The Zhao Family

 Early next morning we endeavored our annual pilgrimage to NYC starting at 7:00am. We've been having this tradition of going back to Brooklyn also every year, besides covid. 

Since Abbey and I dated back in 2001 and then attended the Brooklyn Dyker Heights Branch, we've known many Chinese members. We've only attended the branch for one year but we've driven back there every Friday morning after Thanksgiving and we'll stay in New York for the weekend and come back Sunday.

It's always exciting Diane and Kaiye to see our kids. They've seen them since they were infants to now. When we arrived this time, Kaiye was very happy they hopped out of the van and went straight shopping with him to buy groceries to make lunch for us. The kids were saying how everyone in stores know him when he walks in.

After a long drive, a delicious lunch, the kids went to napping while the adults catch up and chatted. 

The kids finally wake up later in the afternoon and the sun has gone down, but the day is still young. So we went to King's Plaza shopping. Afterwards, the kids researched and read about this one online influencer for the best pizza in NYC, and lead us to eat at "Best Pizza" in Brooklyn. The restaurant was a ‘hole in the wall’ with walls full of paper plates with people writing words. The pizza was decent but we all agree it wasn’t the ‘best’ pizza. It was a one time experience.

Then we proceeded to go to Brooklyn Bridge Park to see the night lights of the city across the river. It was cold and windy but the view was great of downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridge.

We would also stop by Brooklyn’s famous ‘Christmas’ neighborhood where the whole street were filled with Christmas decorations in front of the houses. These owners went all out decorating with lots of string lights, electric candles, snowflakes, wreathes, different size nutcrackers, angels, and Santas. It was pretty breathtaking. The kids had fun!

 Another wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. We started with FF cooking delicious egg omelet for everyone. Then Da went to play Turkeybowl with church friends. There were about 35 people, split into four teams, in which he played all the teams for about two hours.

When he came home, he grabbed a quick bite and out he goes! SS invited him to play tennis with his school friends for another two hours. Then Da invited SS school friends Colin and Eileen to come over for brunch and play board games.

All in the meanwhile Abbey was preparing and cooking Kaiye's famous turkey. Throughout the whole day, the kids played games while Da took a quick nap. 

Around 5:45, we left the house and headed over Nancy's house for Thanksgiving dinner. It was so great to see family and relatives. There was sooo much food made by Nancy's dad. The adults sat together on the table while the younger ones sat and ate in front of the TV. Then the adults were having great conversations and were quite loud while the younger kids played board games. It was a great night!