for Thanksgiving - all 18lbs of her - was kept frozen until this past week when Kelly and I offered to host dinner and games at our home.

It was the first time I had ever cooked a whole turkey by myself. With the help of mom's own recipe, and some searching for other "tricks" online, I pulled it off! The bird tasted pretty good! :-D Hahaha... I just wish I had taken a picture of my cooking labour prior to us all digging in.

But here's a picture of our spread after all was had.

And so with this, I would like to return the thanks to Josie and Sarah for making us feel like part of the family, and now, we truly have a family with whom we can play the many games we all enjoy!!! Hahaha.. A sort of belated Happy Thanksgiving in a way.

Here's to many special gatherings together!

Happy 2008 to all.

Thanksgiving Dinner With Molly & Cupid

[the giant pumpkin weighs 479lbs]

Dinner this evening was far better today (than last night). We ate around 2PM. Thanksgiving dinner was held at Josie's place, and it was a good old fashioned turkey spread with all the fixin's and even a dash of eastern european flavours. A long dining table seating some 18 friends, gathered and shared grace, good food and better company.

To work off the meal we had just ingested, some of us went down to the barn to visit donkey sisters, Molly and Cupid. Click the link to My Picasa (on right) to find more photos ("Thanksgiving 2007").

It was pretty chilly out today (and damp -- we had several thunderstorms all night last night) and so back indoors we had hot drinks and dessert waiting. We played games including Catch Phrase and Apples to Apples.

What a warm evening shared by a gathering of friends!! Thanks Josie & Co!

Happy Thanksgiving

[Kelly (and Ethan) on an autumn afternoon stroll]

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! One of the busiest (if not THE busiest) time of the year for travel in the U.S., some 40 million folks are expected to travel 60 miles or more, most of them by road. Ourselves, we are here in Blue Ridge, but no longer by our lonesomes (as Kelly had mentioned we would be in her "status" on Facebook). We have been invited to join Thanksgiving dinner at Josie's house (Josie is Kelly's nurse). She has some family and other friends, some 18 people in total I think, will be getting together in a few hours. Dinner starts at 1pm :-D But not all is well. Noomsie is again sick. This morning he had some wheezing and runny nose. I guess his rate of being sick the past month or more is completely expected being with other children all week, and being cooler and damp with winter looming. I just hope he recovers in time for our LONG flight in 9 days :-D

And tomorrow, the shopping begins. Also a time for major "sales", many stores are opening tonight at midnight or early morning hours like 3 or 4am with great deals. A lot of it is hype, and not many great deals are actually found. But as a family we are travelling to Atlanta to do some shopping and meeting up with Tita Flong (my aunt - mom's sister) for lunch (dim sum?) on Saturday at the Hong Kong Harbour restaurant on Chester Bridge Rd. Tita Flong recommended we go to this restaurant since it was a "regular" of Shar's and Babak's and they, too, enjoyed the place a lot.

We wish more family could be around us during this "family" time of the year. But this is a reality that I am slowly coming to accept with each passing holiday. With Kelly's visa hopefully secured during our Singapore trip, we hope and plan to be more mobile and utilize our new found "freedom" to visit some of you as we can.

HAPPY TURKEY DAY, and God bless!

Thank You, Mummy!

[Ethan, 1 month old]

Kelly's mom has been with us since Ethan was just a few days old. And now, her selfless services as Grandma will be returning back to Singapore. There is not a lot we can say, really, to convey just how grateful we are to have had so much help. I can hardly believe two months has gone by already. During this time, Ethan's weight has increased from just under 5 pounds, to nearly 11 pounds. His head control is getting better and he can follow moving objects from side to side. He can smile, and even give a laughter here and there - not entirely sure the latter is voluntary or simply a product of passing gas. :-)

In any case, Kelly, Ethan and I would still like to say Thank You for the many things you have done which include but are not limited to:

. singing to Ethan
. praying with Ethan
. talking to Ethan
. "running" with Ethan
. consoling Ethan
. bathing Ethan
. loving Ethan
. feeding Ethan
. burping Ethan
. changing Ethan
. laundry
. cloth diapers
. cooking yummy foods
. sago pudding
. burbur chacha
. char koay teow

Hopefully we can all be together in Singapore again this summer, where Ethan can play and have some male bonding time with his two cousins: Junn and Ryu.

Big Bird

My parents left this morning, and so last night to celebrate Thanksgiving early, mom cooked us a traditional turkey dinner with mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. Thanks, Ma, and HAPPY THANKSGIVING to everyone!

Expected Due Date

October 26th. Today was supposed to be Ethan's expected due date. Instead, he is now nearly 5 weeks old. And he weighs near 8lbs. He is also 2 inches taller - now 20". Still, he only just barely makes the growth chart for boys here in the U.S. (bottom 5% percentile). But mom and dad are not complaining. Ethan is growing just nicely.

So not much else going on today. This is not true for my sister, who this weekend is going to run in a half-marathon in Auckland (NZ). This will be her FOURTH at this distance - Delta, Atlanta, Toronto and Auckland! I am so proud of you! Perhaps I will use you as motivation to train for one myself. Funny, I was always the runner in the family, but I have not run in any distances longer than 10k. And I could barely run 5k without stopping right now for sure. So, things are going to have to change.

Lots of things to look forward to in November though!

November 11th - Birth of Baha'u'llah Celebration
November 13th - Max's parents in town
November 21st - Kelly and Max's 2-year wedding anniversary
November 23rd - U.S. Thanksgiving

And in December, we have my mom coming back for a couple months (until Feb), Shar, Babak and the girls (Carmel and Ellie Nur), Kelly's younger sister, Adeline, and maybe even cousin Ah Chiet, all will visit us in December, hopefully. How exciting!

Rain Rain Go Away

Here are some more recent pics of Ethan - including his I-love-being-burped face :-p I have also included a couple pics of the nursery, as Kelly and I are trying to figure out a way to organize Ethan's clothes and other items.

Other than that, today seems a little bit more subdued, attributed to the weather I am sure. Being a Vancouverite myself (can I still call myself that?) I don't seem to mind the rain at all - in fact I kinda like rainy days (when I am at home). You can get all cozy dozy with a hot cup of something. My flavour of the month these days is a rich blend of Ethannoomieness - full of aroma if you know what I mean :-)











Well, Happy Thanksgiving to all of my Canadian peeps!










Hallowe'en is slowly approaching also, and although Kelly refuses to buy candy to be handed out to children, I can't help but look forward to dressing up little noomie in a costume - surely customary for newborns. So, fam and friends, any suggestions? Little Casper the friendly ghost perhaps? Or how about a noomie noo pumpkin?? Or a giant (all relative) Jelly Bean! :-) Well, I look forward to suggestions and comments on this one. And Mom and Dad may dress up with Ethan too this year.

OK, so more in a bit...