My lovely boyfriend gave me a computer, but I haven't set it up yet. I just read my sister's blog and it made me cry. And I realised that I haven't posted in a while. I missed my family this Thanksgiving. But my lovely boyfriend has a lovely family and they have their own Thanksgiving rituals, and I was lucky enough to participate in them this year.

Brian's family goes camping up in the mountains every Thanksgiving. By family, I mean about 50 relatives. By camping, I mean everyone has a trailer with a kitchen and shower. In my family, it's always been just the 5 of us, mainly because all of the relatives live so far away.

Brian and I stayed in a tent, we are very proud of our ability to "rough it". We recently became "luxury campers" with the addition of an aerobed to the check list, but to our credit, the aerobed had a slow leak that became increasingly faster over the course of the trip. So there were some creaking bones and bruised backs....

Everyone cooked something for the big feast on Thursday, we contributed my famous "beer corn", a lucky discovery from a high school camping mishap. All you need are some corn cobs, tin foil, a fire and some beer. You make a sort "boat" with the foil around the corn and then pour beer in and seal it up, throw it on the fire and let it cook! It comes out best if it burns a little, Brian figured out that it starts to make popping noises when it's ready. I didn't believe him at first, but sure enough, the beer corn pops when done!

Thanksgiving Foster style reminded me a little of a church dinner. There were so many fun and interesting dishes that I'd never tried or heard of! Everyone seems to have a signature dish, and it was all so good! There was a mashed potato casserole topped with corn flakes! And a divine Asian slaw topped with uncooked crushed ramen noodles! That was my favorite for sure, it somehow validated my habit of eating all the noodles before the water boils.

Sitting at the table, I looked around and felt very warm inside. Although I miss my family very badly, it was comforting to be able to share Brian's for a few days.