Thanksgiving Bounty

Holidays overseas can be hit or miss.  Even if we don't realize it, there's usually some underlying anxiety to recreate our personal family traditions to share with our Foreign Service family.  Sometimes we fail miserably and finish the day feeling a bit empty and homesick.  But other times it all comes together wonderfully.

Arriving at James and Virginia's house, we were greeted by a beautiful table setting and an invitation to "Get Your Fat Pants Ready"!

Once everyone had arrived and all the food was laid out on the table, we started to fill our plates.  The spread included roasted AND smoked turkey, mashed potatoes, yams, stuffing, green bean casserole, broccoli salad, cranberry sauce, fruit, and homemade rolls.  Plus Virginia's awesome sweet iced tea and sparkling lemonade.

Jeremy allowed me a moment to photograph his plate before he dug in.  

As we ate, classic holiday movies - "A Christmas Story" and "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" - were playing in the background and we talked about where we were last Thanksgiving.  

After letting our stomachs settle a bit, we attacked the dessert table, which was laden with pecan tarts, lemon meringue pie, cherry pie, pumpkin pie, and apple crumble.  Sadly, my extra helping of green bean casserole didn't leave me enough room to sample all the desserts.

During dessert, Virginia gave us the answers to the incredible 35 Thanksgiving trivia questions she had prepared.  Sample Question:  Which president was the first to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday?  Answer:  Abraham Lincoln.  Thanks Abe!

And a huge thanks to our excellent hosts James and Virginia for creating a fabulous Thanksgiving celebration for us in Phnom Penh!

Easy Riders

"Easy Riders" is a group of expats that takes weekend bicycle rides in and around Phnom Penh.  I often think of joining them, but the 7am start time is highly unappealing on a weekend.  However, at the end of the month, Jeremy and I are participating in the Angkor Wat 100 kilometer bike ride.  So we decided we better get in a practice ride.

The day began with a ferry ride to the neighboring island where we would start biking.  The ferry is always a bit chaotic with passengers, motos, and cars all boarding together.  As we were disembarking, a car got stuck trying to make it up the steep, muddy off-ramp, and everyone else had to wait until it finally made it off on the third try. 

Once off the ferry, we hopped on our bikes.  Phnom Penh has been soaked by the remnants of Typhoon Haiyan with big thunderstorms the last few days.  This turned several of our paths into slippery, muddy messes.  As we came around one bend, we saw that our path was completed covered with several feet of water.  Some of the villagers offered us a boat ride across and were ecstatic by the $2 we gave them in return.

Despite the multiple boat rides, we logged 55 kilometers on our bikes.  We also splashed a good amount of rural Cambodian mud on ourselves and our bikes - as shown by my dirty legs in the photo below.  But this ride gave me confidence that we'll actually make it to the finish line of the upcoming 100 km ride...stayed tuned for a blog post about that!