Blog: Entries Tagged With 'thanksgiving'

As in previous years, Priscilla and I went down to LA for Thanksgiving. We drove down Thanksgiving Day, leaving around 7:15 am and traffic wasn't too bad. We got to her parents' place and had a late lunch, then brought them to my parents' place where Aaron and his family were already there. Lauren's parents were also there, as they moved from China and have been living with Aaron and Lauren in their in-law unit.

Lauren's parents don't speak English, so I had trouble communicating with them. Her dad has his learner's permit and Aaron has been teaching him to drive. I guess he had a license in China, but driving here is a little different. Our niece has gotten better with math - she was playing with a cash register toy and likes counting money. Maybe she'll be an accountant one day.

My parents made a turkey and Aaron and Lauren made another. Priscilla's parents, per their own tradition, supplied a chicken and a duck from Sam Woo. So we had no shortage of meat. No dessert though, since people are now having blood sugar issues.

During our time in LA, we stayed two nights at Priscilla's parents' place and two nights at my parents' place. I helped her mom and my dad, respectively, with computer stuff. And we went to church at CCAC and ate at the Galleria food court afterwards with Gina, Weber and Crescentia. After that, Priscilla and I walked around Northridge Park and I got to remember some childhood memories from when my mom used to bring me and my brother there.

We drove back up Monday morning and only hit a few brief slowdowns on the road. Of course, my mom made a ton of food for us to take with us, and she also bought me sodium-free peanuts from Trader Joe's since she knows I like those. She is too loving, on everyone. So much so that she was feeling slightly under the weather because she's always serving others instead of sleeping enough. I can't really criticize, because while I too don't sleep enough, I have a long way to go in the area of service to others.

It was a very typical trip in pretty much every way, but it was still meaningful. Even though we don't really do anything exciting, the time we spend with family and friends is precious.

This past Thanksgiving was pretty normal. Which, given how abnormal things have been since COVID, was a welcome change.

In both 2021 and 2020, we saw my parents and Priscilla's parents separately during our time in LA. I think the last time we all had Thanksgiving dinner together was in 2018 (though I apparently didn't blog about that - bad Anson).

We headed down around 7am on Thanksgiving Day and though there were a couple minor slowdowns along the way, traffic was pretty smooth overall. We rested a few hours at the condo before driving with Priscilla's parents over to my parents' place. We arrived a little late since we got stuck in a standstill due to an accident on the 118. Aaron's family was already there, and the kids look like they've grown a lot. Our niece wasn't shy this time and wanted to play with us right away. It's nice that she seems at ease with us now!

We had most of the traditional fixins for dinner. My dad and Aaron both made a turkey, and Priscilla's parents brought a chicken and a duck from Sam Woo BBQ. Unlike in some previous years, we didn't have dessert. Maybe my mom reminded my dad that people have blood sugar and gut issues.

We stayed a little long, but it was nice to see everyone interacting. Priscilla and I were pretty tired as we drove back to the condo with her parents that night. On both Friday and Saturday, we visited The Huntington, first with her mom and then with our old church friend Cindy. Adult tickets are normally $25 on weekdays and $29 on weekends, but I get free admission for myself and up to three guests with my Cultivist membership, which I have a 6-month free trial of due to getting the Capital One Venture X card. It's a decent card for travel, and Priscilla's already used it to book things for our trip to Japan which will be in February.

So back to The Huntington. It was really crowded on Friday (according to an employee there, Mother's Day and the day after Thanksgiving are the two busiest days), but there were far fewer people on Saturday. The gardens are immense and you can really spend a whole day walking around and taking it all in. The two nicest parts are the Chinese Garden and Japanese Garden. I really liked the water, bridges and buildings that create the atmosphere of a tiny village in the Chinese Garden. Between my two visits, I also saw some European art at one of the art galleries, and paid a short visit to the library. There wasn't much to see at the library, but they did have a Gutenberg Bible on display.

On Sunday, we went to CCAC and ran into Tim and his mom after the service. Tim gave us a tour of the new A/V room in the back of the upper level that he and his parents built out. It was really a sight to see - different stations for people to control camera feeds, audio, and the livestream, and a rack of servers that all the equipment is hooked up to. And most of the equipment was either donated or purchased at bargain prices.

After church, we had lunch at Galleria Market with Gina and Weber. It's always nice to catch up with old friends, even if we don't have the most exciting updates. Priscilla also caught up with Crescentia at Starbucks later that day while I was back at my parents' place catching up with work (bleh).

