Blacksburg Christmas run up

It snowed of the first time (well proper snow instead of flurries) last week. 

Snowy!

There were flowers here the other day

Abandoned bikes.

Towards the Drill field.

Oops.

Walk up to my office 

Unfortunately for most it snowed over Thanksgiving so some travel plans were in trouble. I stayed in Blacksburg and cooked lunch at mine with Steve (slightly non-traditional but hey, I'm English and I was cooking!). The American tradition of marshmallows (and brown sugar) on sweet potato mash is just nasty! And I found I am not a fan of pumpkin pie.

Our Thanksgiving dinner...                                 

Our table!

With accompanying wine (brought back form Australia this summer).

On the afternoon I went to Lara and James' house which was fun. Unfortunately I forgot to take many photos. And when I got home I was ill and spent a few hours being sick in the bathroom. So the rest of the evening was less than pleasant!

I did decided to put my Christmas tree up. I am looking forward to putting the one up at home with mom. It's our tradition and I really missed it last year. (I spent some time sorted out the documents I need to go home - I am so excited.)
Anyway my Christmas tree looks good.

My tree.

star

:-)

Dining room

Happy memories and Christmas 

This week, I went to my usual wine tasting, after a while away. It was great as we had the place to ourselves! It was just our crowd on one big table so the wine distributor pulled up a chair and it was really relaxed and fun!

My wine group, enjoying the wine and food.

And a handsome man helped me carry my bags to a friends car, which is extremely rare. So a very nice night!
I have my stash ready for the weekend party. Though I think I went a little over the top! Thankfully I have a lot of friends who will willingly sacrifice and help me deal with this "problem".

My OTT stash!

Thanksgiving

On Thursday night, Cissi and I went to Giti's house for Thanksgiving dinner. Giti is a VT faulty member and had involved a few others over, 2 other members of faculty, a Grad student, and a postdoc and his wife for a lovely dinner.
Her house is lovely and after meeting everyone and a glass of wine, Giti brought out the turkey. (The smell made me feel all Christmassy.)

On Thursday night, Cissi and I went to Giti's house for Thanksgiving dinner. Giti is a VT faulty member and had involved a few others over, 2 other members of faculty, a Grad student, and a postdoc and his wife for a lovely dinner.

Her house is lovely and after meeting everyone and a glass of wine, Giti brought out the turkey. (The smell made me feel all Christmassy.)

As well as the turkey, there was mash potato, some amazing stuffing, peas, beans, mushroom gravy and bed rolls. It was very tasty! We sat, eating and chatting about languages and history to one of the faculty members.

There was pumpkin pie for desert. Which I can't eat. But I could eat the ice cream. And there were some lovely chocolate coated strawberries, and my first taste of ice wine tea. Which is very nice though a little sweet. It was a lovely evening.

Thanksgiving sales actually started at 8pm in some stores on Thursday evening (partly because thanksgiving, which is the 4th thursday in November, is so late this year and people are desperate to get their xmas presents).

So Cissi and I decided to drop into Target. I needed to return a heater I had brought (and was smashed up when I got it home) so I returned it and then we went shopping. I got a sweater and a DVD in the sales but the rest of the stuff was just things I wanted like a christmas tree! The line to pay was amazingly long but it moved fast. (And I found a few things I needed grocery-wise on the way through the queue.) We did the rest of our shopping on Friday. Some fun stuff (we got a ton of DVDs each) and groceries. Which aren't as fun but are necessary. But I found a Terry's chocolate orange in Walmart! And I got the makings for a fresh gluten-free pizza which was very tasty!

I am going to put my tree up this weekend. It's a bit early but it will make the apartment nice and cheerful. I am very excited about putting my new tree up! And I have eggnog to drink while doing so, to stay in the USA mood. :-)