Thanksgiving and More

This past week of Thanksgiving has been great. For those of you who asked we did celebrate Thanksgiving, not that the people in Japan do, but living on base is just like living in a American City in many ways so of course everyone on base celebrated Thanksgiving.

So our Thanksgiving this year was fun I planned it with another lady from our branch (Allison Wilson) we reserved the church and then invited several families we ended up planning for 50 (22 adults 25 children) not quite that many came but it was close. So I of course had to sign up for the pies because I couldn't bear the thought of someone bringing store bought pies (Jeb said that I just like to show off my baking skills HA!) So the day before of course I started on my pies.......

I made the perfect crust. You know sometimes you just struggle with the crust, it gets to soft, or it breaks into pieces. Mine are tricky because I refuse to use shortening (AKA another word for Hydrogenated Oil BAD!) I won't use lard (just the name yuck) so I only use butter. Which is trickier. But I really figured it out this year (put it in the freezer for about 10-15 minutes before you use and put your water in the freezer too makes it handle great!) So here is my perfect crust before! It was just wonderful!

My cherry pie, really my first lattice work all by myself. I thought it was sooo Preeety

The cherry after, I brushed it with water and sugar and it gave it this yummy slightly crunchy top that was great!

My little helpers! They are great pie makers for the future!

and me.... not looking my hottest but Jeb insisted I share. He took the picture because he thought it was funny that my belly was covered in flour because its bigger then the rest and seemed to catch everything. HA HA HA.

My Apple pies, the girls helped with decor. It was very good and of course thanks to Jeb for pealing all the apples so they could be nice thick apple pies!

This was my new one this year Strawberry Rhubarb. It was good, but I think I have to cook the rhubarb for longer next time. It was a bit crunchy. But not to bad.

Of course my traditional favorite and what I replace birthday cake with every year. My pumpkin pie. I was disappointed there was no left over this year afterwards!!! I will probably just have to make another.

And here is all the pies together, 2 cheesecake, 2 chocolate, 2 pumpkin, 1 strawberry rhubarb, 1 cherry, 2 apple! Yes I'm bragging a bit. But I love making pies, I loved making them with my mom and love passing on the tradition.

Thanksgiving morning, I was up early to put in a Turkey, and warm up Jebs traditional Lasagna. Jeb went to play football with the Elders Quorum. When he came out he saw our neighbor out raking her huge amount of leaves. She works and her husband stays home, but she still usually does all the home work by herself. So Jeb rounded up the girls and they helped rake leaves before we had to go. I was as always thankful that I have a husband who always seems to find ways to show example of service.

Then off to the church we went to start setting out everything.

Here is Jeb carving the turkey (this is before everyone was there)

Here are the decorations, done by Kim Eves another lady in the branch. She did a great job. If you are wondering, this is the chapel, behind the curtains are the podium and such. We just had to take down all the folding chairs. to make it into a usable large area. Its a small church compared to the ones we are used to in the states but not bad for Japan.

This is at the end of the day. The kids had so much fun playing Indians all over the church. (I believe they were all Indian princesses and the boys were playing hunt the white man....... hmmmm) The girls are Faith??? Niyah, Amelia, Mia, and Harley.

All in all it was a great Thanksgiving and for me birthday. I have to share pictures of the next day snowboarding trip for Jeb but that will come later. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

catch up

sooo I am really behind in our pictures so here is our catch up

First awhile ago we had a fun school day making slime it did fun stuff such as changed color in sunlight, glowed in the dark. The kids thought is was great. I wondered what had become of my girly girls as they enthusiastically played with slimy slime.... Ah well its fun and they loved it.

Halloween this year. It lasted forever. We went to so many things for Halloween it seemed. Of course this was good since Niyah hadn't really decided what she wanted to be and able to wear several different costumes.

We were invited to the English schools Halloween party also. The girls had fun with their Japanese friends again.

Niyah's preschool group had a Halloween party. It was my week to have them at my house so it was fun and Harley was able to participate. She enjoys that she acts like my little mini teacher with the girls

and of course we had the real Halloween.....

Can you say TOO MUCH CANDY. Sugar sugar everywhere. Thankfully the Halloween fairy came :) For those of you who don't honor the tradition of the Halloween fairy that is really to bad. The Halloween fairy is closely related to the tooth fairy, if the child chooses to leave out a good portion of their candy (picking out their favorites to keep of course) the Halloween fairy then takes the candy and leaves in its place a great prize. (this year a new movie for each child) This year we let the girls choose to keep the candy or give it to the fairy. They chose the fairy (thankfully) Still with just picking out "favorites" they had plenty of candy to last a couple of weeks. The only rule is they must have a bigger pile for the fairy then for themselves. and noo the fairy didn't eat the candy so there :)

I still have more to catch up on. Oh well I'm tired more another time.

Showa Park

A few weeks ago we headed out to a nearby place called Showa Park. It is a beautiful huge park with all sorts of neat things to do and see. It had many flower gardens, a small waterpark area, lots of paths to walk along, big meadow to play in and fun things for the kids. To really understand how neat it is you can go to this website http://www.showakinenpark.go.jp/english/index.htm

the professional photos they have will do it a great deal more justice then ours.

We started the day with some little pedal boats. They girls loved it! It was really fun, very tiresome for us adults but great for the kids. (and yes you can see my pregnant belly in the picture, no comments please. Scrunching up in a little boat and pedaling is not the most attractive position for pictures)

Niyah loved driving

Harley loved chasing the ducks.

The flower gardens are beautiful also. It is something those who are into plants would just love, so many gardens to walk through.

We were very much the tourist and stopped with amazement to take pictures of the huge spiders! With some smiles and shaking of heads from the locals. I didn't care they were huge! The webs would stretch overhead across entire pathways. As we went along we also came to realize they were also hugely common. They were everywhere. I can think of times when we have shaken our heads at tourists because we saw them taking pictures of seemingly very everyday simple things. I laughed at them too. Still I just found the spiders neat. I didn't mind being the silly tourist.

As we went along our way there were lots of neat little things to see. We didn't even really get to see everything. Our main objective this trip was to see what we call the "Bounce Clouds" There was lots to see along the way that we didn't stop for.

We finally made it. Like everything else here it was a pretty long walk. We heard it long before we saw it. It was sooo crowded. We didn't realize the day we went was a Japanese holiday. Usually you go during the week because things won't be so crowded. We didn't know it was a holiday. So when we did see it we saw this huge crowd.

The pictures don't do it justice of course. But we didn't mind the crowds to much (this is Japan) and we had lots of fun. Jeb and the girls bounced them selves silly. I did try it. I even tried to upload the video of me, but it wouldn't work. Lets say it was fun, but bouncing across clouds with a baby on your bladder is a bit dangerous :) I got off before to much damage could be done. It was so fun to watch anyway. Jeb especially enjoyed launching the little girls off the clouds. Such a fun Dad.

Then it was getting dark fast so we started our walk back. We walked over this pyramid on our way out. Not sure what it was for but it was fun to look at.

We will definitely be going back again. To much to see and do. Of course anyone who would care to come visit us we will gladly take along. :)