Thanksgiving 2017...

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. As for us, it was extremely nice. I was thankful that it happened to be a day off in Japan this year, for the kids. So that means I didn't have to send the boys to school in the morning and swing around and do after school pick ups during Thanksgiving, like I usually do every year. So that was very nice that my kids were off school. That means we could truly just be here at the house and spend Thanksgiving as a family. The one slight bummer thing... was that Noboru had to work that day.... he left the house around 1pm. And didn't get home until a little after 10pm. But we knew that ahead of time that he had work. And that was okay. I took this picture Wednesday evening. I made the pie crusts form scratch Wednesday during the day. And when the boys got home from school on Wednesday. We 3 whipped up our 2 pumpkin pies together. Noah cracked the eggs and mixed the things for one pie and Branden did the same for the other pie. As they baked the pies..they made the entire house smell like pumpkin pie. The house smelled amazing. And when they cooled, I popped them in the fridge until Thursday nights dinner. 

The final last thing that was cooked on Thanksgiving day... was the cornbread. Hot buttered cornbread is just the best. 

You can see it was still daylight. A quiet little low-key Thanksgiving dinner, just Branden, Noah and me. We ate around 3:30pm-ish. We had homemade mashed potatoes and gravy. We had stuffing. Cranberry sauce. Black olives. A big salad. The turkey. A very close to 16 pounder this year. We bought a smaller turkey this year since it was just us this year. Hot sliced up buttered cornbread. Green beans. 

Gobble gobble...

One of our two pies. The other was in the fridge.

My Thanksgiving plate this year. Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, green beans, black olives and cranberry sauce and a slice of hot buttered cornbread. We did go around the table and said what each of us was thankful for this year. A tradition that we do every year. And we enjoyed good food. And afterwards the boys helped me clean up the kitchen. Thank goodness for paper plates and paper cups. ; ) Just made things tons easier. And thank goodness for dishwashers too. After dinner clean up. We all enjoyed some pumpkin pie. After 10 pm...when Noboru got home...he had a slice of pumpkin pie. I also sent him Thanksgiving pics via Line. And he enjoyed a turkey sandwich Friday afternoon with all the sides. : ) 

One of my turkey sandwiches. Everyone has their own way of making their leftover turkey sandwich. And this was how I made mine Friday afternoon. One slice with Miracle Whip. One slice of bakery bread with mustard for a bit of a bite. Crisp lettuce, salt and peppered tomato slices. And some good Italian provolone cheese. 

Some turkey breast, lightly salt and peppered. 

A little spoonful of Olive Garden's Italian dressing over the meat. 

A very small handful of Lay's chips.

Friday, I  made and then packed up Noah a nice big turkey sandwich in his lunch box for school. And for Branden, he took a nice big turkey sandwich. A slice of cornbread. And a slice of pumpkin pie, since kids in high school can take desserts. We will be having Thanksgiving dinner tonight/Saturday. I will make some more stuffing tonight. Another thing of gravy and I'll bake some more cornbread tonight too after the movies. Saturday/tonight will be our last night of Thanksgiving dinner. We may have a last final turkey sandwich on Sunday. But I think we'll be turkey'ed out by Sunday afternoon. I will be making something different for dinner Sunday night.

Anyway...anything new to add? Yep, today the kids and I are going to the movies. I went and bought the movie tickets yesterday already. We're going to see The new Justice League today at 12 noon. Noboru worked a night shift last night, so he's getting some much needed sleep today. My blog has been a little quiet...because I'm just enjoying my regular life. With my kids. With my husband. Just enjoying life. : ) Anyways...I better go jump in the shower right now. So we can get ready for the movies today. And we 4 will be going to see the new Star Wars in 2 weeks when it comes out. We're so excited for that. : ) Anyways, I better go jump in the shower, have a great weekend everyone. : )

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. : )

Throwback Thursday. Thanksgiving 2008...

