Here comes Turkey Day

(picture has nothing to do with post this is just me and the girls playing in the Japanese photo booth, the girls used the decorations tools, don't you love my crown!)

I just am so excited for Turkey Day. Tomorrow I start my cooking in the kitchen and don't plan on leaving for 48 hours (except a little break for dinner with some friends!) We are having dinner at our place. I am excited to be hosting it all on my own. For dinner we will have our good friends the Wilsons over along with the Porter family and a few single guys from the branch and Jebs work. Then afterwards I have invited several families over for a PIE PARTY! If you know me you know I love to make pies! I do miss all the family this time of year so I have to focus on what I am doing so I don't get to homesick. I think of Aunt Jannettes rolls and making pie with my mom and I miss it! I miss me and Janeal being tough playing football. :) I definitely miss family more at Thanksgiving then I do at Christmas, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday after all. SO Here is to Thanksgiving. If you have read my ramblings good for you, I just wanted to ramble I guess. For those who would care here is my yummy menu.





Turkey (stuffed with apple, onion, and garlic)


Stuffing (made by Allison she makes great homemade stuffing!)


Mashed Tators and gravy


Homemade rolls (aunt Janettes recipe)


some herb popovers


yams/sweet potatoes pecan bake


candied carrots


asparagus with Parmesan cheese

green onions w/cream cheese

deviled eggs

beets

lasagna

salad

jello w/ marshmallows

and the pies!

two chocolate

three pumpkin

two apple

two cherry

two cheesecake

one sweet potato

I think thats everything, of course I could be forgetting something I don't have my list in front of me. What do you think? Am I missing anything?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

What have you been up to?

I get that question a lot, what have you been up to? Well since I haven't put anything on my blog for a long time, I thought I'd update on few things we have been up to the last couple of months. (these pictures are not in chronological order so keep that in mind)



We went on our first full family bike ride! Jeb got me a new bike, Japanese style I love it, and put on a seat for Gena. I was so excited, Gena loved everything except the helmet. (please ignore my funny face in this pic and messy background)

We adopted a pet. When we kicked him out of Harleys shoe that had been left outside we felt the poor guy needed a new home. Here he is down in her shoe, Harley squeled when she found him.

Here he is in his bug box. He soon afterwards made his cacoon and we await him coming out in the spring!

We surrived our first soccer season. (yes I can't believe it either I became a soccer mom!) The girls loved soccer. They both had great coaches. Harleys was Bro. Salmon from our ward who we really like. Niyah was the Sissans and they were so kind.

We had a fun Halloween. This was the first year the girls didn't want to be some form of princess. It made me kind of sad. But they made great Ninjas and Genevieve was the cutest skeleton ever.

I finally finshed this project (it only took me five months) the little aprons turned out cute.

We went on a homeschooling field trip to the planetarium. It was really fun and I like the girls meeting up with the other homeschoolers. I am trying to get more involved with the group here. yes and my girls are the two in the front facing backwards.... *sigh*

All in all we have just went about our normal everyday lives.

The girls are still the best of friends, it makes me so happy. I often find this when I check on them at night.

Oh and here is a conversation I had with Niyah:

Niyah: mom I know how it works

Me: how what works?

Niyah: How you get a husband

Me: Oh how is that?

Niyah: well when you get to that older teenager age..... how old did you say it is mom?

Me: tell your almost done with college, in your twenties, not teenager

Niyah: well when your in college and you decide you want to get one you just go outside and ask them and find one that is ....

Funny, they have to be happy and make you laugh.....

Nice, they can't be mean......

They have to love you......

and they have to go to church so I can go to the temple.....

and then you get married and have babies.

Me: Well thats about right

so there you have it all those with eligible boys the standard has been set!

I have also been very busy because this little one has become much more mobile. As you can see. Ok maybe not, since I can't get the video to load. But she is very mobile and stairs are her newest favorite toy. Busy Busy

A day in the life of a baby model

A couple of weeks ago Genevieve had a modeling job. I thought I'd let Genevieve share what her modeling day was like...



Well after mom got me up at 6:00 AM it started with a crowded rush hour, 1 hour long train ride into Tokyo



My sisters were good sports and came along to keep me and mom company



Harley seems to fit in well with the Japanese



Once in Tokyo we take more trains to get to the right station...... Check out the video my mom took. Some of the other trains were more crowded then this but this one was pretty good.


We got to the station and waited for awhile for our agent...... mom was a little frustrated. But finally she came and we took a taxi to the studio which seemed to be a house made up for photo shoots.

Here is a picture of the studio, you can see what they call the story board of how they plan the pictures for the magazine.