After a quick breakfast with my parents on Monday, it was time to head home. My mom of course packed us a lot of food to take back with us, including some amazing pot pie that my dad had made. The drive back was smooth pretty much all the way. So even with Thanksgiving travel being nearly back to pre-pandemic levels, Thanksgiving Day and the Monday after seem to be good days to make the drive.

And of course we had to get sick while traveling. That's pretty common for me, but this time both of us came down with a cold, with Priscilla showing minor symptoms about a day before me. The definitive symptoms started while we were driving back up, and we've been stuck at home with a minor cough and stuffiness ever since. And now it's supposed to be raining for the next three days straight, so no going outside for fresh air.

So the time in LA was nice. The days after, not so much!

For the Thanksgiving holiday, Priscilla and I went down to LA a week earlier this year. The hope was to avoid the crowds - both on the road as well as at Disneyland!

The last time I'd been to Disneyland was 17 years ago (I blogged about it in 2004, but I scarcely recall the experience). After Priscilla went to Disney World with friends a couple years ago, and because she's really into Marvel movies, she's been wanting me to go to Disneyland with her. So she decided that we should squeeze in a trip in between visiting family for Thanksgiving.

So we drove down to LA on Sunday and stayed two nights with my parents, then went to Anaheim and explored the Downtown Disney District on Tuesday, woke up bright and early and got lined up at California Adventure before rope drop on Wednesday, and woke up early and did the same thing at Disneyland on Thursday. The last two nights we stayed with Priscilla's parents. The time with parents was pretty low-key.

We thought that by visiting a week before Thanksgiving, when kids should still be in school, the lines at the theme parks should be tolerable. How naive! Unfortunately for us, both parks were still pretty busy (though apparently Thanksgiving week was worse). And there were still plenty of kids (why aren't you guys in school??). And to our detriment, Disney has apparently stopped doing FastPass. We waited on average maybe 20 minutes per ride, with the longest waits being around 40 minutes. We even got into Rise of the Resistance, which was only accessible via virtual queue at the time of our visit, but even having a place in the virtual queue still subjected us to a 40 minute wait once it was our turn to get into the physical line.

But we stayed 10 hours and 12 hours at Disneyland and California Adventure, respectively, and we were able to ride just about everything we wanted to, with the exception of Radiator Springs Racers at California Adventure. At California Adventure, I liked the Soarin' ride the most, and the "Turtle Talk with Crush" show was pretty entertaining for kids and adults alike. We did the Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission: BREAKOUT! ride early, and the harsh ups and downs of that ride gave me motion sickness that lingered the rest of the day. So apparently it's not just spinning rides that mess me up. The rest of the day, I had to take it slow and I sat out a couple times while Priscilla went on a ride for a second time. I guess I'll have to listen to Priscilla and take Dramamine the next time we go to a theme park. The joys of getting old.

At Disneyland, I most enjoyed Jungle Cruise (I for one enjoy dad jokes), Rise of the Resistance, and Splash Mountain. Splash Mountain was fun but we got moderately wet, which kinda sucked because we did it late in the day when it was starting to get cold. No wonder there was no line for it! And Rise of the Resistance was amazing - the most advanced and immersive ride I've been on. The first part involves walking through expansive detainment areas after your transport ship gets captured by the First Order, and then Resistance members break you out and you're whisked around in a self-driving car moving through the building, at a fast pace with things happening all around you, moving in all directions, not along a fixed track. I've never seen anything like it (not that I have a whole lot of experience in this area).

I'm glad we went to California Adventure and Disneyland, but it was tiring. Not to mention, expensive ($470 for the tickets). The crowdedness of the parks really detracted from the experience, and the axing of FastPass was a real bummer. Priscilla felt that Disneyland has lost some of its magic compared to when she visited as a youth. Watching some videos on YouTube, it looks like the rides at Disney World put Disneyland to shame. I'm slightly intrigued and I think I'd be willing to go, but not for a good while (don't get any ideas too soon, Priscilla).

As for the drive down, we left just shy of noon because we wanted to stream our church service first. By the time we left, there was an accident on the 152, but Google wasn't showing too much of a slowdown. What we didn't realize until we got there was that that part of the 152 was closed and drivers were forced to take a congested detour. We ended up detouring back to the 101 and, including some parts of the drive where we hit heavy traffic, the drive down took around 40 minutes longer than under ideal conditions. Lesson learned there - next time if there's an accident on the two-lane part of the 152, we'll skip the 152 and stay on the 101 for longer. For the return trip the following Sunday, we left earlier and didn't hit significant slowdowns.

