it was our first thanksgiving in korea and thankfully there were no fires! i think that alone classifies it as a success. despite being away from our families during the holidays, we have so much to be thankful for this year. not only do i have an amazing mister to spend my time with (who cooks an amazing turkey by the way) but we have great friends in korea (who saved my butt by helping me with all the cooking!). we also have great jobs this year and jobs lined up for next that enable us to save money and travel a lot. AND we have signed the contract on our new apartment! we could not be more excited. after much searching and A LOT of help from our korean co-teachers (its a little difficult to negotiate with someone who speaks no english...go figure), we are happy to say that we will be moving in january to our new place. finding a place of our own in a foreign country definitely has its difficulties but we had a relatively easy time finding a place we love. with all the help we got and with everything falling so perfectly into place, we can't take credit. it was definitely a God thing.
what's thanksgiving without a mustache wearing turkey? compliments of mister diamond
about a month ago, jeremy found (ahem! stole) a wild pumpkin and brought it home. just in time for me to learn how to make homemade pumpkin puree for pumpkin pie. i'm still amazed at how many things we buy canned, processed or already prepared in the states. when i lived there i had the mindset of not going out of my way to make things from scratch because i figured that it was too difficult. i constantly surprise myself at just how easy things are to cook from scratch and how little time it takes.
cooking thanksgiving dinner in korea certainly has its challenges. first off, my main helper and close friend, alissa is now 9 months pregnant and had to sit down between cooking because of contractions. not that i was a slave driver and making her do it, i was just afraid that we would have to rush her to the hospital in the middle of it all. thankfully, dinner was finished, and no baby came.
another challenge came to the oven and space situation. we do not have a proper oven by american standards here in korea. the one in the picture is actually alissa's that she brought with her and ours is slightly smaller than that. as you can see, the turkey just barely fits in there. we had to set up an extra table in the living rooms and run an extension cord out there so we could have enough room to cook everything.
after 6 hours of cooking, we're finished! proud mister slicing and dicing.
the whole group for dinner
