We moved from Fremont, California to Chandler, Arizona in June of 2005. What a difference, from 70 degrees to temperatures in the high 100’s. At the same time winter was just fabulous. Since this was a new house for us, we decided to throw a house warming party for us, inviting all of our cousins, during Thanksgiving. We had a total of 32 guests at our house, and it was the greatest four-day weekend of the year.
During this housewarming “party”, we had an Indian priest who performed rituals, bringing in a good omen into our new home. These rituals started from nine or ten in the morning till seven at night. It is a long prosperous moment that requires all the family to be there. Then after these prayers, it’s mandatory to have homemade vegetarian food. We had buckets and buckets of food, and by the end of the night, they were all empty.

The next couple days were just fun filled days; we all got together and hung out, and caught up with each other. We had so many people at our house, that there never was a minute of boredom, every minute of every day was filled with laughter, screaming, and anyone can just feel the love coming out of our home. It felt as if we never moved, we were just in a new surrounding, but the people we love will always be with us. We even had some of our close family friends come and hang out with us those four days, and each and every day they were treated as if they were a part of the family. I also was able to get closer to my cousins that I haven’t talked to in a while, or have ever seen, it was a wonderful weekend.

The most exciting part of our trip, was that when we dropped off everyone at the airport, we had some new editors come and ask us what we had done for our Thanksgiving, and how we were able to manage having about 40 people at our house, answer was simple, we all worked together we got along, and it wasn’t so bad. Then when the newspaper was published, to come to think of it, the weekend was a house-warming, Thanksgiving, family reunion, and we haven’t had a better one since.