In previous years, our tiny apartment limited the scope of any special event we wanted to hold. But now, with our new home and a lot more space, we were able to have our first large Thanksgiving Dinner, and welcomed friends and family in the area to join the party.

Japan has a labor-related national holiday around the same time, and this year, the holiday was on Friday, so we did our Thanksgiving a day late. Altogether, there were 14 of us, all crowded around short tables in the living room. The guests: Shizuko and Akira, who went to Maui the same time as we did last February, our friends Udo and Tomiko and their kids, Vera and Lukas, Tomomi's cousins Megumi and Kiyomi, Tomomi's aunt Katsuyo, and Megumi's husband, Hayato.

Tomomi cooked turkey, mashed potatoes, made a salad and baked apple pie and pumpkin pie, while the other guests all brought food and drink for all to share.

Once the kids were done with their food, they went upstairs to play, and when I went up to check on them, I found them sitting and watching Toy Story 2.



Everyone seemed to have a great time, and we look forward to doing this again in the future. We hope everyone back in the States had a great Thanksgiving too. Happy Thanksgiving!

Northern Nagano got a bit of early snowfall today. We woke this morning to find snow on the tops of all the moutains around us. Based on recent memory, this seems like an early snowfall for the area.

It may be a sign that this year's ski season will be a good one. Last winter was cold, but unusually dry, and there wasn't much snow on the slopes. We're hoping this year wil be an improvement.

Happy Birthday, Sara!

It was one year ago today that Sara was born, and we celebrated her first birthday tonight with lots of food, ice cream cake and presents.

Baa-chan and Uncle Kenichi came over for dinner, a big meal with food prepared by Tomomi and her mother, and Anri and Sara had a great time playing with Uncle Kenichi. After dinner and the opening of presents -- all clothes for Sara, and one little pop-up book -- we finally brought out the Baskin-Robbins ice cream cake and sang Happy Birthday.

Sara couldn't quite blow out the lone candle on her own, but with a little help from her big sister Anri, it was out in no time.

Anri gave Sara a present too. Anri drew a picture of Sara, with very long hair and wrote Sara's name on it in English. Below Sara's name, Anri wrote "age 1" in Japanese. There's more writing on the top right side, but nobody is reall sure what that is!

Here is the drawing. To enlarge it, just click on the image.

Kindergartens and other preschools in Japan always hold an annual festival, often coinciding with the national holiday, Culture Day, November 3. Anri's Kindergarten, Enpuku, always has their festival on Culture Day itself, and Anri participated in it for the first



The day began with the kids from all classes carrying their own homemade portable shrines, called omikoshi around the block. The portable shrine, while centered around Shintoism, is carried by the kids more to mimic the tradition of carrying shrines at festivals, rather than to perform a religious ritual. And the kids' own shrines are all based on things appealing to kindergarteners. Anri's class, the "Dandelion" class, had their shrine based on some kind of crayon cartoon character.

After the carrying of the shrines, the kids arrive back at the kindergarten and operate vendor stalls, selling toys, homemade crafts, and especially food to all the parents and other guests. Anri's stall was popular enough to sell out of toys very quickly.

The festival is most popular with visiting adults, as there is a room where one can buy hand-me-down clothes and other items at very cheap prices. Tomomi got a great little dress for Anri for around 50 cents. All the good stuff goes quickly there.

The festival ends with everyone having lunch in the yard. Anri was asleep in the car as soon as Tomomi pulled out of the parking lot.