Thanksgiving in Malaysia

The thing we are the most thankful for is the fact that we finally got the mouse (mouse not a rat!) Renu brought a cage to trap him humanely and sure enough, the next morning there he was running around in the wire box. It turned into a real adventure when Renu took them to a field by Emily's school and they let him out!

We finally found some canned pumpkin but I'm a little skeptical!
It says "100% pure" but pure what???

The day is like any other in Kuala Lumpur. We had our nails done and went shopping; Dad's are at work (Kyle is still in China;) the kids are in school; Emily went to gymnastics. The neighbors are coming to dinner on Saturday and we'll try to have a "real" Thanksgiving dinner. Jared is frying a turkey and between Heather, Lesha and I we will make some traditional recipes. Our nephew Kurt is in San Antonio with Roger and they went golfing and then to Luby's cafeteria. We talked with them on SKYPE and they put in their order for "the works" for Christmas! I'll second that!

Deepavali, or The Festival of Lights, is an important Hindu holiday celebrated annually and involves 5 days of family traditions in India. Emily's school celebrated the holiday today so she wore her special Indian pants and top. Samantha has had a fever for 3 days - a virus going around - so she missed her school Thanksgiving celebration today.

 

One of Heather's friends is moving back to Houston soon so, another friend had a luncheon for her the other day. She was nice to invite me to come too. She prepared a traditional Indonesian meal: fried vegetable fritters with spicy peanut sauce; soup; potato pancakes and mint tea. They prepare the soup dish by first putting fried noodles, cabbage, cooked chicken, tomatoes, and chives in a bowl and then adding the liquid and hot sauce. Very interesting!

 

Because of the mosquito problem, they fog the neighborhood twice a week. Emily is terrified of the fog and can hear the truck a mile away. The other day we were walking home from Samantha's tennis lesson and she heard the truck before anyone else - she tore her hand out of mine and ran as fast as she could all the way home! She ran around shutting all the doors and windows and was so worried we were not going to get home before the foggers arrived. She said "hurry Tima, shut the door quick, you can not breaf that stuff!" Renu was ready to go home and Emily wouldn't let her until "all the fog gone."

 

We are all so excited - just got news that our nephew Joel and his wife Rachel are going to have a baby girl in April!! Can't wait to shop for pink!