I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving yesterday. Mine was a nice, small get together with my parents, grandmother, sister, bro-in-law, nephew, and my Aunt Mary.

Traditionally my family always celebrated Thanksgiving by going out to eat - usually to Red Lobster or my Dad's favorite Chinese restaurant, but not this year. My mother and sister decided to make this year "special" by doing the cooking and baking all themselves. It turned out great!

I'm not a big fan of Turkey, but my sister had the butcher section it out for more even baking and less dryness. I think she used a brine for it, too. My Mom made a really great Triple Chocolate Pumpkin Pie for dessert:

Apparently it is a Martha Stewart creation, but who knows if she didn't steal it from someone else. It was really good though.

I was thankful for so much this year, but most of it revolved around my family and friends. I really don't know what I would do without them.

It will be nice having a 4-day weekend. Today I basically lounged lazily around watching Its a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving with my 2 1/2 year-old nephew. I was watching him while the women were out Black Friday shopping in preparation for Christmas. Hopefully they didn't come across too many crazy people like last year.

My fourteen-year-old cousin just posted on facebook a picture of a 400+ lb black bear he just killed with a cross bow. I have mixed feelings about this; personally, I don't like hunting, unless its for subsistence (like what native people do) where they use all parts of the animal, but that's not what my cousin does. My cousin and his step-father hunt because they see it as entertainment. They hunt on their own property in upper Minnesota and believe because it is their property that they don't have to abide by the seasonal hunting rules. It is an impressive picture though..have to admit that.


Tomorrow I need to do some major studying for finals. The end of fall semester classes is December 12th which means I have a Physics, College Math, and an Intro to Architecture paper and exam to finish. Along with that, my final Arch Studio Project is taking up a lot of my time and I need to find time to meet my group to develop designs, make study models, and then create a life size replica of it. The project is entitled Living Wall - it will be built outside on school property and should be cool when its completed. I'll definitely share a post and some pictures when we finish it.

Lastly, tomorrow night I've got a date. That sounds so freaking corny. He's a guy I met on campus - super nice and funny. We started talking in computer lab a couple weeks ago and hit it off. It's been a while since I went out with anyone, so I'm a little anxious (mostly excited) about it. He asked me out so my sister says he should pay, but I'm probably going to offer to pay for myself. It's not like we're dating and besides, it won't make me feel like I owe him something in return. I'll write more about him in another post.