Thanksgiving week was somewhat quiet and it was nice to finally have some downtime, especially since I picked up a cold while traveling (which tends to happen when we do a lot). My uncle and aunt forwent their usual Thanksgiving family get-together because of COVID, so Priscilla and I just stayed at home and had hot pot on Thanksgiving Day. It was nice to have the holiday to ourselves, but next year maybe we should go be with family on Thanksgiving again. My dad is very traditional and has to have his customary Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving Day, regardless of who else is there that day. My parents love to cook and see it as an act of love, so we should probably join them on that day and bring Priscilla's parents as well. It's a little harder since Priscilla's parents are further away now, but family matters.

Like this year as a whole, this Thanksgiving deviated far from the norm.

Coronavirus cases across many parts of the world are on an exponential rise, with the US topping the list at around 150-180k new cases on a daily basis now. 51 out of California's 58 counties are now back in the purple tier, and the state has a curfew from 10pm-5am, effective until December 21 but likely to be extended, during which non-essential work and gatherings are prohibited. And authorities have been asking the public to not get together with people outside their immediate household during Thanksgiving. The fear is that widespread travel will cause a surge in the infection rate.

Priscilla and I still wanted to see our families and deemed the risk acceptable since most of us have just been staying at home. We decided to see Priscilla's parents first since they're older and more at risk than mine. Since we always go down on Thanksgiving Day, this meant that we had Thanksgiving dinner with Priscilla's parents instead of the traditional dinner that my parents make. So instead of turkey, we had Peking duck! We got it and a couple other dishes from a nearby place called Tasty Duck (the food was ok).

On Friday, we found out that LA County was prohibiting gathering between people from separate households, effective the following Monday. No worries, we thought, since Monday was the day we were planning to return home. We stayed at Priscilla's parents' place for two nights and then the plan was to stay at my parents' place the next two nights. But on Saturday, we found out that effective 12:01am Monday, Santa Clara County is requiring that people traveling from 150+ miles away must quarantine for 14 days. This cutoff seems completely arbitrary and the 14-day quarantine seems too heavy-handed for Priscilla's and my situation, but we wanted to be above board for the sake of Priscilla's workplace since she needs to work from the office four days a week. So we decided that it would be best to leave Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately we had no time to see Aaron and his family, but it probably wouldn't have been a good idea anyway because one of his kids is sick with the cold.

We had enough time to eat three meals with my parents, and I was also able to fix my dad's old computer (turns out his motherboard and two sticks of RAM were bad). My mom of course made a ton of food for us to bring back with us.

In terms of driving, the drive down was surprisingly fast. We started heading down at 7:40am on Thursday, and except for a couple very minor slowdowns, traffic was relatively light the whole way - way better than in previous years. The drive back up on Sunday took 6 hours due to several slowdowns. Sunday is the busiest day after Thanksgiving to travel, so 6 hours is definitely better than it would've been in previous years. The drive up was very tiring, so we were just glad to get home.

This morning, my mom informed us that a patient with whom she interacted at her workplace has tested positive for the virus, making it the 4th infection identified there during the pandemic. My mom had gloves and a mask on when interacting with the patient, so she's probably fine, but she'll be testing in a few days. As it doesn't sound like Priscilla and I were directly exposed, Priscilla's workplace is fine with her going back to the office after getting a negative test (a general policy that was put in place for the holiday for any employees traveling out of the county), as long as my mom does not test positive. Fun times. This is the kind of thing that health experts were cautioning about, though the orders are probably aimed more at people who aren't exercising caution.

I don't think that life should stop because of the pandemic. Just about everything we individuals do carries some level of risk, yet we have learned to live our lives while unconsciously accepting calculated risk. With the pandemic, we should be able to see our family as long as people are acting responsibly and keeping others safe - and from everything I've seen, we definitely need a lot more of that. Lockdowns can only get us so far without personal responsibility.

As usual, Priscilla and I visited LA for the Thanksgiving holiday. But unlike the previous few times when we went down, this time we drove instead of flying. Not having the Southwest Companion Pass this year was part of that decision.

