Thanksgiving and Christmas

We had a great Thanksgiving and Christmas! The season wasn't quite the same without our friends and family, but all in all we had a wonderful holiday season. Thanks again to everyone who took the time to send us various holiday items that helped make our celebrations so special. In addition, we are truly blessed every time we are able to talk with or receive an email from anyone back home.

Our non-turkey dinner turned out to be rather delicious. We weren't able to find all the necessary ingredients to make a complete traditional dinner, but we came pretty darn close. We had a chicken (thank you Costco), mashed potatoes, German potatoes, gravy, stuffing, and rolls. We also started with an appetizer of cheese, olives, and crackers and finished off the meal with pumpkin pie and yukimi daifuku (You might know yukimi daifuku as mochi. Mochi is actually just the rice that covers the ice cream.).


Christmas was just as memerable. For those of you who aren't aware, Joe was born on Christmas. We decided to celebrate his birthday a couple days before. Kellyn took Joe out to dinner then they returned to their house for birthday cake and presents. Christmas Eve was spent Christmas caroling (see next blog for more info). On Christmas day we made french toast for breakfast, read the Christmas story, opened our presents, went to the fish market to pick out our crab, then prepared dinner. Cooking and cleaning the crab was a new experience for both of us, but it went better than we thought. The crab was scrumptious as was the garlic mashed potatoes, salad, and chocolate pie (until the pie fell on the floor).

We had a wonderful holiday and we hope all of you did as well. You are in our thoughts and prayers. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Holidays in a Box

Last night we both got home after a rather long day at work and were looking forward to relaxing when we got our second knock on the door. The first knock was a plastic bag salesman. He came in the middle of cooking dinner... perfect timing. And about a hour after the first knock came the second. Initially, we thought Plastic Bag man was back for more. Thankfully, we were wrong. Since we were in the middle of dinner and we thought it was another salesman we dragged our feet in opening the door. When Joe finally did open the door what he saw was no salesman but our glorious mail carrier. He was just about to get back on his bike when Joe popped his head out. Thank you Lord for split seconds.

Turns out we had a rather hefty sized packed from our wonderful brother and sister-in-law, Chris and Kai. We had no idea what was inside so we tore into it with great excitement and curiosity. Like two children on Christmas day. The first item out of the box was a book. At that moment it became clear this box was indeed a care package. Kellyn could have stopped there; it was enough to know that the box was stuffed with little treasures, most of which can only be found in the States and it was stuffed full of love (cute line, huh?). Of coarse we didn't stop there. Within minuets the surrounding floor was covered with all kinds of treats. We won't name everything in the box, but here is a sample: pumpkin pie mix, taco seasoning, Christmas stockings, packages of thank you cards, salami, sharpie pens, books, DVD's, games, pictures and notes from them, and lots more.

We couldn't believe our eyes. All we could do was look at each other, laugh, and say "this is crazy." We truly feel blessed by their generous and thoughtful gift. THANK YOU CHRIS, KAI, OLIVIA, ANNA, AND MARY!!!

And thank you to everyone who has taken the time to send us a card, an email, or given us a call. It truly does mean so much us. Life is really good here and we aren't planning on rushing home anytime soon. However, we miss our friends and family as well as those "comfortable" things back home that we often take for granted.

The Hunchbacks of Hokkaido

At first, we thought it was kind of funny that our house was a little to small for our dinosaur sized legs but now we are a concerned for our health. No joke, we are afraid we might return to the States with hunchbacks. We realized most of what we do when we are home (besides sleeping) involves us hunched over. Our kitchen counter top, as you can see, requires no explanation.
Our living room table is the perfect height for a coffee table but not for a dinning table, computer table, movie screen, and an "all purpose" table. In addition, all the mirrors, sinks, and the fridge in the house require hunching. And finally, Kellyn gets the added bonus of sitting in chairs built for elementary school children the entire time she is at work.

Just so everyone is aware we are not complaining. We love it here. Our purpose in posting this blog is so that no one is frightened when we walk off the plane making Quasimodo look like Frankenstein compared to us.

Field Trips Equal Getting Kicked in the Crotch

Last Saturday Kellyn's place of work took a field trip with about 100 students to a Hokkiado fruit farm. Due to the large amount of kids and the small amount of teachers (100 kids, 8 teachers... and a couple bus drivers) Kellyn's boss, Mr. Ohtani, asked if Joe would be able to join the team. Since Joe doesn't work on Saturdays there was no way out for him.

We woke up at 5:30 on Saturday morning, hauled ourselves over to the office, drove another half an hour to meet our bus load of kids at their school. We were in charge of 20 students (Kellyn only knew about 6 of them from her classes). We eventually met up with the rest of the groups at a "fruit" park were we played "organized" games then had lunch. After a tour of the facility we headed off to the fruit farm where we were all allowed to pick apples off the tree and grapes off the vine. Although, we were quite exhausted by the time we reached the farm, picking the fruit was a unique experience. Since we have never had real/natural grapes straight from the vine this was the best part of the day. We never imagined that eating grapes would expose us to cultural difference as well. In Japan (and possibly other parts of the world) one doesn't eat the skin of the grape and all grapes have two or three seeds inside a very chewy and slimy nucleus. It took a while, but the grapes grew on us.

