Brianna at the Piano

In a household of six children, a mom who works part time and is going to school, a dad who travels internationally as often of most of you change socks, kids in sports and music, church stuff going on... things can get pretty hectic around here.

We all have our ways of sort of getting away from it all; with Brianna, it seems to be sitting down at the piano and playing to her heart's content (which can be for hours!). We'll comment, "Brianna is in her happy place." :-)

This weekend she sat down and recorded some of her favorite pieces. Some are her own works entirely; others are her adaptations of popular songs/hymns. I set a digital camera on a tripod near her, and she just went to town. Below are several of her pieces, embedded from YouTube.

This first piece (below, plus here on Facebook) is her own composition, and it's among her favorites. Brianna hasn't given a title to it; she just calls it her piece in F Sharp Minor.


This next piece (below, plus here on Facebook) is her own composition, as well. Again, no title, but it's in E Minor.


Yet another untitled composition (below, plus here on Facebook) of Brianna's (you really should start naming your pieces, Brianna!), but this one is in G Major.


Here (below, plus here on Facebook) Brianna is playing a medley she created, of "Abide With Me," "Canon in D," and "Heavenly Father Loves Me."


Below (plus here on Facebook), Brianna is playing a personal adaptation of "If You Could Hie To Kolob."


Below (plus here on Facebook), Brianna is playing a personal adaptation of "Praise To The Man."


And finally (below, plus here on Facebook), Brianna is playing a personal adaptation of "Oh How Lovely Was The Morning."


I hope you enjoyed the piano pieces Brianna recorded.

Steven's Surgery

Steven has been fighting an ongoing ear infection for about three billion years. Yesterday Michelle took him for an ear recheck with the doctor, and Steven still had fluid in his ears. We determined that Steven needed tubes put in his ears, and that his adenoids needed to come out. We really needed to do this by the end of the month, but the doctor didn't have any available appointments. So he agreed to do it on his lunch hour today. Isn't that awesome?!

Surgeries... man do I hate surgeries! But Steven was totally a trooper!!! Just look at the smile on his face in this first posted "before" shot before being wheeled off to surgery. The surgery was a big success, and he's doing really well now, just resting at home all afternoon and evening. His throat is a little sore, but otherwise it's like nothing ever happened today.

Steven is supposed to not do too much in the way of physical activity for the next five days or so, but that's gonna be a challenge! So we're just planning on a laid-back, no-plans Thanksgiving weekend. Steven insisted on turkey for Thanksgiving, in spite of the fact that I think it's fowl, so in addition to the nice humongous ham that I bought, we also bought a little bit of turkey. :-)

Because the surgery was done sort of last-minute, not many of you even knew it was happening beforehand, but for those of you who did and kept him in your thoughts and prayers, WE THANK YOU!!! That's a good segue to wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Oh... and below is an "after" picture. It took quite a while for Steven to come out of the general anesthesia (totally normal), so the after shot that I got here is while he's still quite groggy. But of course, just like before and after pics that I posted from Brianna's surgery last month, I had to post the same for Steven's surgery this month. Oh... and we really hope to have NO surgeries next month!!!

Kyoto

We had meetings with TOSE yesterday, down in Kyoto. TOSE is Japan's largest independent developer. After our meeting, they showed us their "Wall of Fame" which is a display of many of the 1,000+ games they have developed in the last 29 years. TOSE prefers remaining quiet; I didn't even know that TOSE had developed so many of these games, many of them top franchises.

Also very cool was the fact that their Wall of Fame is right next to their CEO's office, and not many people get to see this. We could also see their CEO sitting at his desk in the next room working, and his desk was covered with papers and work. Having always believed that a clean desk is the sign of a sick mind, I found great satisfaction in seeing this. :-)

But enough of that boring stuff. After we left TOSE, we had some time for me to take Elliott to some of my favorite spots in Kyoto. Kyoto is my favorite city in Japan, for all of its historical value. First we went to "Kikakuji," the Golden Pavilion. Whenever I'd been there previously, I'd been in the morning or early afternoon. Yesterday, though, we got there as the sun was close to setting, and for the first five minutes or so that we were there, the sun was hitting the Golden Pavilion directly (pic inset here); it was amazing!

Then, we went to Kiyomizu-dera. As the name implies, this is a temple where water is purified by the gods, so to speak. I think it's very pretty. Normally, it closes at 5pm, but for a limited time (November 13th through December 7th) it was open at night, with the structures and the maple trees (bearing full Fall colors) all lit up. It was absolutely breathtaking, and the posted pictures do not do it justice!!!