Hi everyone! Today is Thursday, and a holiday for us in Japan! It's called Culture Day which is called "Bunka no Hi" in Japanese. The kids have no school today! So anyway, today's TBT takes us back to our family's Thanksgiving from 2008 here in Japan at our home. For Americans, as soon as Halloween is over. We start thinking and dreaming about and looking forward to Thanksgiving! A day we share with family and loved ones. A day we think about being thankful and having gratitude and being lucky and grateful for what we have. Just a very grounding holiday. A family holiday that we totally love!  Plus we get to eat lots of yummy delicious food too. A holiday that we are already thinking about and looking forward to! We can barely wait! Happily looking forward to with great great GREAT anticipation. : ) 

And homemade pumpkin pie for dessert as always. : ) I love November so much! : ) Gobble gobble, I can't wait! : )

We will be watching this one tonight. This movie is a straight up American classic, doesn't matter what age you are, it's such a great short movie. : )

Anything else to add? Tomorrow/Friday morning, Noboru and I have a date. A morning movie date to go and see the new movie, Bridget Jones's Baby. Starts at like 9:50am. Noah doesn't even get out of school tomorrow until 3:45pm and Bran gets out at 4pm. So, we will have a nice morning movie and more than likely some lunch together afterwards. I am so glad tomorrow is Friday. Anyway have a wonderful Thursday everyone. Today's plan? Just relax and rest since it's a holiday here. The house is pretty clean. I kicked it so hard...house cleaning-wise all this week. We are going to have a fun 1 pot meal on the dinner table tonight, we will be having curry nabe, the 4 of us. With lots of fresh veggies, sliced chicken breast, nabe meatballs, udon noodles and of course sides of rice.  We will watch this 30 minutes Thanksgiving DVD, to get us revved up for Thanksgiving. And then I will watch my regular Thursday TV shows. Little Women LA and tonight, the premiere of Little Women Dallas. And after that American Horror Story Roanoke. Alrighty, Happy Thursday everyone! : )

Gobble Gobble Gobble, Thanksgiving 2015!!!

Thanksgiving 2015! Probably my most favorite holiday of the whole year. I love Thanksgiving, because it's not about presents or this or that. It's just about family and being thankful. It's a very family orientated holiday. A day centered around family and good food and good times! Who wouldn't love and look forward to a holiday like that! Hahaha. : ) Noboru was home by 2:30pm that day. The boys were off from school, Noah at 3pm and Bran by 3:30pm. So we had dinner ready and were eating around 4pm. Time management is my strong point. And I like to eat usually every night, as soon as everyone comes home and Thanksgiving was no exception. Hello Pilgrim boy and girl and turkey decoration nearest the Pilgrim boy. : )

This side of the table we had hot buttered dinner rolls, gravy, mashed potatoes, a delicious fresh mixed salad, a huge 24 pound turkey (11 point something kg, for you non Americans : )

Stuffing, cranberries, black olives are a must at Thanksgiving. Just very traditional American foods seen on a Thanksgiving table. We also had the American traditional pumpkin pies. We had 2 of them that I, freshly baked from scratch, with flaky butter crust and the whole shebang.

Everyone getting served some turkey first and then we passed our plates around, since stuffing was near my dad, he would fill it up for you and since mashed potatoes were on my side, I'd fill you up. Just tell me when I put enough on your plate though. : ) Noah filled every one's salads. Etc, we all had something near our side of the table. 

Both of the boys had told me, they were thinking deeply...all day long... while at school what to mention/pick when it was their turn to announce to the rest of us...what they were thankful for this year. That is an American tradition. You have to go around the table and say...what you are thankful for. 

This year, Branden said he was thankful his big tests were taken on Wednesday, the day before. And now he could rest and enjoy December and relax a bit during Christmas break. I thought Mr. Dimples had a very good...reason to be thankful. We all listened and shook our heads in agreement and chimed in a bit about that. Next went Noboru. Followed by my dad and then Noah and it ended with me. I love this tradition and it's something both Branden and Noah look forward to every year. After that, we said grace. And started dinner! Time to eat! Feast and enjoy!

