My family and I drove up to Portland today and schmoozed with all the relatives. It seems like an annual ordeal now that I'm older. I like seeing my relatives, but I get so tired afterward too. The day passed by quite typically. We first dropped off our dog at my eldest aunt's, then drove over the care center to see my maternal grandparents.
Since my grandfather is unable to leave the home, we brought food out and fed him first, then we only brought my grandmother out with us to my aunt's younger sister's new restaurant to have lunch and I saw my two little cousins for the first time in a year. After lunch, we drove up back to my eldest aunt's place to pick up my aunt and our dog, and then we drove up to Vancouver to see the rest of my relatives on my paternal side.
My paternal grandmother fractured two of her ribs after falling down a few days ago so she moved quite gingerly around the house. We played mahjong with her for a few hours to pass the time until dinner today, but it's not like we were playing by any official rules so it was a mess the entire time. My grandmother's the type that refuses to learn anything new when it comes to mahjong 'cause she can't win at the official rules otherwise. I keep playing it as properly as I can, but it's kind of bad 'cause when no one is following any rules, you're only setting yourself up for failure, so naturally I kept losing lol.
After mahjong, the rest of my relatives came and I saw my niece... ... ... She's very energetic and much more well-behaved than a year ago, but still very rowdy and both my dog and I are reminded of why we're not fans of children. Still, she's my niece so family is family. I hope she loses some of that energy when she's older, that or control it better. She was like a kid on a sugar high lol.
Anyway, we had a buffet style dinner -- as usual per our big family gatherings -- and like every year, no turkey. I swear no one in my family likes turkey except for my immediate family. One year we had only seafood, another year we did hot pot, last year we had home-made pizza, and this year we had crossiant sandwiches + deli rolls among other things. I made a cream steam that somehow turned into potato soup =_= and I brought it out for my grandmother to try. Too bad I put too much pepper in it though 'cause she couldn't eat too much of it T__T. Oh well.
After dinner, we chatted and then we all started to leave. On the way back home, we passed by Woodburn and there were tons of cars in the parking lot already getting ready for Black Friday. It's kind of amazing what people would do for a morning of madness. I swear on our way to my relatives' place in Vancouver, there were already people camping out at a Best Buy and it was only 3PM Thanksgiving day. Sad. Oh well.
Don't think I'll be participating in Black Friday tomorrow. I already spent more money than I should and so... I need to put the limiters back on for my spending =_=
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