Much to be thankful for!

Whoa, I only made one post this month so far, so I gotta squeeze in a second. I've gotten really lethargic when posting, usually only posting after Ruth and about the exact same thing =(

Thanksgiving was *such* a nice break from work.. Ruth came into town and my brother drove up from San Diego. Turkey Day was pretty fun, as we spent it with a couple of uncles in the area and brought some pumpkin cheesecake and these chocolate butterscotch chip cookies (a recipe I stole from some HS friends). Those are like the only two things I know how to bake... except some other raspberry chocolate cheesecake I made once. But I essentially have very limited talent. Below are some pics of the gathering:

All the big kids and the bigger of the little cousins:


Just the little kids making origami and apparently throwing it, too:


The rest of the gathering:


We spent the morning of Black Friday shopping at the mall and it was ridiculous. We got there at about 9am and had to park in a random place (my self-made parking spot) and wandered through the crowds for a few hours. Thankfully, Ruth ended up getting some items before we left... otherwise, it would have totally felt like a waste of time. Making purchases somehow validated the effort and time spent.

The other main activity of the weekend was tennis! I'm pretty mediocre at tennis as well, but it was fun to play and gave us a chance to run around a bit. It's pretty sad that tennis is like golf to me... every now and then I hit a good shot and have no idea how to do it again. I guess the only consolation is that there's some glimmer of talent buried in the depths of that mediocrity.

The other big news is that I had started looking for a place to buy in the last couple weeks and found a nice townhouse out in Sunnyvale and had an offer accepted last week! It's all been progressing really quickly, so I'm a little taken aback at how crazy things have been. I feel so much more grown up now that I'll have a mortgage and will somehow be responsible for property. I'm also faced with the realization that I'll have to move soon (ugh!) even though I really like my current living arrangement. I guess I'll just have to drop by periodically to play video games, hearts, and bum around at Lukoki. I took some pics of the place a while back and and posted it here, although I might just take down those pics at some point. In the meantime, Ruth found some nice pics of the place that are listed below that are nicer with wider angle shots... I'll be lucky if I can somehow pick up some furniture that makes the place look as nice as the staged furniture:







That's pretty much the update! Too bad Roothie had to go back to med school.. it was a fun week but went by way too quickly!!