My Thanksgiving 2015 plate...and you will never guess what I did this year! I forgot to make green beans! I had them and everything! @_@ Hahaha. Didn't even realize it until later that night. Oh well...I am human...it happens to the best of us. On my plate was, turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing, black olives, cranberries, a fresh salad and a hot dinner roll (just throw the Costco dinner rolls into the toaster oven until warm and slightly golden on top and butter the tops!)

We ate and ate and talk and laughed. We are a pretty lively bunch!

Yep the placemat is right...that is the sound a turkey makes...gobble gobble gobble. : ) We all finished our supper with some homemade pumpkin pie with whip cream. The kids had theirs with a hot cocoa with a massive amount of whipped cream on top, us adults had ours with coffee. 

I will share 3 different pics of 3 different turkey sandwiches this year! Miracle Whip on 1 side and mustard on the other... for a bit of a bite. Lettuce, provolone and tomatoes with a sprinkling of salt and pepper.

Turkey with a light sprinkling of salt and pepper. Everything must have flavor on our sandwiches. 

First turkey sandwich 2015 with some Lay's potato chips.

Branden going for pumpkin pie slice #2 of night. He's about to OD on some "Cool HWhip!" If you watch Family Guy, I am sure you caught the Stewie reference and are laughing. If not...nevermind! And lol, it's not even Cool Whip it's a ginormous can of whipped cream from Costco! : )

Turkey sandwich from Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Mustard on one side and Miracle Whip on the other side. Same insides as the last pic, but this time, I double cheese-d this sandwich. 

Provolone on the bottom and swiss on top!  The boys also took amazeballs sandwiches to school on Friday too! And sides. 

Saturdays turkey sandwich! Our last dinner and eating of the turkey finished Monday. By that time we were totally... turkey-ed out, by then. But on Saturday, We were still going strong! This time...I was thinking about...that fantastic turkey sandwich we all had while in Hawaii this summer, from Safeway and they had little packets of something they called "sub sauce" or something like that. But it was basically just Italian dressing, if you ask me. But, for whatever reason I remembered that on Saturday and I said...omg! I have some fantastic Italian dressing in the fridge right now. Let's use that! And so, I made a regular sandwich. Then I grabbed a small bowl and poured about a tsp, of this dressing in the bowl and then I just spooned it over my meat! 

Oh dear lord! This dressing on top of my meat! And just a tad of this for flavor! This was so good, I swear angels were singing! That's how good this sandwich was! 

This is not an overly sour dressing it's very balanced and the cheese in here is what makes this... the bomb. Like the bottle says...Where Others Skimp We Splurge! It's totally the best dressing ever. 

And yes, I did double cheese that sandwich. provolone and swiss. OMG! This sandwich was so good, my 2 boys saw mine and went right into the kitchen and made their own exactly like mine, that Saturday. Needless to say Thanksgiving was a wonderful day spent with good food and family. And all the leftovers! The one fantastic thing about Thanksgiving is....we don't have to cook for the entire weekend after that! Hahaha. : )  Anyway, that was how we spent Thanksgiving 2015 this year!

What's up right now? Well, we did decide when we are going to the movies to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens. As you know it opens worldwide, December 18th. This is probably the most anticipated movie of the decade at least! Anyway...we will go and see this movie...not on opening day. We figure it will be insanely crowded. The boys last day of school is December 22nd. And so we will be going to the movies on December 22nd, Tuesday. The boys get out of school more then likely by 11am or 12 noon. But we'll wait for Noboru to get out from work and go to the movie in the evening. Our nearest movie theater will be showing this movie, so we will be going to our nearest movie theater. However though...you know they make the world's worst popcorn. And world's most expensive popcorn. So, I will be popping salt and butter popcorn here at home. We will also be sneaking in candy or chocolate to the movie as well. But we will buy a caramel popcorn for the boys and drinks for us all... at the movies. That way we're not totally avoiding the concession stand there. LOL. Wish they had better prices or at least decent regular popcorn, but oh well. So, the date is set. We'll probably go and get our tickets and seats soon. I'm glad we're purposely delaying seeing it by a few days. That way, it will hopefully be way less crowded. Plus we'll be seeing it in English, so hopefully that cuts down on the crowd too.

