Alive and kicking

This picture kind of sums it up: even though Andy's been quiet on the blog front, he's always there in the background, working hard and giving me hugs. He rocks my world. He's kicking toosh at his job in Liverpool rather than letting it kick his, and still has energy to be my best whinge-wine-and-West-Wing buddy ever. Thanks hus!

Thanksgiving Day comes to Manchester

Having spent the past 4 years experiencing a truly American annual Thanksgiving with my extended family in Boston, Andy and I decided to bring the tradition to Manchester on our first year back. We invited a bunch of our (mostly) northern friends and cooked and baked our hearts out!

It turned out to be such a fun day and with a hugely successful Thanksgiving spread despite the size of our tiny kitchen! We laid on turkey, homemade apple pecan stuffing, candied yams, mashed potato, sweet apple cabbage, veg and a selection of dessert which included brownies, a sinfully moorish chocolate pecan pie and Chris and Lucy's killer apple pie. We downloaded a bunch of NFL games and played them in the background and even strung up bunting made up of pilgrims, turkeys, US flag and Barack Obama for good measure! :)

We kicked things off by Andy reciting Abraham Lincoln's declaration of Thanksgiving as a national holiday and then ate til our jeans got too tight...a good day was had by all and we're fairly certain yesterday signaled a new tradition for us for years to come. Despite the dubious nature of the 'real' Thanksgiving story, the whole day did really make me reflect on how much we have to be thankful for; I'm overwhelmed at the blessings that are continually heaped on us - may there be many more years of thankfulness and feasting to come!

Family frolics

Last weekend we played host in our Manchester flat to Andy's dad, mum and brother and my brother and sister in-law. Wow! A busy but really fun weekend. Andy's dad is in a professional choir and we watched him sing (in Russian!) at the beautiful Bridgewater Hall on Saturday, after a day out exploring Manchester city centre (including a ride on the Manchester wheel - the view and Simon, Andy's bro, pictured above). Sunday we pottered around Liverpool and nosed around the Tate for a bit. Sunday night I stayed up til 2 am gabbing with my brother. The two of us are a deadly combination for all night talking!

The weekend made us realise what an incredible bonus it is to be near family again. Well, the same country at least! Though our pangs for New York are still very much with us, for me nothing can compare to being able to sit up with your brother putting the world to rights late into the night.

This weekend we're bringing some of America to Manchester by throwing our northern friends a Thanksgiving day! Watch this space to see how many people we can cram into our living room...