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I'm Sophia! Follow me through all my adventures around the world. 

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First Thanksgiving overseas

First Thanksgiving overseas

Thanksgiving... my favorite holiday! I love Thanksgiving for the feasting, happy full bellies, but mostly the quality time you get to spend with your loved ones. Sadly, this is my first Thanksgiving without my second family (Tiffany's family) and without my first family (my parents, my grandma, and Bruce). I also unfortunately missed out on the onesie Thanksgiving Potluck with everyone as well :( (but was there in spirit and facetime for a couple of minutes!). But, instead I was able to spend this special Thanksgiving with my new friends. None of my coworkers have ever had a Thanksgiving before since they don't celebrate it here in Brunei, so I organized a small Thanksgiving potluck dinner at my house. Everyone agreed and we all had a very good time. I am very happy that I could share this time and holiday with them. This year, I cooked two roasted chickens (frozen turkeys at NAAFI, a British grocery store, ran out :( so had to go with the local chickens), baked mac and cheese, and green bean casserole. You have no idea how hard it was to find ingredients for American dishes at the grocery store! I seriously went grocery store hopping to probably about 6-7 grocery stores to find everything I needed just for these three simple dishes, but I made it! Everything came out great, I was really proud of what I made. Suresh made mashed potatoes and gravy from scratch as well as cream corn. Goh was my sous chef and helped clean, Ricky brought drinks and flat wear (since he is not a very good cook apparently), Chen brought butter prawns, and Dean made homemade ice cream with a peanut caramel chocolate sauce he also made from scratch (YUM!). All in all, it was a successful Thanksgiving dinner! We really had a good time pigging out, talking about work, as well as discussing future plans for the next couple of weekends (ATV in the jungle, weekend trip to Kuala Lumpur, and taking a trip to Miri). We also took awkward family photos hahaha per thanks to the timer and awkward positioning of the bar counter.

Everyday, I am so grateful for everything that God has put in my life. I never forget to be thankful for all the things I have, all the things I have done, and for all the things that I will be doing! It's amazing to feel at peace in your heart because you know that God has a plan for you. I struggled a lot with faith, stress, and other problems that shouldn't matter, but after all the great things in my life, there is no way I can deny that God had put these things in motion in my life. I really can't describe it anyway else. I am continually appreciative and grateful for everything! My life, my job, my health, the people I have, the things I have... I feel like it is time to give back. I've been thinking about what I should do to 'give back' but I still haven't really thought of a good way. For now, I will just continue being thankful and to just be the best person, companion, daughter, sister, and friend that I can be.

I am continually thankful for all the amazing people God has placed in my life, but this year I am so thankful for all my supportive friends and family, especially the ones who have been taking a little bit out of their time to connect with me through email, kakao, facetime, skype, FB, etc. I love you guys forever and miss you all! I MISS YOU BRUUUCEE!!!! (Sorry Hanhwa for the ugly picture.. but you have to admit, it's pretty funny... haha). I hope everyone has had an amazing holiday!

The Rig Life

Freaky children's rides

Freaky children's rides