Christmas presents have been arriving in the mail. I have them all hidden in my closet in my bedroom. Until I get the chance to wrap them up. How exciting.

Today's plan? Dinner tonight will be ginger pork, veggies, salad and rice. And today's plan, we will be baking peanut butter cookies from scratch. This coming week it will be Christmas cookies, but for now...peanut butter cookies. Have a lovely weekend! : ) 

My Dad's visit to Japan, November 2015...

My dad was here with us in Japan last week for 3 short nights and 4 days. He was here from last Tuesday, November 24th and he left Japan, the evening on Friday, November 27th. He brought us a bakers dozen of freshly baked Winchell's donuts.

Strawberry filled, blueberry filled, chocolate coconut (2 of those) and 1 regular coconut crunch and 2 lemon filled donuts. They were delicious and we all enjoyed and had those, the next morning for breakfast! Wednesday November 25th! Thank you for bringing these delicious donuts dad, it was a nice surprise! : )

3 more packs of the seasonal flavor of Twix, the gingerbread ones! Yumm!

A large Cost u less size of garlic salt. He knows how often I use this, haha. : ) 

And 2 packs of Kraft mac and cheese. We didn't really need my dad to bring anything with him this time, because Noah and I were just recently there. But...it was awesome that he did. Always appreciated though... especially since we really don't have access to this type a thing with living in Japan. 

This past July, I went to Jack in the Box in Guam, to look for a Jack head, these are quite popular in states like California or Hawaii, people put them on their car antennas. However they were all gone in July. Noboru had asked me to bring him back 1 in July, to no avail. Anyway, I had long forgotten about these. And so did Noboru. However, my dad's memory is razor sharp! A memory like an elephant! And he came bearing 3 Jack heads. We were really surprised. Noboru was so happy. So a really nice surprise. : ) 

The first night my dad was here, I had made chicken cutlet/katsu. And veggie and rice and whatnot. And the 5 of us enjoyed that Tuesday evening for dinner. Wednesday morning would be a busy morning. I woke up at 5:30am and came downstairs and started in on making the boys lunch. Filling Noah's thermos. Going upstairs, washing my face and getting the kids up and ready. After the boys left to school. My dad and I waited until 9am and then we headed to Costco. They open at 10am. Not sure if you can read this or not, it's a tad far away. Anyway, it is Reese's Peanut Butter cups (yum) a big huge bag regular price is 2,058 yen (about $20 US, holy crap that's expensive) but because they will be expiring November 30th. They are marked down to 598 yen. Oh heck yes! I mean...if it were bread or milk or meat...yikes especially meat! I would not buy nearly expired products to save money. Because...I don't want to drink sour milk or rotten meat, you know what I mean? However...it's *just* chocolate! And that price...and that savings. The chances of ever getting a deal this good again? Few and far between. I bought only 1 bag. But, I saw quite a few Japanese ladies with 2 and 3 of these big bags of Reese's in their carts. And you can't blame them...that was one heck of a deal. And again..it's not like we're talking about milk or meat. I'm fine with it! Best purchase that day! : ) 

I am sure they are long long gone now. 

This is that Australian margarine, it was on sale. 428 yen for 1kg of margarine. That is seriously...a shockingly great deal! What worries me though is...I hope they don't discontinue this...

