Hello A Maui Blog. It’s me, Liza, you blogger. I know… I had been slacking. No new excuse. It’s the usual “very busy” lame excuse. I know… I still am passionate about blogging. In fact, I started another blog at Posterous. It’s the easiest blogging platform there is. Will tell you more about it later. For now I would like to update you about my life, specifically about our Thanksgiving.

Note: If you are a regular reader of A Maui Blog and looks forward more on posts about Maui, please feel free to skip reading this post. This post is more of a a personal update of this blogging Mama who lives on Maui. I will return with more Maui post soon, but for tonight I am going to talk story about me.

So where do I begin? Let’s start with Thanksgiving Eve. We had our annual Thanksgiving Eve Service at Hope Chapel and I attended. I shared in the congregation what I was thankful for. Each of the sharer was give only a minute so we had to think of just a few. I shared 3 things: 1) that this year I am thankful for my kids school and their teachers (past and present) 2) I am thankful for my husband and our marriage of 16 years 3) I am thankful for my work/job. I won’t attempt to share here everything that I shared that night, but that’s the gist of it.

Moving on to Thanksgiving Day … this morning my hubby woke up sick. He was sick! Talk about panic moments! We invited friends over to our house to celebrate Thanksgiving, and husband is so sick he couldn’t even get out of bed! You see, my husband is the “party organizer” in our family. I am support to be the “support crew”. he’s supposed to work the crowd while I get busy with the getting the food ready, etc. Well, we called all our invited guests – we told him that Hubby caught a bug and that he can’t get out of his room, but Liza and the kids will still continue on with the celebration and they are welcome to come if they are not afraid to “get contaminated”. All our invited friends said they will come. Nice! I was happy to hear that they are coming but at the same time I was gripped with panic. My husband is supposed to deep fry the Turkey and he can’t. My husband was supposed to pick up the ice for the cooler, and he can’t; my husband is supposed to bake the Apple Pie and he can’t – waaaahhhh!

To make the long story short, everything went fine. It’s so good to be among friends this season. Almost all our guest are couples and families who’s immediate families live far away. We all gathered together and became our “immediate family” on Maui to each other. It was grand. We had a great time. Scott and Kaib ended up deep frying the turkey; Chris grilled the Jalopeno Poppers and Shrimp Kabob; Whitney did the Watergate Salad (the one with cool whip, pistacio pudding, crushed pineapple goodness – so yum!) Garnett brought the yummy ham, Sarah brought the mashed potatoes (and other yummy dishes) and Sol brought the salad. Instead of trying to bake an apple pie, I just went to Safeway and brought 3 kinds of pies. We had lots of good food and lots of fun (while poor hubby stayed in bed the whole time) . I wish I had the time to take photos, but I didn’t, so photos of us or the food.

Since we had so much fun together, we told them that they are also invited for Christmas in our house. Hopefully we also would have the Nakagawas, the Keplers and the Williams with us on Christmas. It’ll be a blast!

Tomorrow, Black Friday, my plan is to run on the morning (gotta burn these calories!), then go shopping with Hapa Boy. Hapa Girl went to ur friends’ house for a sleep over. Hubby has to work (can’t call in sick because they might think it’s just an excuse).

It’s 10:25 PM. I think I need to sleep now. But before I do, want to ask you a question for “Aloha Friday“. If someone (family or close friend) asks you what gift would you want for Christmas this year, what would you say?