HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

Well today is Thanksgiving Day. For any of you who don't know what that is, it's pretty much a day to realize how blessed you are in life, give thanks to God for all the blessings He gives you, and eat a TON!!! The exchange students and I are making Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. We actually found a turkey ('hindi' in Turkish) here. It's going to be a multi-cultural Thanksgiving though, becuase the Brazilian kids and Max (our lone Mexican) are making tradidional dishes from their countries.

I'm thankful, this year, for all the amazing people God has put in my life. My family and friends both in the US and in Turkey are such amazing people. I couldn't imagine life without some of these people. I'm also thankful that Rotary gave me this chance to be on exchange and come to Turkey. I couldn't ask for a better way to spend my year. God has indeed richly blessed my life.

I made dinner for my host family tonight

Before

 

After

 

Apple Pie. This probably turned out the best of everything I made. It was amazing!

Mashed potatos. These were pretty good too. My host dad couldn't stop eating them.

Chicken breasts with stuffing. The chicken turned out well, but the stuffing ended up crisping, and had the texture of crutons. Oh well.

Cooked carrots and onions.

My host mom bought me flowers to decorate with. She's really awesome!

My plate!

It turned out splendidly!! My host family jokes that I could be a chef. I like cooking that's for sure, but it's so much work! But it is really good. :P

I've been really busy lately. I guess that's a good thing. My weekends are almost never spent sitting at home. I'm always out doing things. Tove left us last Thursday. It stinks, but I'm glad she gets to see her family again (Tove was from South Africa and her exchange started last January). We all went to the airport to see her off. Bess and Lauren and I ended up getting really lost, so we had to call one of our Turkish friends and he directed us to the correct places to be.

I'm taking math!!! We're working on logarithems now, so it's probably Algebra II or Pre-Calculus. At least I get to take math. I'm actually going to a different classroom to have math lessons. Normally, I'm in 11-D all day, but for math I hop up the stairs to 11-C. I have 6 hours of math a week. It's perfect. My math teacher is hilarious, and he likes having me in the class. I'm really, really happy. True, it's in Turkish, but math is math. I'm learning all the Turkish ways of answering in math. I love, love, love it!! I even went and bought a notebook and everything.

Well I'm skyping my family tomorrow at 7am so I'm going to sleep to make sure I'm rested at that hour of the morning.

Again, Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Monica