They first started selling this in huge quantities, and now all they sell is this small amount. I worry that maybe nobody else is buying this, but me.... and so Costco Japan will phase this out? Gee, I hope I am wrong. It is healthier than the average margarine. And the price is like...holy crap cheap! @_@ If they take this off the market at Costco Japan, I will be truly disappointed. But...I did buy 1 of these just in case. 

I forgot to take my usual cart pic. I'm sorry about that. Pictured is, margarine, 4 kinds of sliced cheese, whipped cream for the pumpkin pies and potatoes, I was very disappointed in these potatoes in the box...I usually buy the huge Costco bag of potatoes and love those. But, I switched and bought the other type they carry, the ones in the box and out of all the potatoes in this box...4-5 of my potatoes had huge dead bugs inside them. Where as the bag of Costco potatoes maybe has 1 bug in the whole bag, sometimes not even 1. I will never buy this box of fresh potatoes again...I almost forgot, I also purchased a huge salad from Costco and dinner rolls. Oh and tortillas. 

These were purchased at Cainz/Besia near Costco Inzai, last Wednesday. I am only sharing these pics because of the adorable characters on the bottles. The Natchan has Yokai Watch characters on them. And the Lemon tea ones... one was Nemo characters and the other was Monsters Inc. characters. Here is Dory and Sully on this side...

Nemo and Mike on the other side of the same bottle...

Yep and C is for Crush and B is for Boo. : ) Again same bottle, just different side... So cute right. : )  Bran and Noah enjoyed these last week. While doing their homework 2 days last week. 

Huge honkin' bag of Reese's for super cheap! Yes, please. : ) Fantastic deal honestly. 

This pic was taken Thanksgiving day. Last Thursday! We have 3 packs of fresh baked bread from the bakery (so fresh they didn't even twist close the tops of the bag yet, at purchase). In Japan, bread comes in very small amounts of slices... compared to the US. So, that's why we needed 3 packs from the bakery. And there is a place in the small city nearest me that carries Lay's. And so every Thanksgiving we buy 2 bags of them. 

Wednesday, immediately after coming back from Costco, my dad and I baked homemade pumpkin pies from scratch. We made the butter crust and we talked and we talked. He cracked the eggs, whisked the Libby's easy pumpkin pie filling with the eggs, I added the pumpkin pie spice and I added the evaporated milk and he kept on whisking! We talked and laughed and it was probably one of my best memories from this trip... this time with my dad being here. 

Wednesday evening, we family of 5 went to Saizeriya. It's just... super basic Italian, it's a chain restaurant in Japan. We all ate, we all had unlimited drinks, from the drink bar. Sodas, coffee, iced teas, you name it. We really enjoyed dinner Wednesday. We all went home, took turns showering and watching TV. My dad loves the ID channel, and so do I. So we watched Investigation TV. Murder mysteries, forensic type shows. Thursday we had dinner ready and rarin' to go! Noboru got home just before the kids were to get off school... so he went and picked up the boys. And when they got home we all sat down to Thanksgiving dinner. Dinner was amazing. And will be... it's all short and sweet post, coming up next. And then Friday. The kids were at school, with leftover turkey sandwiches and sides. And Noboru was at work. And my dad and I went to the small city nearest my town, last Friday. And he bought a few things he wanted to take back to Guam with him. Noboru was home by 2:30pm. And the kids were both out of school by 3:45pm. And my dad's flight was at 8:10pm. Last Friday. 

It's always best to get to the airport a little earlier then later. That way, you're not in a mad rush. All 5 of us hopped in my car and we headed to the airport. We were there by 4:45pm. And in this picture, is a very blurry picture of my dad. My cell phone camera doesn't usually take such bad pictures, I was touching the wrong button and then when I clicked the right button it came out all blurry. And so...it was... what it was. : ) He checked in and he flew back to Guam, in first class. Flight benefits are something we appreciate so much as a family. And it keeps us...with many visits back and forth. Just something we never take for granted. : ) Anyway that was my dad's trip in a nut shell. It was short and sweet and really nice. : )