Gobble Gobble Gobble, Thanksgiving 2016...

11.53kg was how big our turkey was this year. That's 25 pounds for us Americans. The turkey slowly defrosted in our fridge since Sunday. And he went into the oven Thursday morning. : )

Preparation is key. I write the menu down on paper every year (yes I'm old school: ) And what ingredient goes into each dish and just cross off each thing until I have everything at home. I also write down, turkey sandwich and every ingredient that goes into one. And write things like, bakery bread, lettuce, tomato, etc. So, I make sure I go and get the bakery bread and lettuce and tomato. That sort of thing the day of Thanksgiving, so the bread is freshly baked and whatnot. And fwiw, if I lived in the US, I'd just buy Wonder Bread or something because it's affordable and soft and delicious. But in Japan, cheap bread is as hard as styrofoam, or cardboard, so that's why I buy bakery bread because it's soft and like regular normal bread. It's not because I'm fancy shmancy because I'm not...it's just I need soft bread for a sandwich. : )

Lay's chips. There's 1 place near me that sells them and it's in the small city nearest my town. : ) So we made sure to get those a few days beforehand. And by the time the boys came home from school Thursday. Thanksgiving dinner was ready. Noboru always takes Thanksgiving off from work. And that's so nice. Thanksgiving is a holiday in our home. But it's not in Japan obviously... so it's a typical school day for the kids, so they do go to school on Thanksgiving day. Which is fine. : )

Everything hot and fresh. A huge delicious turkey. Our family always has zero problems eating the leftovers. : ) We had a Costco salad, which Noboru went and picked up Thanksgiving morning as well as the dinner rolls too, so they were made that morning, Noboru rocks, he always helps and that helped me because I was able to get the bird in the oven while he ran to Costco. Back to what's on the table...Olive Garden Italian salad dressing, croutons. Gravy, black olives, green beans, cranberries. Mashed potatoes and stuffing. It's very traditional and pretty simple. : ) And of course a turkey and pilgrim boy and girl in the background of this picture. : ) 

Hello mashed potatoes, stuffing and cranberries.

Black olives, green beans and you can see our dinner rolls are slightly toasted & warm and most definitely buttered. I love hot butter yeasty dinner rolls. Yum! : )

Family Thanksgiving photo 2016! My dad just said grace. And we just went around the table and said what each of us is thankful for this year, which is an American tradition for us. And so this picture was when we were just about to dig in and enjoy! : ) 

2 homemade from scratch pumpkin pies with a butter crust. So good! : ) And whipped cream on top of our pie for dessert!

Turkey sandwich. Provolone cheese, crisp lettuce, sliced tomato a little salt and pepper on the turkey and a spoon of Italian dressing on top of the turkey for extra flavor. And omg, is this an amazingly good sandwich! The boys took turkey sandwiches to school Friday for their packed school lunch. With sides of mashed potatoes gravy and stuffing and black olives and green beans. : ) 

Oh heavens...are you a beautiful sandwich. : ) We will more than likely be eating turkey until Sunday night for sure. Monday we will be done and be eating something different. With Thanksgiving and Christmas only like 30 short days apart, that's usually why Americans eat something different on Christmas. Like a homemade lasagna or a classic spiral honey ham or something. I think 2 turkeys, only 30 days apart would kind of make us... turkey-ed out by the time we finished a Christmas turkey. Hahaha. : ) So our family never has turkey for Christmas, since we have it at Thanksgiving.  We will be having a honey baked spiral ham for Christmas. : )

Anyway all of you! I sure hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving wherever you may be. And if you're not American... that is totally okay, I hope you had a lovely Thursday. And I hope you have a lovely weekend with your family too, all of you. : )

My dad caught his flight back this morning. His plane took off at 10:30am in Japan. So he's still in the air as I write this. We had the best time with my dad. We had some really good quality family time. Which is why my blog went quiet for a few days. I'm sorry about that, you guys. : ) But, I knew you all knew I was enjoying my time with my dad and my family.

