The Cat and the Hat, for Dan-dan, Aaron, Camilla and Angelina

In the fine evening tradition, we had good fun reading stories to kids over Thanksgiving. Gabi made a short video, which I’ll likely post one of these days.

Why, here it is now!

24 pound turkey and Isabella

We had a great time at Thanksgiving. Thanks to everyone who came! Please come again soon. For the rest of the photos, please be sure to click through.

Gabi's Eggs Benedict

Ed and Dan at Thorton Winery

Alex at Thorton Winery fields

South Coast Winery

Calvin at Thanksgiving

Dan, Angelina, Hongli at Thanksgiving Dinner

Serving food, Thanksgiving 2009

Bonnie, Gabi, Buzz and Brook

Brook and Ed

Buzz and Bonnie with photos

Steussy Girls

Happy Crowd

Gabi serves Thanksgiving Dinner 2009

Thanksgiving Dinner was excellent! Thanks to everyone who came. On the serving cart, we had the following: (Top shelf) Hungarian cabbage in the blue bowl, turkey (one plate dark meat, one plate white meat), Gabi’s fruit stuffing from inside the bird, rolls and Gabi’s stuffing from outside the bird. (Middle shelf) Dan’s cornbread stuffing, Hungarian mayo salad, spiced squash (!!). (Bottom shelf) sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes.

Not shown are the homemade cranberry sauce, gravy, apple pie, Lintz cookies, coconut pastries, Charlotte cake (these two courtesy Anikó), beer/wine/gin courtesy of Chris and Dan and lots of other stuff as well.

It was a great time!

8:30am. This was the first check of our 24 pound bird – two and a half hours after it started cooking. Looks good, doesn’t it?

Alex and Veronica

Bonnie, Ed, Veronica and David

For those people coming, remember to check out the posts here: schedule, food, drinks/desserts and guest list. Thanks to Chris for promising to bring drinks to the gathering. Thanks to Anikó for all of the baking she’s doing. And to our neighbors Gilbert and Karen for providing extra tables and chairs to fit everyone.

Looking forward to seeing everyone!

Pappy Welcoming Guests

The guests will start arriving in a couple of days. Click below to see who is coming!

Hongli Chen and Daniel Thomas

Dan and Hongli have been friends for well over a decade now. They run a highly successful company handling Chinese translations, as well as import-export and manufacturing in China. Dan speaks fluent Mandarin. Hongli was his teacher when they met on his first trip to China. Dan also collects wine and plays a hot game of World of Warcraft (ask about his level 80 character).

Carina and Angelina

Dan and Hongli have two very cute kids, Carina (almost 2 now) and Angelina (4 and a half now).

Andrew and Anikó

Andrew and Anikó are a Hungarian couple living in Los Angeles. Andrew has been running a construction business for years in the region and owns property around Long Beach. Anikó is a professional headhunter. Their “Game Over” wedding this summer was a high point of the year, click here to see the pictures of the official wedding shirts and cake.

Alex Steussy-Williams

Alex is our cousin and a junior at Occidental College in Los Angeles. She’s had quite a geographically mixed education, including a gap year in San Antonio, a year studying in Indianapolis and a summer in Wisconsin working on an organic farm. Next year, she will be studying in Argentina.

Chris Steussy and Mini Cooper

My brother, Chris will be coming from San Diego. He is a high school teacher, teaching an incredibly advanced course in twentieth century history. He blogs about it here.

Norma and Solana

Chris’ wife, Norma, is an accomplished artist in San Diego, creating some amazing one-of-kind, shock-your-eyes-out furniture pieces. They’re really terrific, and she has a show in San Diego early next year. With her is the newest member of their family, Solana, who is just over one year old now.

Bella, the tree hugger

Bella is Chris’ and Norma’s eldest child, just turning ten soon (double digits!). In addition to being a serious soccer player, she’s also a fan of Harry Potter (is it four times now, or five?). When I start a conversation with her, I’m always surprised how insightful and mature she is.

Calvin Steussy, the athlete

Calvin Steussy is a jock; no doubt about it. I watched him play soccer over the summer and if you were playing on the other team, look out! This is one seriously aggressive soccer player. Also plays Sid Meier’s Civilization, one of my favorite games of all time.

Bonnie Steussy, Brook Steussy-Edfeldt, David Edfledt

Bonnie, David and Brook are our mystery guests. I don’t know them very well. Bonnie is a distant cousin (we share the same great-grandfather), but is one of the few Steussy’s in the world who share our last name. They are in town visiting their brother, Buzz Steussy, in Palm Springs and will stop by once or twice during our festivities. Bonnie runs a pre-school in the Seattle area, David works for Microsoft and Brook is teaching at a liberal synagogue pre-school in Berkeley. We’re very much looking forward to meeting them for the first time this week!

We, the Steussy family of Temecula—Ed, Gabi, Dan-dan, Camilla, Aaron and Veronica—are looking forward to hosting all of you next week! By the way, if I messed up your name, photo or information, let me know and I’ll correct it immediately.