Thanksgiving West Side

For actual Turkey Day, we slept in and accepted an invite from the Wilson’s for an afternoon meal. We had a bountiful feast and good company, including many canines. Whilst AJ was at home all alone, there were four other dogs to beg for turkey, though they were placed outside for the dinner! The Wilson’s have been raising two new puppies in addition to their elder Rusty, who has absolutely no patience for the energetic pair. Instead of walking off the meal, we laughed it off watching some good stand up comedy with a ventriloquist. We mainly spent the day in good conversation and in good company, enhancing all that we are thankful for.

ACC Champions… Again

For the third time in five years, the Hokies are ACC Champs yet again, though they should have won in 2005…. After losing 13 players to the NFL, this team probably shouldn’t be repeating champs in a tough league, but we’ll take it! Off to the Orange Bowl yet again, though we will not be going. I have heard that we are bad luck for the team at Bowl games, but the real reason is the price. Plane costs from San Diego to Miami are astronomically high, considering how CHEAP gas is, and buying tickets from the Tech athletic office is ridiculously overpriced for the nose-bleed seats you get. So we’ll play a team much like Kansas last year who have nothing to lose and a lot to prove. I hope we actually prepare to play this time!

Hokies for the Freezing

Since we graduated in 2006, Angela and I have tried to make it to at least one Hokie football game a year. This year we discovered that plane tickets home were significantly cheaper the week before Thanksgiving, so we made it to the Duke-VT home game in mid-November. During our time in college we attended many cold games, perhaps none colder than either the 2002 or 2003 Pitt games. But after living in San Diego for a few months, we have become acclimated to very little weather variation from sunny, mid-70s week in and week out. While believing we were prepared for the cold, we weren’t. We arrived in Blacksburg the day before the game, as the current students began a mass exodus home for a week off at Thanksgiving. Walking through campus to visit Angela’s old office produced tears and chapped lips… the temperature was not above 30 and the sun was still out. That evening was one of the coldest I can remember, with briefs stops outside between bars downtown freezing us to the core. We realized that with a night game upon us, we were going to be miserably cold. Sure, we had multiple layers, hats, extra socks, and new long johns… we thought we had mother nature beat. Despite the layers, Angela claimed to have lost feeling in her limbs by game time! This was officially the second coldest temperature recorded at kickoff in the Frank Beamer era. But the point was seeing friends and family! We had a great tailgate with the Gougers, enjoying peppermint schnapps and hot cocoa, along with great barbeque. Entertainment was provided by the local bird of prey, and although not a turkey, it caught a squirrel and proceeded to consume the rodent on a low branch for all the Hokie faithful to see. We decided that the Tech grounds crew keeps the hawk around to help deal with the rat issue (I have personally seen many scurrying rodents emerge from nearby Vawter Hall). We made it to the stadium in time to catch the Marching Virginians run by, reminding us of good times, but also how wonderful it was to actually tailgate for a game! Our seats were way up the East Stands, near the top! We saw the end of another beautiful Blacksburg sunset, and found seats next to my Uncle. From here we witnessed the energy of Enter Sandman and Fireworks! This warmed us up… but then we proceeded to watch the offense turn the ball over on 5 of their 7 first half possessions. So we went numb watching the defense play lights out, but we did witness the first touchdown by a wide receiver all season! This team is young, but at least give great effort. After an UGLY 14-3 win, we saw a few friends in the band and headed to Macado’s to thaw out. It has been awhile since we have been so cold or up so late at night, but seeing friends was great! Another legendary game in Lane Stadium, though the fireworks and temperature were more memorable than the actual gridiron action.

Merry Christmas from the California Gouger's

Missing the Seasons

While it has been chilly for San Diego temperatures (we’ve been hitting the 50s!), I have definitely been missing the snow. Christmas is just five days away, and its difficult getting into the season when you look out your window and the palm trees are still green and the pool is still open. It’s hard not being on the East Coast, where your hair freezes when you step outside, and the winter breeze chills to the bone. While I always complained about it, I now miss it terribly! I miss putting on amazingly cute winter coasts and scarves, and enjoying hot cocoa and fireplace fires. (Though we have had two fires this week!) Thankfully, we were able to enjoy a nice freezing day in Blacksburg, which made it feel as though winter actually exists and Christmas is actually on its way! I miss snow...like woah!

Family, Football, and Food! Oh my!

James and I haven’t been home for a thanksgiving in three years (four if you include this one)! We spent our senior year Thanksgiving in New Orleans, our first year married with my grandparents in Texas, and last year, we spent apart, with James in Rhode Island and me in New Orleans. While we didn’t make it home for the real thanksgiving, we were able to visit a week early, and the Goedeckes threw an early Thanksgiving celebration for us! We hurried back from a cold weekend in Blacksburg to an amazing evening of family, food, fun, and football. AJ spent most of his time begging, and was particularly interested in where Grandma was sitting! Colin and Benjamin played with footballs (our adorable little future football players) while the grown-up boys watched football, and eventually played some football outside. This was the first time we had seen Tony out of the trip, and Jamie and Benjamin and Mr. and Mrs. Howland joined our Thanksgiving festivities. An important thing I learned: the Gougers don’t really like turkey! (You can imagine how appalled I was knowing that my family doesn’t like the most incredible bird ever!) Despite not liking it, Abigail cooked an amazing turkey, which I was very thankful for! There were also come cute turkey cookies that Colin and Ant Ant made in preparation of the festivities. I spent most of the evening with my adorable cousin Sam, who thinks I’m amazing (hence why I spend time with him) and he was thoughtful enough to tell James that we weren’t going to last because I was into him. Too cute! It was a great evening, full of bribing my nephew with cookies, and stuffing ourselves with desserts. It’s hard not being home for holidays, but it was great getting to celebrate with the family at least once this year!

Eating the most noble of birds

While many find having an animal as a mascot is an appropriate way to instill pride and school spirits on students and alumni, few would agree that human consumption of said mascot is hardly an acceptable behavior. These doubters have never been to Blacksburg, VA, where we regularly consume massive, genetically enhanced Turkey legs every weekend of the fall at football games in addition to the classic Thanksgiving Day meal. Thanksgiving week is usually when the Virginia Tech – University of Virginia football game is played, and media pundits and Wahoos often wonder how a cultured sect of Thomas Jefferson disciplines can lose to near cannibalistic inbreds who eat their own on Thanksgiving. To these nay-sayers, I counter that there are few mascots as delicious as our dear Turkey. In the wild, the turkey is a noble and intelligent creature, only receiving a poor reputation from non-hunters and Benjamin Franklin haters. Ol’ Ben Franklin understood that the turkey would be a fantastic national symbol. Unfortunately, the other founding fathers fell lock step in with other nationalist countries, and used the often displayed eagle (The Roman Empire, Nazi Germany, Mexico… the list goes on, though on a technicality we are using the “North American Bald Eagle”). But we did have a great Thanksgiving, with many friends and family on both coasts. We live a truly blessed life, and are thankful for all the people in our lives!

MIA San Diego Hokies

I know what you all are thinking…where are Angela and James and what are they doing? We hope to never go this long again between updates, but wanted to let you know that much like all of you, these last three weeks for us have been crazy. We spent an awesome, but quick week in Virginia, James decommissioned the Tarawa and had everything that goes with that, and I have started a new job and am working on finals in my last semester of classes for my Masters. We do care about you and will update this week! :) We promise!

In the meaning time…we are sending you our love from San Diego!