Living in Asia, fall in America is something we really miss SO much. Although it does start getting cooler around the end of October, there are no other real signs of fall (no leaves changing, no signs of Halloween or Thanksgiving or fall colors or candy, no fall smells or fall drinks, no pumpkin patches, etc, etc). So, anyway, I was talking to some of our other American friends and we decided that we really wanted to have a fall party here in Kathmandu! It was one of my good friend and teammates daughter's birthday this past weekend so she decided to throw her a "fall festival birthday party"! It was SO much fun. I wish we had done something like this every year that we have been here. My friend (Summer) and I each made 1/2 of the food. We ended up having over 40 people there. We cooked chili, cornbread, and she made a birthday cake for her daughter and I made the pumpkin cookies you see in the picture below (the candy corns came in a package we recently got!). We also made wassail and Summer made Carmel Apple Sundaes! Most of the food was made completely from scratch. It was my first time to soak and cook beans from scratch for the chili and the corn bread was from scratch and the cookies and icing were from scratch. The most amazing thing that was made from scratch though was the caramel for the apple sundaes. We can't buy caramel here so we found out from some friends that if you submerge a can of sweetened condensed milk in a pressure cooker for 30 minutes it makes caramel. It really worked and the caramel was DELICIOUS! All of the other people who came brought toppings and sides for the chili. Bo (Summer's husband) made some corn hole boxes so that we could have a corn hole tournament. I had never played corn hole before but it was really fun. It is a bean bag toss made into a big competition. I was a semi-finalist in the tournament and Ryan and our friend Tammy won the game! The weather was perfect and the food and fellowship were so much fun and so encouraging!
Keane and Gracie playing with Daddy and Sophie (the birthday girl) on the corn hole boxes before the tournament began.
Gracie loved playing with the chairs!
I thought it would be fun to dress up Keane and Gracie for a little bit at the party. I decided to dress them up as a little Tibetan man and woman. These are the traditional clothes that the people wear. they will also wear these outfits on the Tibetan New Year in February so it worked well to use them for this party too. Everyone thought they were so cute.
Gracie in her "chuba". I think she is so cute!!!
My sweet two!
Bo and Summer have a boxer named Lhasa. Keane and Gracie love playing with her and looking at her. They would walk around the corner to her cage and say, "dog", "dog".
Gracie with my friend Carol's daughter Emily.
With Emily
Keane playing with one of our great Tibetan friends named Lhakpa.
Getting ready to play an inning of corn hole.
"I am pretty much the best I know at corn hole...haha" (not really...Ryan is MUCH better than me!)
Me and Keane at the end of the day (Keane was getting SO sleepy)
Me and my sweet son! He has been doing this funny thing with his teeth when he smiles. He knows it is "funny" too and does it on purpose and laughs so much about it when you "ask" him about it. This was the best shot we could get...silly Keane!
The best family shot we could get. Everyone was a bit tired by this point and Keane was doing that crazy thing with his teeth again...
Me with Gracie, Summer with Izzy and Tammy...so blessed to have these ladies here!
A beautiful Nepal sunset on a semi-clear evening.
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