Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving, we had a different Thanksgiving here, but enjoyed some of our family traditions, like making cornucopias (out of breadsticks) the night before.  We made one for our family and delivered them to each of the other houses in our compound.  The girls were impressive because we usually make these from Pillsbury breadsticks, which are unheard of here, but the grocery store sells bags of dough so we used those instead, they came out great!  Our neighbors all loved them.  We also loved watching the Macy's Parade, which started at 4pm our time.  Charlie loved seeing his Ninja Turtles on their own float!

I cooked a traditional feast and we had three South African guests, one was Miss Jenny who is someone we are most thankful to have met.  I met her at the Embassy craft fair, she was there with a booth selling all of these beautiful stuffed animals, baby blankets, cloth aprons, all of it handmade and amazing.  She had a sign up for the "Bear Hug Project" and when I started asking her about it, it was her charity that she started with her daughter a few years back.  They do amazing things here in South Africa and are always looking for volunteers.  So of course I signed up Kelly and Katie for sewing projects, and in addition to being able to help her make some cool things for orphanages etc. the Hughes family made out because Miss Jenny has taken on the role of the Hughes kids South African Grannie... She is a regular now at all of the events at our house (she was a judge for the Halloween costume contest), came for Katie's Grandparents Tea at school and has now completely stolen Kelly's heart with her new puppy, a mini-pug.  When we went to her house for the first time and it was all cozy (nik-naks on the walls, homemade things everywhere) Kelly collapsed on the couch and said she finally felt like she was in a real "home" again!

Here is a link to her charity if you want to see the neat things that they do:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bear-Hug-Project/114371271989308

Here are the girls the day of the Grandparent's tea...

Here are Kelly & Katie working on cutting & pinning denim bags for the charity that will be given to orphans as Christmas gifts.

Our other guests for dinner, was the couple that we met back on Heritage Day, (Danny & Nikki) she had lived in America for many years and fondly remembers our traditions and was thrilled to have Thanksgiving dinner again, her boyfriend had his rookie dinner with us and liked trying all our foods.

Before we ate, Greg gave a very heartfelt toast about South Africans and how they have been very friendly and welcoming to us and we were happy to share a little hospitality with them.  We are consistently impressed with all of the South Africans we meet, how genuinely nice they are and how they go out of their way to make us feel at home in their country!

Our final tradition was one we did a few years back with their cousin Erin when my sister Julie & Brian came to New Hampshire for Thanksgiving.  We had a kids rendition of Snoopy's Thanksgiving from the old Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.  For those of you who might remember, Snoopy serves popcorn, toast, pretzel sticks, jelly beans & sherbet on the ping-pong table.  We invited all the kids in our compound and luckily one lady has a ping-pong table, so we had a grand time with Snoopy's feast.

I asked the kids which they liked better, real Thanksgiving food, or Snoopy's food, they all agreed Snoopy's menu was way better! 

 Kelly & Katie scooping the sherbert!

I was suprised they actually ate the toast...I thought they wouldn't!!