I will be posting about my dad's trip. Very soon. Not today, but hopefully tomorrow or Monday for sure. : ) My dad and Noah did some math homework together. My dad and the kids and Noboru and I went to a festival on Wednesday and we had a blast there! My dad and Noboru ate ozoni. Branden had some kinako mochi. My dad then had some karaage. Noboru also had some inari sushi and some takikomi gohan. Noah had some caramel popcorn and some fries. We also bought some handmade plates and bowls and stuff from the school. I really love to buy handmade pottery from kids. They sell kid made pottery here every single year and every single year my dad buys some and I get some too. They also had another stand that sold professional pottery. And the prices were the same almost as the kids stuff. Like a professionally made bowl was for 500 yen. The kids one was 300 or 200 yen. So not too different in price. However, I don't need a perfect 100% perfection bowl. By a professional craftsman. My personality is so...in that I prefer the pottery made by kids. I prefer a picture on a plate by an innocent child who may have drawn both eyes, 1 bigger than the other, or given a person 5 fingers on one hand and 4 fingers on the other hand, by mistake and that I find...fantastic, I love art by kids. I like the innocence in the kids creations best! Those are my favorite. So, I did walk right by the professional pottery stand. I did glance at it and it is beautiful. And believe me...they had more customers than the kids stand. : ) But...I prefer the innocent/child like creations the kids come up with. And so, we get our stuff there. My dad also loves the stuff the kids draw and turn into pottery too. : ) So we're fans of the school who sells the kids artwork. It's very cool. And the money goes straight back to the school. Which is nice. I hope they get a pizza party out of it or something! : ) What else did we do, while my dad was here? We went to Starbucks. And my dad enjoyed a Gingerbread latte and I had a caramel machiatto and Noboru came to hang and discuss politics and chit chat about all sorts of stuff that morning. Noboru had an American coffee. And we all had something to eat. Noboru, had a donut. My dad has a raspberry chocolate slice of pie and I had a slice of NY cheesecake. We talked for a solid hour and could be more. We then left to browse Seria  (100 yen store, my dad loves this shop, I do too) and he shopped the regular mall too. The 3 of us had an awesome Friday. And we went out to lunch at our favorite Indian restaurant afterwards and sat there for again...a solid hour could be longer. : ) He talked to the kids a whole bunch during his visit/stay. My dad and I watched good TV shows together too. Little Women Dallas. American Housewife (we were cracking up over this show!) and we also watched a lot of murder mystery shows. Like the Forensic Files and Detective Kenda. And Grave Secrets (we both love murder mystery shows). Dad and I also went on a 2.4 mile walk. It was just an amazing time that my dad was here. : ) I took plenty of pics. And will make a post about his stay soon. Anyway...today is Saturday. Dinner will be leftovers, hahaha. : )  And that's about it.

Oh about the snow, did it snow? It snowed in Tokyo and Chiba New Town/Inzai Thursday as expected... but it did not snow in our town that day at all. However Thursday was freezing cold that day. However we were toasty warm in our house. Every time my dad went outside and then went inside the house. He kept saying...you're house must be superly insulated. Because it's so warm in here! Hahaha. : ) I said...yep, double the insulation. They packed our insulation in like crazy! Plus, central heating and the floor heating...means we melt in our house every winter (which we're lucky we're so toasty warm actually). And with solar panels, we have no bill. We're self sufficient. So that's the good part. : ) Anyway, please have an excellent Saturday. We're just going to be here at home today, we're not going anywhere. Just staying indoors. And staying warm.

PS...did any of you get any Black Friday deals? I did. I placed an order on Amazon.com (US site) that day! And I also placed an order on Amazon.com a week earlier too.

PPS, Have any of you in Japan tried those 500ml Coke bottles that the labels turn into bows? The kids have tried 2 each so far! Hahaha. : ) And what else. We have also tried the new Fanta pear flavor (La France)  Anyway, that's enough for now. Just wanted to get the Thanksgiving post up.  And touch bases with you all real quick. : )