We departed the Bay Area on Thanksgiving Day at 6:30am, hoping to beat most of the traffic. However, we found out halfway down I-5 that the highway was closed at the Grapevine mountain pass due to snow. We were previously made aware that this might happen, but I possibly didn't check traffic conditions the morning of and thought that any snow would've thawed by the time we got down there, and furthermore, Google Maps wasn't reporting the closure. When we saw highway signs indicating the closure, we started looking for detours. I thought that taking SR-58 through Bakersfield was the next best option. Google Maps was reporting that route as closed, but I couldn't find any information from Caltrans online for that route, so I decided that we should chance it and head that way anyway. That turned out to be a mistake, since we shortly after did see a road sign warning of SR-58's closure.

So we headed back to I-5 and hopped on SR-166 going west, hoping to take SR-33 south to get across the mountains. Alas, SR-33 was closed due to snow as well. So we ended up taking SR-166 all the way to the 101, and then the 101 down the rest of the way, encountering traffic jams along the way in Santa Barbara. Altogether, a 5-hour drive turned into 9.5 hours. Had we stayed on the 101 the whole time, the drive would've been closer to 6 hours. Next time if it's raining up in the Bay Area and is expected to be cold around the Grapevine, then we'll play it safe and stay on the 101.

Our time down in LA was eventful as well. We had Thanksgiving dinner at my parents' house with them and Aaron and Lauren's family. Priscilla's parents didn't join us, since they didn't want us driving on the highway at night in the rain in order to go pick them up. So instead we saw them the next day, bringing them lots of leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner that my mom packed for us, and stayed at their condo for two nights. The first night at the condo, the ceiling above the kitchen started dripping water. We thought it might be due to the rain, but when the rain stopped, the dripping continued and then got worse. Priscilla's parents got the upstairs neighbors to agree to let us shut off the water (shared by both units) before everybody went to bed, and that stopped the dripping. Fortunately, the condo plumber/handyman was able to come the next day and found the issue to be a leaking fitting on the wall-mounted electric water heater for the upstairs unit. Replacing the fitting fixed the leak, and it looks like there shouldn't be much long-term damage to our unit.

On Sunday, Priscilla and I attended the second service at CCAC. Coincidentally, this was the last service ever at the Northridge location, as CCAC is moving to a new location in Granada Hills. Looks like that site used to be occupied by St. Stephen's Lutheran Church, and the buildings there are a good size. After the service, the pastors for the three congregations prayed, and we all took a church photo in the sanctuary, which was difficult because people were spilling out into the foyer. This was definitely a bittersweet moment for CCAC, but I'm excited to see how they will continue growing.

The rest of our time down in LA was more normal. It was good spending time with family and friends. And the drive back up on Monday took around 6 hours, with some extra time added due to a traffic jam on the 152 caused by a vehicle being on the side of the road. It was pouring rain at that time, of course.

December weather is fun.

Last week was the first Thanksgiving that Priscilla and I celebrated as a married couple. On Thanksgiving day, we went down to LA with a friend from church, Eunice, at 6am. There were a good amount of cars on the road, but traffic flowed smoothly, and we got there in 5 hours - our best record yet. That night, Priscilla's parents joined us at our parents' place for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

The next day, we did some Black Friday shopping! Priscilla's parents had been talking about getting an iPad, so we got them an iPad2 from Target, where it was being sold with a promotional $60 Target gift card. We also stopped by Fry's to get a 2.5" hard drive enclosure, since my laptop started having boot problems, and I hadn't been good at backing up my files.

On Friday afternoon, we joined Deborah in hanging out with Crescentia and her parents at their house. Crescentia had said she was too busy studying to hang out with us, so Priscilla's plan was to bring the hangout to her! Although it was supposed to be a potluck, Crescentia's mom cooked a lot and provided about 80% of the meal.

Saturday morning, Priscilla and I went hiking at Aliso Canyon Park in Porter Ranch, went to DSW and failed to find boots that fit her after an hour of searching, and picked up food from Hot Wok to take to Justin and Vicky's house for a potluck/hangout. Tim and Victor joined us and we ended up playing Star Trek Catan. Sally joined us a bit late, and she ate while we finished playing. I felt bad because she didn't get to play with us, and after the long game it was already too late to do anything else. But a few of us did just end up talking for half an hour before we went home.

