For Thai, go to SomChai

The Thai restaurant Megumi and I tried out.

Megumi and I tried out a tiny, four table Thai restaurant for lunch today.  I'd never eaten Thai before and Megumi had only had it once.  Let's just say it was an adventure.  Although I specifically ordered the "least spicy" thing on the menu - fried rice - I had only gotten through half of it before Megumi made me stop.  Evidently I was quite flushed.  Megumi was able to finish a little bit more than I was of her meal, but we were both ready to find a Baskin Robbins to help cool our overheated mouths. 

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Happy 50th birthday, Mama!

Happy birthday, Mama!

Anyone who has the pleasure of seeing my Mama on November 25, please give her a big hug for me and wish her a very happy big five-oh!!!  Sorry we can't be there to celebrate with her in person, but Mama, we love you, we miss you, and if you were here...

---Arielle

Clogged Drain 0 - Brandon 1

Long story short we had a clogged bathtub drain and I decide to see if I could take care of it myself.  Thanks to the below website:

http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/2009/06/natural-homemade-drain-o-or-how-to-unclog-without-chemicals/

I was able to unclog the drain without running to the store for drain-o.  Below are the same instructions you will find on the website:

Drain De-Clogger Recipe:

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Kumo

Close-up of large, brown, furry, thick-legged, spider found indoors.

Today's Japanese word for today is "kumo," meaning spider.  ("Kumo" also means cloud, but for this posting, we're talking about spiders.)  While "kumo" is the generic word for spider, in this case we are referring to a large, brown and black, furry, thick-legged spider we found guarding our elevator a few nights ago.  Lovely surprise, I might add.  :)  This one wasn't as big as the black and yellow spider we saw hanging out at the Okinawa Zoo, but including the legs, it was the size of my palm.  I tried to get Brandon to hold his hand up next to it in the photo, but for some reason, he refused.

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Pumpkin cookies

Pumpkin-shaped sour cream cutout cookies.

My wonderful husband doesn't like pumpkin (I KNOW - I couldn't believe it either!), so I compromised.  I made pumpkin-shaped (thank you for the cookie cutter, Daddy!) Gramma's Sour Cream Cutout Cookies and tinted the frosting orange.  Happy early Thanksgiving, everyone!

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