Thanksgiving has already come and gone. Crazy! We went to Greenville the weekend before to see family and friends. John and Kelly were great hosts and Kelly and I shopped our little hearts out. It was so great catching up with everyone. It's amazing how so much can change, but seeing loved ones makes you feel like nothing's changed. Got a chance to see MB's baby bump. So exciting! On monday I went by Camperdown. It was great. The kids have grown up so much, they're hardly recognizable! I got lots of, "so, how do you like Idado?" and "Where do you live now, Ohio?" But I felt very loved. When Arie picked me up, I told him, "I'm hugged out!" Monday night we had a Pre-Thanksgiving dinner with friends. Allison's parents were so sweet to allow us to gather at their house (the only place that would accommodate all of us!) It was such a blast. The food was amazing and the only thing better was being surrounded with such great friends.

Mary Beth, Allison, Shannon, Kelly, Bailey, Me and Nina

such goofballs!

Garrett, Jonathan, Jason, Arie, John, Donald and Joe

Wednesday we were back in Iowa City. We went from 70 degrees and sunny to 3 inches of snow! It was very pretty. I wish I had gotten a chance to take some pictures of the first snowfall. Maybe this weekend, it's supposed to snow again. Unfortunately, to Khairie, 3in. of snow + deck = a great place to pee. Not so great when you live on the 3rd floor. I don't think it leaked down. I really hope not!

We had a great Thanksgiving with my parents and Deja in Madison. We made our traditional Shrestha thanksgiving (chicken for mom, dad and Deja and salmon for us) along with all the sides. My mom surprised Arie with homemade baklava. 2 pans of it to be exact. We were eating it at all hours of the day. OMG! so good!

So, my dad found out that Circut City was selling $300 laptops the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday. And since Arie and I are constantly fighting for computer time, we thought it would be a good idea to score a new computer for 1/2 off. Even though this was something that we had never doen, we decided to go to bed early and wake up before the crack of dawn to try to get one. Next morning, my mom wakes us up (with a ridiculous amount of energy) at about 4:45. We finally get to the store at 6am. It was complete insanity. First of all, the parking lot was totally full and cars were parked on the grass. We went into the store and it was just swarms of people everywhere. As for my computer? Yeah, right! Apparently, they had given out vouchers for them to the people who were standing in line (outside the store) since 3 in the afternoon the day before! The computers were gone by 3 am. By the way, the low was 20 that night. We left, empty handed, before the sun had even rose as people all around us wheeled overflowing carts to their cars. The entire experience was really sad. It just showed me how completely vacant of meaning Christmas has become and how hyper-materialistic we've become. I'm going to try my hardest to keep that in mind this holiday season.