So then they changed my clothes, took my picture, took off my clothes, let me play, put on new clothes, took my picture, took off my clothes, let me play, put on new clothes took my picture, took off my clothes, let me play,...... it just kept going like that

Here is me waiting for my next set of clothes



My mom thought this outfit was cute. I didn't really think it was any different then the others.



Then I must have fell asleep because next thing I knew we were on our way back to the station.

We always have to stop in the train station bathrooms a lot and mom always makes us go in the family ones so we can all stay together.


Check out the huge safety door, it kind of feels like getting locked in the vault. You have to push the big green and red button for the door to open or close. My sisters always fight over pushing them, when I'm old enough I think I will push the green one.


Then my mom let my sisters stop for a treat...... she said they had been really good and patient


Where's my ice cream? Wasn't I good? I was the one getting my picture taken, sheesh


All in all I found it exhausting work, I tried to tell Dad all about it but I was so tired I just fell asleep again, thats ok Dad fell asleep too.

The Perch house

Ok so I haven't shown you were we stayed the whole time. Its called the perch house and this is its link http://www.shimoda-beach-house.blogspot.com/

The lady who we rented it from gave us lots of warnings "it is not luxurious, the stairs to get to it are very very steep, more like a hike..." anyway she was very upfront. So I was not expecting much.

Here is my list on it (for anyone thinking of going there so they can decide)

PROS

*great location (very close to the beach)

*Great price (it was about 100 dollars a night versus everywhere else was 150 per person, ouch!)

*Friendly lady to rent from (she was really nice and so so trusting)

*They let you use their stuff (surf board, boogie board anything that's there)

Cons

*Ok I have to be honest the kitchen and bathroom could use a good scrub down! I know she hires a cleaning lady but she does not clean much in those areas. That would be my suggestion it needs a deep clean.

*its a bit cluttered, I think the homeowners must still stay there sometimes and so there is a lot of stuff..... just stuff, you know cluttered in corners and on shelves. It doesn't really give it a relaxing feel.

So my suggestions if you wanted to stay there I wish we had brought our own camping stove, I was glad I brought my own shampoo. Just think of it as camping in a trailer and you should be ok. :) Oh and yes it is a really really steep hike from the parking to the house so if your not a bit of a trooper, well probably not for you. We didn't mind that part, in fact I thought it added to its charm.

so here is the grand tour

The road to get to the house


The stairs to get up.... once again glad for my tough guy, carrying all our food, and gear up that, love you babe!


Harley quickly saw the chess set and wanted to play a game!


OH and the story wouldn't be complete without a picture of our bathroom buddy! oh yes Niyah found herself locked in the bathroom with this guy..... Poor girl she was whimpering and me the mean mom said , oh Niyah your ok its just a spider.... then I peeked my head in. Yes I probably would have been whimpering too.


Trust me the pics and video do not do this monster spider justice, it totally freaked me out. I do realize that being in a jungle ( like we were) bugs like this are just part of life. Still it took me awhile to sleep that night.

More beach.....

So after the aquarium we spent the rest of the day Friday at the beach. Can you blame us? Is is so pretty!

Jeb and Harley spent most of the time out riding the waves. We had a boogie board from the house we rented and it was really fun for them. They were so far out though that I didn't get any pics or videos. :(

The girls had fun playing in the sand.

This was when Genevieve was having fun. She didn't really like the waves but liked playing happily in the water.

Then a huge wave came and hit her right after we took that video and looked like this the rest of the time.... if you look at it close you can see she is covered in sand from getting knocked over by the wave!

Shimoda Aquarium

Here are the pics from the aquarium in Shimoda. It was kind of small but fun. They had fun little features that I liked. I had a hard time with some of the things. The penguins for instance they had lots of them but they were in little tiny spaces and I just hate to see animals penned up in such small spaces like that. It was the same for the seals. It kind of broke my heart. But there was a lot of cute things too.


The girls loved the dolphins. They had an option to swim with the dolphins for 5000 yen, we didn't do it but it looked fun.

These were little fish that eat the dead skin off you. Its a popular thing here in Japan that makes your skin soft. We have never had a chance to do it and they had a little place to try it with your hands. It was neat, but weird!!! The girls didn't really like it, I kind of did once I got over the weirdness of little mouths sucking you. Jeb said they felt like little buffers.

Japanese spider crab, eeew nasty huge! Can you imagine seeing that in the water. They are said to live up to 100 years maybe more. WOW.

All the penguins.

All in all it was fun!

Going around Shimoda

So Friday before we went to the beach we just went around the area looking at sites and going to the Shimoda Aquarium. It was a fun start to the day.

Hopefully you can click on this to read what it says.

The "Pirate Ship" as we called it.

Genevieve loved it can you tell?? :)

There were local ladies at the temple cleaning and taking care of flowers. They loved the girls and had fun playing with them.