Finally, on Sunday after church, a bunch of current and former CCAC people (all different people from the ones we'd hung out with previously) joined us for lunch at Small Island. We had a good dozen people, including the guy that Deborah's been seeing! We had a good time of catching up with people.

We ended up leaving LA around 3:30, and traffic on the 5 was stop and go! It was so bad that I ended up taking a detour through the mountainy highways 198 and 25. We ended up getting home around 11:30, and I'm sure it would've been even later had I not taken the detour! Lesson learned: Sunday afternoon is probably the worst time to drive back from a Thanksgiving holiday.

As customary, I spent my Thanksgiving in LA, where I was treated by my parents to an overabundance of good food. For Thanksgiving they made the usual- turkey, yams, mashed potatoes, ham, biscuits, etc. On all the other days they made a lot more- including turkey pot pie, crab, chicken stew and seafood soup. They also gave me a week's worth of food to take back to the Bay Area. My parents are awesome.

During the holiday weekend, Priscilla and I also celebrated our four year anniversary by hiking on the Escondido Canyon Trails (where there's a famed waterfall, which unfortunately wasn't much more than a trickle at that time of year), making shepherd's pie (more like Priscilla making it and me eating it), and having hot pot for dinner with her parents. The next day we worked on a jigsaw puzzle (we're really into those now for some reason) and watched "Batman: Under the Red Hood." The next day we visited Chi at HRock, her home church away from home, had tacos with a bunch of her friends, and visited her grandmother who recently got out of the ICU.

All in all, it was a fun, relaxing holiday weekend. Too short though.

This Thanksgiving holiday, I caught a ride down to LA with Minh and was down there for a few days. I had some good food with family, fun times catching up with CCAC people, and obligatorily spent a lot of time with the girlfriend.

It was also Priscilla's and my three year anniversary, and we celebrated by doing completely everyday things- making turkey tacos, cleaning her messy desk, and having dinner at a restaurant we went to before we started dating.

The next day we had lunch with her parents at a Peruvian place called Las Dunas (their pescado a la chorrillana was really good), went on a prayer hike around Pepperdine University, and had our second session of pre-engagement counseling (doesn't mean we're definitely getting engaged) with Tom and Amanda.

I'm glad we can have fun doing ordinary, practical things without the expectation that fun comes only from spending lots of money or doing exotic things, though there's a place for that too. As long as we keep surprising each other, I think we'll be alright.

I'm really blessed to have everything I do.

I drove down to LA for Thanksgiving with Uncle Tim and Aunt Helena. We left the Bay Area around 5am on Thanksgiving Day, so traffic wasn't too bad. They wanted to return the following Tuesday, so I didn't really have a choice. At least the holiday travelers had dissipated by then. Along the way I also saw the moon in a rad orange light.

On Friday, I joined a bunch of CCAC people at a park in Jerry Woo's residential community for a confusing game of flag football, followed by a BBQ and playing Set at his house. I did pretty well at Set, I think because one of my teachers made us play it back in elementary school.

On Saturday, Priscilla did her third Slave Day. It wasn't anything big- just miniature golfing, gyros, buying flowers and writing cards for our moms, cleaning her room, and making food. I'm glad that we can have fun doing even the small things with each other. I'll do my second Slave Day soon, but I did take her to Catalina for our 6-month anniversary and Carmel for our 1.5 year anniversary- that better count for something!

We had a great Thanksgiving yesterday. We had 14 guests over at our house! I don't know how my parents cooked so much! Well, the guests brought some food too, but man.. craziness.

I was adamently against seeing The Incredibles, since I don't like animated films very much. But Priscilla made a deal with me: she said that she'd go ice-skating (which she loathes with a passion) with me if I went to see The Incredible with her. Fair enough. Turns out The Incredibles was what everybody says it is- incredible. I loved it! I really did!

At Priscilla's house we watched the first 30 minutes of Memento. Then I had to go home, so she let me borrow the DVD. Then I watched the rest at home instead of studying. =( The movie was awesome but SO confusing. I'll have to watch it over. But not tonight, nooooo!! Ok Anson, stop looking at the DVD box.. open your book, you can do it.. that's it.... now STUDY!! You have ice-skating tomorrow!

I am thankful for..
1. Jesus Christ. He died on the cross that we might be saved if we believe in Him.
2. My family. Their unconditional love for me is shown all the time. They support me in everything I do.
3. My friends. I'd go crazy without companions who support me, talk to me, and simply are there for me always.

Happy Thanksgiving!