Brayden Hanging Christmas Ornaments

Christmas Time!

We've got our little Christmas tree up. This is the first year we've put up a tree since Brayden was born, so he had fun helping put the ornaments on the tree. He put several ornaments in the same spot, since it was an easy place for him to reach. It was cute, but later on I moved them around.



Putting the star on top




Brayden's decorating



Recent pregnant picture



So far it feels like Christmas in Japan. It is cold, and the malls and stores have Christmas music and Christmas decorations. Many people here also give gifts on Christmas and do Santa Clause. They don't know what the season is actually about though, so it will be fun to tell them about Christmas's meaning once we can speak better and have developed our relationships further. This friday, Mike's mom is coming to visit for 2 weeks! I am so glad she is coming to spend Christmas with us. I know we will have a great time. Brayden talks with her on Skype often, so he should remember who she is. Hope your enjoying the season as well!

Thanksgiving

We had a quite a feast on Thanksgiving! We invited some Japanese friends that we wanted to express thanks to for helping us and being our friends over this past year (almost!) that we've been here. This made for 20 adults and 8 kids at our dinner. We ordered a Turkey, Ham, and a few other items we needed to make all the food from a company called Foreign Buyers Club of Japan. Then us girls divided up the menu items and cooked our little buns off the day before and of in order to make it happen. The dinner went so smoothly, and I think our Japanese friends really enjoyed it. Andy, our teammate, gave a speech he had pre-written in Japanese to explain to them what Thanksgiving was and that we had invited them because we were thankful for them.

Here's our big Turkey!



Some of the food.



The people.



Here is Andy giving his speech.



We had so much desert! 2 apple pies, a pecan pie, chocolate cream pie, 2 pumpkin pies and fudge. None of our friends had tried any of these pies before, so they were taking pictures of all the food.




After we had eaten, one of the guys got out his guitar and started singing songs by the Beatles and Elton John. He didn't know all of the words, and neither did we, but it was still fun and entertaining. The kids enjoyed it too.




We are all so glad the day went so well and that somehow we got all the food cooked, served and eaten without any major catastrophes. (Cooking all that food in little ovens and then transporting it all an hour away to Rachel's took quite a lot of planning!) But it went so well and we truly are thankful for our new friends, each other, God's grace and so much more! Hope yours was great too.

November is already gone?!

I can't believe November is gone just like that. I think time has been flying by lately. It has been a month since I have posted anything, but November has been somewhat eventful. So I'm going to try and do a quick November catch-all without making this a huge long post! Ah, maybe someday I will get better at posting more regularly...we'll see about that. :) First, here are a few pictures of when we we went to the Okazaki Zoo one Saturday. The zoo is very small, and it only takes about 30 minutes to see all the animals, but because its small (and free!) it makes for a perfect and fun little outing. Especially for Brayden. He loves it.







And here are the Mickey Mouse pancakes he helped me make one morning. (He stirred the dry pancake mix and thought its was great).



Lately, he has loved helping me in the kitchen. Here we're making cookies.



Last week we went "Momiji Viewing." This is a custom many Japanese people do, in which they go to a pretty park and take in the beautiful fall leaves that have changed. ("Momiji" means "Maple leaf.") We drove to a special park that we heard was especially great for seeing these trees. It was so beautiful! We went at night, but they had all the trees lit up so they looked so pretty. It was like walking through a magical forest! It was a cool, crisp evening, so after we had walked around a bit we ate hot noodles at a little restaurant where we had a great view of the trees. It was so fun. Because it was dark, it was extremely hard to take pictures, so the few that I have do not do it justice. Next year, we'll try to go when there's still daylight to get some better pictures.





Now, I know that this November catch-all post would not be complete without writing about our Thanksgiving, but I realized its 12:40am, and I should really get to sleep. So, I will finish up November tomorrow with the delicious Thanksgiving dinner we had with our team and Japanese friends. I hope everyone/anyone out there who still reads this is enjoying the Christmas season!