Happy Thanksgiving

From our frontier to yours, Happy Thanksgiving!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

P.S. we made a thanksgiving video, but Cannon started crying when the turkey was attacked with the knife, so we went with the card. Cannon kept crying, "but I really like chickens!" Tuck and Tara will be proud.  

Off alone

+

________________________

With Cole as our babysitter, we went solo to Tokyo for three days. We did much of nothing and it was the best trip I have had in awhile.  It was about time I met my best friend again.

p.s. this equation is totally transitive!

Wrap-Up

mi familia especial:

Imperial Palace/Ginza

Gonpachi

Kabuki Theatre where I lost hadyn and Erin

George Washington?

Celebrating Michael's successful exit from a Japanese toilet. he would love to tell you about this

New Sanno

miss this chaos

Mt. Fuji II Revised

So I guess Hadyn had a slightly different recollection of our events and had some pictures to back his story up. 

Coldest day ever didn't stop our group from showing off their legs on the highest mountain in Japan. The weather had said it would be overcast with slight winds.  Suited up in cardigans, shorts and trash bags as rain slickers we started up Fuji-san at 5:00am in quite surprisingly unpleasant weather.

 

We received plenty of smirks and gapes as we began our climb. We were so poorly outfitted that instead of receiving greetings by fellow excursionists up the mountain, we received the Japanese equivalent of crossing themselves as we passed. We finally got to a point where someone returning from the top spoke English and convinced us to back down with other Japanese nodding emphatically in the background. 

I finally understand how people die on Fuji. They are unprepared. We were so cold that we couldn't stop for more than a few seconds to catch our breath before starting to freeze. Unfortunately, pausing was key to making it all the way up and down this mountain. Having enough energy for the more grueling and icy down climb was essential, but we would not have been able to pause long enough at the top to rest before descending because it was literally freezing at the top. 

I had no doubt that everyone in our group could physically climb this mountain easily, but doing it safely was another question. I have been all the way to the top and back, but this second trip was far more difficult despite it being twice as short. I was literally blown off the rocks, into the air, twice. And I am not a small thing. Every step you were fighting the wind plus the ascent. Realizing our dilemma was worsening at each rising station we finally started back down after reaching over half way.  Had we been a little (a TON) more prepared for the weather this would have been doable, miserable but doable. As it was, our shorts and cardigans were soaked and we had no other intelligible choice but to wrap it up. At least we can say, we climbed Fuji!

Here is the greatest Fuji Ascent Video ever

FYI

Mt. Fuji II

Here is where all the pictures and videos of our death defying second ascent on Mt. Fuji would be if Hadyn had sent them to me. 

missing picture

missing picture

missing picture

Since I don't have them, I will describe our freezing adventure. I looked stunning in jaunty mountain climbing attire which fit my ultra fit body well. I had perfect makeup, hair and smile. I had a great time and didn't mind at all waiting for everyone to catch up to me the resting stations.

  I think the journey was hard on the others though. I practically had to carry Garrett up the mountain. he just kept sobbing about how cold it was. Lucky it was snowing so his tears and snot froze to his face and shut off his mouth. Michael seemed a bit reluctant to climb. Every few minutes he had to be pried from a large boulder and forced to continue up the mountain. Erin got left behind at the second potty station when her tush got stuck to a squatty potty. That thing is always causing problems. Hadyn kept wandering off the trail following exhaustion-induced hallucinations of beckoning Japanese women. This was kind of a pain because the fog was so thick we often had to follow his strong scent to locate him. We were lucky one time, though. We found both him and Michael in one shot. Hadyn was sweetly caressing Michael, who was stubbornly hanging onto another rock and was being mistaken for a Japanese maiden.

Mt Fuji makes or breaks you. I just wish that I had the pictures to more fully illustrate this epic tale.