Also fun there was me making new friends. Elliott had gone off to by some tea (a very British thing to do!), he came back and found me talking to a half-a-dozen high-school-aged boys. We were sharing Japanese riddles and puns, and I felt bad that most of them were impossible to related to Elliott (or any other non-Japanese speaker). But there was one that translates; remind me to tell you of the bus driver riddle. It stumped me (they were happy to stump me after I stumped them several times).

I've posted a few pics here, but for more from this trip, check out all the pictures I've posted, either here on Facebook, or here on Flickr.

Me with Kinkakuji shining in the sun behind me, with some really cool reflections in the water.

One of the Kiyomizu-dera structures lit up.

With Kyoto city lights in the background, Kiyomizu-dera structures and trees lit up.

Notice the maple trees all lit up.

More Kiyomizu-dera structures lit up.

Mt. Fuji as seen from the shinkansen ride down to Kyoto yesterday morning.

Best. Steak. EVER!!!

I didn't think it would be possible to be so happy in food, two nights in a row. Safari one night, then Steak House Hama the next!!! Wow!!!

You've all heard of Kobe beef, right? There's one grade above that, even, Matsuzaka beef. That's what this restaurant serves. When Elliott suggested he wanted really good teppanyaki (the style of restaurant where the chef cooks your food at a big steel grill right at your table), I could think of no better place than this. So a group of us went there, and MAN is it ever yummy!!! Check out the pic of our chef frying up our steak right before our eyes. I never thought 150g of beef could be so satisfying!

I was at Hama with an associate about a year-and-a-half ago, and he described their steak pretty well: "It's the best-tasting steak I've ever had, with the consistency and texture of jello." Tender and tasty (the steak, not me, silly), I can't think of a better way to describe this pallet-pleasing perfection!!! :-)

Safari and Hama were 3 and 2 nights ago, respectively, but all we had time for last night was a very quick Mickey Dees meal at Kyoto station before boarding our Tokyo-bound shinkansen.

BEEF in Tokyo

I am a happy man. Tonight I went to my favorite restaurant in Tokyo, Safari. It's a yakiniku place, and it's just EXCELLENT!!! Great meat (more than a dozen cuts of beef), great proprieters (two very kind gentlemen, pictured here with me), good value (tonight's meal was less than $60/person - great for this type of restaurant in Tokyo), and a great location (off the beaten path, so very quiet and peaceful). Even their house salad is to die for.

I take guests to this restaurant almost every time I'm in Tokyo. I usually order the same thing (a wide assortment of nearly every cut of beef they have), and I usually just say, "I'll have the John Special" - the proprietors know it well; one of these days I expect to see it on their menu :-). I go there so frequently that when I walk through door, I say in Japanese the equivalent of "I'm home!!!" Even though I say that every time I go there, they're still nice enough to laugh at my corny style. :-)

Yummmmm... as I put on my Facebook status, I have been thoroughly beefed tonight.

Justin's Farewell Weekend

What a great weekend we had!!! Justin reports Wedendsday (11/12) to serve a mission, and this weekend we held several send-off activities. Grandma Nancy flew in Friday and stayed the weekend with us. My sisters Kristin and Barbara also made it in to town. Two of my cousins from Boise joined in the fun, and three of Michelle's cousins from the Boise area also came.

Yesterday (Saturday) morning Nancy, Michelle, Justin and I went to the temple together - that was cool. Last night we had an open house at our place - our house was packed! This morning Justin gave a talk at our church services (picture of those who came posted herein). And tonight we had a ton of family over for dinner, plus Andrew, plus Bailey and her family (whom are all like family, anyway!). I think we had 30 people over for dinner tonight - all sort of impromptu.

Then tonight, Justin was set apart as a full-time missionary. We had to push out the walls in our family room to accommodate everybody - it was really very special!!!

We thank all of the family members and friends, members of our faith or not, who joined us this weekend. All of the support shown to Justin really made for a very special time for all of us!!!

Photos (31 in all) from the weekend posted, of course. Here on Flickr, or here on Facebook.

Justin's Open House Slide Show

Tonight we had a very full house, with family and friends visiting for an informal open house for Justin. For fun, I put together a slide show of pics of Justin (and his family and friends), which was running on a couple of TVs in our house. Folks had a lot of fun seeing Justin (and our family) through the past 19 years.

The 17-minute video was too long and the file size too large to post on YouTube, so I posted in on Veoh.com, which I have not used very much. When I try to view it, it warns me that it contains mature content (which it obviously doesn't), so if you get that warning, just click through it. But hopefully, embedded below, you can view it.

The background music for the slide show is from Justin's junior year in high school, when he played in the All Southern California Honors Orchestra. There are two movements from "English Dances", and then "1812 Overture."


