Happy New Year!

To celebrate a New Year (it is tomorrow already in Japan), we had sukiyaki for dinner tonight. Sukiyaki on New Year's Eve is Kayo's family's long tradition. This year I learned to half-freeze the beef before slicing paper thin, and the trick really worked. The meal was accompanied by warm sake (thanks to Kozue for the perfect sake set) and Joe's newly acquired bottle of "sho-chu." Good stuff!! "Kampai!"
Our New Year's Eve dinner tasted very much like at home....

Leg Lamp Cookies!!

Ever since Joe acquired his delux DVD set of our holiday season classic "A Christmas Story" with cookie cutters, he had this plan to make a bunch of leg lamp shaped cookies for his mom, who probably HATES the movie more than anyone in the world. (No one knows why.)
He carried out his rather evil plan.... Here, Joe innocently decorates some snowflake cookies.

Ta-daaa! Joe's leg lamp cookies, all frosted and decorated. If you know the movie, there're some turkeys.... ... and the "pink nightmare!"

Now, we can't wait to see Joe's mom's reaction when she sees her leg lamp shaped cookies.

Everyone! it's time to watch "A Christmas Story" again!!

Couldn't Wait....

While Joe got to assemble his new tool chest, which is temporarily a stand for the poinsettia, Kayo got a shiny 12" stainless steel frying pan for Christmas. Not much surprise for the both of us. Last night I was cooking sweet and sour pork for dinner and thought that brand-new pan would be perfect to cook in. When Joe came home from work, he was a bit disappointed that he didn't even get to put a bow on it. But I don't think he cared after tasting the sweet and sour pork. I used my mom's recipe. Yum....

Counting Down to Christmas

Snow definitely puts me into the Christmas mode. More so than the dates on the calendar. I'm finally getting around to print our greeting cards. This was actually my first time making any prints in my new studio. A snapshot of our Christmas tree with the ever growing pile of gifts... Joe's big family is the main cause.

I got Joe a much-needed tool chest this year. No surprise. We went to Sears to pick out and order a couple of weeks ago. Just today Joe got to bring it home.

Joe assembled it together in the dining room while I was cooking dinner tonight. It makes a nice stand for the poinsettia that we got for Joe's mom.

Snow Day!!

Our first snow day this year! It was our first real winter storm, too. Joe had to use his snowthrower for the first time. We have no more maintainance guys who would plow us out. It's our house. We gotta deal with it.
Here's a picture of our Subaru, buried in snow this morning. Joe snowblowing our driveway. He had to run to get more gas... that's how prepared we were for the snow! We learned.

This is no picture of a snowman! Joe just finished blowing snow, the first time today. He had to blow just as much, or more snow again this evening. Pretty crazy!!

We drove into town later on, still in the middle of blizzard, and checked out some awesome waves in Lake Superior. We weren't the only ones, but didn't see any surfers this time. Then we did a little Christmas shopping downtown and had dinner at Langiappe to celebrate our belated 5th. It was a pretty exciting snow day!

Joe's Buck

These photos will have to do for now. Like Joe says, a deer hanging in the garage doesn't make a good picture.... But I wanted to post a couple of photos of Joe's deer before it goes to get processed. Poor thing... with such pretty eyes, I know, I know.... Well, wait till you taste yummy venison sausage.

Kayo's Belated B-day Present

I finally decided what I wanted to spend my birthday money for. I had been eyeing on this lawyer's bookcase at an antique store for some time. No, it's not a real antique piece, but within my price range. I liked the design with the sliding glass covers. Perfect for Japan room.Ta-daa! It found a nice home in our Japan room.

And I put our tea cups and some souvenir from Japan in the bookcase.

Then Joe got in there with more toys and knic-knacs from Japan!