Now you might be wondering why going on this field trip equaled getting kicked in the crotch. Well, despite the adorable exterior of the children Kellyn works with lies a force of energy that manifests in the form of a punch or a kick. In addition, most of the arms of these children are in perfect position for punching a sensei dead on in the crotch. We haven't quite figured out why it is acceptable for a child to punch their teacher in the crotch, the stomach, the leg, or anywhere else for that matter, but it is. It is possible that these kids are an acception, but either way we knew a trip like this would not end without at least one child catching us off guard and making full frontal contact. Thankfully, not every student is this rambunctious. Some of them just want to hug you, some just want to play, and some just want to talk. Kellyn is getting use to this environment and has gotten pretty good at blocking the attacks. Unfortunately, there was one child in particular that seemed to have it our for Joe. This kid was a five year old wizard at the surprise attack. One time this child was blasting Joe from the back so Joe pulled him around the front thinking "If I have him in front, I will be able to better defend myself." Wrong. As the kid was being swung around he wound up his fist and let if fly. PUNCH to CROTCH.

Kellyn's now just waiting for the Holloween parties that are fastly approaching.

Izakayas and Explosions

This weekend was once again full of adventure.

Upon arriving to work last Friday Kellyn received an invitation to go out with her co-workers after work that night. Since Kellyn had no plans, since it is culturally important to accept and be a part of gatherings outside of work, and since she has no friends in Japan and is looking for friends under rocks and behind bushes she was in. Later that day during a break between classes her co-workers extended an invitation to Joe and the plans were made. This sort of a gathering meets at an Izakaya. Basically, a bar of sorts where friends or co-workers get together to eat and drink... a lot. They decided the best plan of action was to find a place that had a decently priced "all you can eat and drink." Apparently, many of these bars have a chunk of time in the evening where either food or drink or both are "all you can consume." They found a place in Susukino for 2,500 yen (about 25 dollars) per person and we decided to meet at 9:00 later that night. Joe had already been to a place like this during his training in Tokyo. He was not all that impressed. But, nonetheless we were excited about the chance to hang out with people who spoke English and were closer to our age. Once the whole group arrived they turned the night into a "welcome Kellyn and Adam to Give Us English Academy" shindig (Adam started working at Give Us about a month ago). The whole night was a lot of fun. There was lots of food, some new things, some interesting things, and some delicious things. Everyone was forced to give a speech, joke were told, and Kellyn really felt like she got to know her co-workers better. What a great way to start a job!

Now for the explosion: Sometime late Sunday morning Joe went to start up the shower. Now, starting up the shower is no easy process. It involves multiple steps, many tries, and some tears from time to time. Kellyn was in a different room but could hear Joe give the shower a second or third try. Then all of a sudden KABOOM!!! Kellyn rushed to the shower to find everything intact but a very worried look on Joe's face. We are not quite sure what happened but something inside the shower heater blew up. Since it was Sunday there was nothing we could do. On Monday Joe told the proper authorities from work and they came over to the house to take a look. Within seconds they told Joe to not touch it and they would call a professional to fix the shower. Please God, let them fix the shower today! Tomorrow is a Holiday so if they can't fix it today, we're looking at either going four days without a shower or shampooing our heads in the sink. Neither are positive options.

A Three Day Weekend

We just finished a three day weekend and boy was it fun. Although nothing drastically out of the ordinary, it was simply a great end to one week and a perfect beginning to another. We have found ourselves enjoying classic movies as of late so we took the extra time to knock out a few more. We watched Cleopatra, Psycho, and Lifeboat. All three were good, however Cleopatra was insanely long (Joe fell asleep for about an hour and a half in the middle). Joe loved Psycho and the conversation that followed the movie was worth the fright for Kellyn. Lifeboat was interesting but maybe not a movie we would run out and buy for our personal collection. The rest of the weekend was spent lounging around, sleeping in, going grocery shopping, experimenting with new foods, trying to make Kellyn's computer run better, exploring Nakajima Koen, and playing poker. The last two were the most fun.

Nakajima Koen (park) is quite near our house. In fact, when we get off the subway we are on the edge of the park. While we have walked through a small section of the park we have never fully explored it until this weekend. Within the park lies the Sapporo Concert Hall, a museum of literature, a place to rent rowboats, a Shinto shrine, a beautiful hotel, and of coarse the park itself. While walking through the park an older woman stopped us and had us take a huge handful of chestnuts from a bag. She spoke no English and either didn't care or ignored us when we said we didn't speak much Japanese. She kept talking and talking to us in Japanese and then wanted us to respond. All we could do was hold onto our chestnuts and laugh. Eventually, she gave up and we walked in the opposite direction. Thanks for the chestnust! Apparently, the park was built when the Olympics blew through Sapporo. We say, "Well done city of Sapporo. It's a beautiful park."



Now for the poker. Kellyn has never played poker before but we had a deck of cards and it was about time that we start playing with them. Joe had a basic knowledge of the game and brought up some directions for Kellyn to glace at if needed during the first few rounds. Well turns out Kellyn is a natural poker shark. The current score: 3 to 0. For our second game we decided to make it a little more interesting. We bought some of our favorite snacks and used them as our chips. Butter-Bread sticks were worth 1, white chocolate filled pretzles were worth 5, and milk chocolate covered almonds were worth 10. Kellyn won that game with a four Kings, but she shared her winnings with her teacher, husband, and greatest fan.

Our Home

This is a video of our house. The quality is pretty bad because we had to compress the file so it would load, but you get the basic idea. Our house is old but we love it.