Watch Justin Goodale Open House Video in Family Videos | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Gratitude

Last night for family night we had a lesson on gratitude, and I challenged everyone in the family, including myself, to list ten things that they are thankful for. It was a fun exercise, and most everybody wrote more than ten things (overachievers!!!). :-)

Here is a sampling of some of the things the Goodale family is grateful for (in no particular order): family, freedom, chocolate, life, laughter, friends, fancy helicopters (huh???), Del Taco (hurray!!!), e-mail, movies, babies, food, parents, school (protests, anyone???), electricity, cold wet puppy-dog noses (Go Shadow!!!), cars, sports, Mom 'n Pop 'n the Sibs (sounds like a band name!), sweet house, tools (you know that came from Christopher!), Mr. Bevan (the Tech Center teacher that everyone thinks is cranky), extreme amounts of luck (we all know that "luck" is when preparation meets opportunity), Idahoans, wife, husband, the Atonement, liberty, music, musical abilities, trials (as in "challenges" - not the jury thing), silliness, tongues (on second thought, I guess they are kind of cool, as they allow us to talk, eat, taste...), light, food, clothes, good health, our great country, modern medicine...

As part of the gratitude for "silliness" (my listing), we watched something from what I bought at Costco yesterday. To wrap up family night, we watched the first two episodes from the Season One set of DVDs I bought of the "Get Smart" TV show. I've always been shocked that my kids had never seen that - so now they have! Greatest. Show. Ever. :-) Uh... well... would you believe "the second greatest show ever"? OK... how about a merely decent show?

The picture posted here, by the way, is just one proof from the family photo shoot we did a couple of weeks ago. A proof only, hence the photographer's watermark. We'll post the actual photos when we get all of them in. Our first family photo shoot in Boise, and we are so grateful to live in such a beautiful place!!!

Pinewood Derby

Last month our Cub Scout pack had a Pinewood Derby, and the boys had a great time! Check out the look of excitement on Steven's face (the scout in the middle in the picture on the left). Steven's car is coming in second place in that particular race.

I took a bunch of pictures of the Derby, and I've posted them all on my Flickr account; click here. They are also on Facebook; click here.

Brianna Singing

Brianna had a couple of music performances last month; I'm just a bit late in posting them. She sings in the "Treble Choir" at school, and they had a performance on October 21st. Above is a picture of all the choral groups at Centennial High School.

Additionally, Brianna is in private voice lessons, and on October 23rd Brianna was in a vocal recital. She sang "Poor Wayfaring Man." There was a sheet music mixup, and the accompanist, her voice teacher Marta Johns, had a non-transposed version of the song Brianna had been practicing all along. So the video below is the first time Brianna has sung it in this key. To the right here is a picture of Brianna in the formal she wore that night.

Check out the video below, plus a handful of pictures from the choir performance, on my Facebook account; click here.

Christopher Swim Team

Christopher was on Centennial High School's swim team again this year, and he really enjoyed it. He's not ashamed to tell you he enjoyed it because it's a coed sport. :-) To the left here is a picture of Christopher mid-stroke in the water, and I've posted more pictures on Facebook; please click here.

By the way, Christopher just got home from his first weekend drill with the National Guard (he went just today, as they allowed him to do District Swim Meet and Sadie Hawkins yesterday). He absolutely LOVED IT. He loves the toys there! I'll have to let him post separately.

Haunted House, Second Night

Last night was the second night of our Halloween Haunted House at the Dillons. Fortunately, on the first night we had nice, clear weather with temps in the 60s - very warm for Halloween! Then yesterday, it rained all day long, and it was raining when we started once the sun went down. There were times last night that it was raining HARD!!!

Nonetheless, the weather didn't keep the crowds away. On the first night, we took 350+ people through the Haunted House, and last night we took some 275 through.

Pictured here is our second night's cast. It was mostly the same as our first night's cast, with a few changes due to Centennial High's Sadie Hawkins dance, and a few other things. Pictures from both nights can be found our Flickr site (click here), and first and second nights in different albums on Facebook (here and here, respectively). Also below is a video of me working the Guillotine, with Andrew as my gracious volunteer (as found here on Facebook).

Until next year....

Haunted House

Each year Michelle's cousin, Steve Dillon, hosts a haunted house at his place for Halloween. It has become quite an elaborate production, and this is also the second year where we've used one of his neighbor's back yards, as well. They literally remove the fence between the yards, and we've got two yards to provide spooks!

I'd tell you all the roles we played tonight, but just in case you're coming for our second night tomorrow night, I don't want to spoil it for you! Or... see if you can figure it out from the pictures here on Flickr, or here on Facebook (although the tags there reveal quite a bit). 47 pictures up there so far, and I'm sure I'll be adding more after tomorrow night, as well.