Happy Christmas from Coca Cola & Our Thanksgiving in Tokyo

I type this as I'm watching the "Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade" live on AFN Prime; it started at 11 pm. I wish we had digital cable and a DVR so I could record it for the girls. Our Thanksgiving is over and those in the United States are just getting yours started.

We drove up to the New Sanno today for our Thanksgiving meal. We met up with Julie and her family and the seven of us had a really good afternoon with lots of laughs. We had a couple attempts at a family picture and I thought I'd share them here. Julie thinks I should use the first one in our Christmas card....hmmm....yeah, probably not!

Just as I was turning left into the parking garage the guards at the hotel were putting cones out closing the entrance; they were full. Mind you this was my first time driving on the expressway for more than 10 minutes, never mind the fact that we were in Tokyo and not in Zushi on our way to the base. I asked where I could park and he said, "Down the road." Bob got nervous and tried telling me to turn onto a side street, but that was the last thing I wanted to do. I stayed on the main road and found a parking spot with a meter. Only problem is we couldn't figure it out. First of all we had no change since we used it all on the tolls on the expressway on the way up. So Bob walked a little bit to a convenience store to break a 1,000 yen bill. He put three 100 yen coins in the meter and we hoped for the best. There was something on there in red that looked like it said it only took 300 yen at a time. Not sure how long we had, but we winged it. The number in the picture says "115" and I took that as we were leaving. It kept getting higher starting from when he put the money in. I remember it was at "11" when we started walking towards the hotel.

Lunch was very good with a lot to choose from. From turkey and cranberry sauce to stuff shells, fish and fresh fruit, there was a plethora of food. It beats prepping, cooking and cleaning, that's for sure! If Bob hadn't just come back from sea we would have had Thanksgiving at home, but things have been hectic this week and we're still adjusting to having him home, so going out was the easiest and most logical thing for us.

Bob drove home so I was able to take some pictures and video...as you'll hear at the end of the first one he wasn't overly thrilled. The ticket for the toll is what you see to the left. The second includes another toll booth, us figuring out which exit we need and Keanna's solo of "The Star Spangled Banner." She sang it at least four or five more times but I spared you and cut it off during the second time.

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