WEDNESDAY
Thanksgiving is a traditional day when family & friends comes together to give thanks for the blessings and one another...and eat a LOT! We were lucky enough to experience our first Thanksgiving with the Fletchers, and friends. The pic above is three generations of Fletchers - Billi, Steel and Blake plus Anderson. Plus honorary guests Jonno and Stefan
Betty cooked up an amazing meal which included Turkey, Ham, Sweet Potato, Greens, Pineapple crumble, Dressing, Fruit Salad jelly, Rolls, Gravy, and my personal favourite - Sweet Potato with Marshmallows! I was surprised, it was really YUM!
Before dinner we all held hands and said a prayed of thanks for the blessings of the year and for family and friends - AMEN!
Stefan and I both ate two huge plate fulls of amazing food in the Fletcher’s beautiful house and answers lots of questions about Australia, while we asked lots about Arkansas!
Desert was a treat of Ice-cream cake, pumpkin pie and rum cake (no alcohol)!
Then we were treated to an awesome rendition of the Arkansas Razorbacks themesong with Betty leading the chorus and Anderson beating it out on his mini drum kit! Great!
We said bye to everyone and Steel and Blake took us round to Jamie Anderson’s to check out his Turkey he just fried, then drove us back to Little Rock!
Thanks Fletcher’s for welcoming us into your home and for an amazing first thanksgiving...and some awesome food!
THURSDAY
For our real Thanksgiving Day we were invited to Yate’s girlfriend’s family’s home. So Laura, Stefan and I picked Yates up at the outontherock.com house and headed over and met the family. We had some awesome food, football and family which is what we’ve come to understand thanksgiving is all about! Thanks Jessica and family, we had a great day!
We watched out little segment on the Channel 7 news and it was hilarious! The Aussie accents shined through very strong and there were some shots of Jamie and Yates and us surfing the Minnow Pond!! Our names were pronounced as Jonathan and Stephen too!
Later that night Yates, Jean, Josh and Caleb took us around to Efram and Kevin’s house where we hung out with some cool people such as Roberto (on Air Force exchange from Spain), Jack (rich, redneck, playboy and awesome C-Rapper (Country Rapper)), and many more! All in all, a great day!
FRIDAY
Today was a huge game in College Football - The number 5 rated Arkansas Razorbacks Vs the number 8 rated Louisiana State University Fighting Tigers. These tickets were the hottest ticket in town with scalpers asking over $300 for $35 tix! Kick off was at 1.30pm and when we arrived to tailgate at about 11am, we were greeted with an amazing sight! An ocean of camper-vans, trailers, SUVs, barbecues, beanbag boards, and red and white. We joined the ‘Redneck Tailgaters’ with Jamie and friends right in front of the stadium (once we found them), and got some awesome bbq, conversations and tips for the game. We didn’t have tickets, so we hung out and watched one of the many televisions set up in the parking lot. Then Yates got a call from Efram who had a much bigger TV over the other side of the stadium (A whole golf course full of vehicles and tailgaters). We found them and watched some football and played some beanbag-throwing-into-the-hole-on-a-board-at-the-other-side game. I’m sure that’s no the official name, but I never found it out and that kinda explains it! We played two games of Australia vs USA (Stefan and I vs 2 seppos), we won both - the second game was a nail biter!
Back to Jamie’s tailgate at half time where there were 3 tickets waiting for us from his friends who had decided to spend the second half outside, so we waltzed in and roamed the stadium looking for spare seats - no go. So we stood right on the boundary line and watched an awesome game unfold. We were obviously going for THE HOGS (Arkansas), and they were always just a few points behind. Then Heisman Trophy potential (apparently a big deal over here) Darren McFadden ran through everyone to score. Then LSU returned the kick right through the the end zone - BOO! Then Hogs scored one more, but couldn’t get the last score to win. Close game, great atmosphere, great fun!
We cooked turkey queisadillas for Laura, then took her to see the new Tenacious D movie as she was tired after a stressful 12 hours at the hospital. Funny movie - just what we all needed!
GO HOGS!
Jonathan and Stephen
