it's not life that matters but the journey...

It must be Thanksgiving in America this week - Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who will be enjoying family and friends and food!  

Being in a foreign country during big family holidays always makes me somewhat nostalgic.  I mean, if I were in America this year, I would likely not be with family, and would not be doing the traditional Thanksgiving meal (like the year that Masahiko and I had lunch at IHOP with my friend Sarah on Thanksgiving and saw the movie "Elf").   Even last year, when I was with Mom and Dad, we went to a neighbor's house and ate with a lot of strangers.  The food was great, but I miss the old days (growing up in Lakewood, Colorado or Sacramento, California) when we got together with lots of family (or close friends), ate so much that we couldn't move, and spent the day in front of the TV.  I think my fondest memory (now don't laugh, I'm absolutely serious) is the year that my brother and I watched the "Mystery Science Theater" marathon on Comedy Central  - about 8 hours of silliness, including "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians"!!  It was so much fun!  I'm not much of a big Thanksgiving freak, but I do absolutely LOVE pumpkin pie!  Can't get it in Japan - though they do have a big fascination with pumpkin desserts of other kinds (and pumpkin soup, and pumpkin salad and pumpkin bread, etc....)  If I were to be eating Thanksgiving dinner this year, I would load up on sweet potatoes, stuffing and some white meat... and save most of my room for pie!!

Anyway, not much going on in our small world.  We went out for a little drive on Sunday to a Lava Cave - very interesting underground cave made from lava and ice.  And we hiked around in the forest there and enjoyed the calm and quiet of nature.  I thought we might drive to Mt. Fuji today but its already past midday and we might not have enough time.  that's what we get for drinking Japanese "shouchu" last night and sleeping late. 

Finally the ad is being delivered to the local newspaper delivery people - they will distribute it on Friday to about 2,000 homes around here so we can see what kind of reply we will get about our school.   Too bad that both of us are feeling a bit homesick for America at this point . . . but we will never know about the school unless we try.

OH, and as a last note, try this site for some fun activities and quizzes - you can post on your blog or just send as email to your friends: (thanks to iilii for the link):

http://www.blogthings.com/

 Try the Citizenship Quiz - I was surprised that I could actually pass it!!:

http://www.blogthings.com/couldyoupasstheuscitizenshiptestquiz/