We sure have had a great time here in McCall. I haven't been able to do a posting here, though, since the neighbor's unsecured wireless network has been a bit spotty. Imagine that... not allowing us to "borrow" their internet bandwidth! :-)
This pic here on the left is of Brianna and Andrew while walking on the golf course at McCall the day before yesterday. There was a great sliding hill there that we went sledding down. That same evening we went to dinner at the "Toll Station" pizza restaurant - yummy! Nothing beats the taste of pizza from Northwood Pizza in Irvine, but Toll Station had a menu much more extensive here and it was all yummy!
Yesterday we had breakfast at the famous "Pancake House" here - YUMMY!!! They have these cinamon rolls here that fill a whole plate. Mmm... Mmmm... GOOD! Their serving sizes are ridiculous and prices quite reasonable. We need one of these in Boise! Check out this photo on the right - do you think our kids are addicted to their cell phones? I do NOT know where they get this from!!!
Then after eating at Pancake House we went to a place called "The Activity Barn" which wasn't a barn at all, but a lift-served tubing hill. An 85-foot drop over a 700-foot run - a 12% grade. It had been snowing so much that the run was actually a bit slow, but as the day went on and the snow was packed down, the run got faster. This pic here is of Brianna and Mom at the top of the hill waiting to go down, and Brianna is eating falling snow. :-)
There are three sets of photos on Facebook (here, here and here), plus all the photos and videos on Flickr, plus some videos embedded below. I'll award ten credibility points if you can name the 70s-80s rock band that sang the song I sing on the one tubing video, below.
I'll start off today's post with the cute picture here. This afternoon the kids were playing in the snow, and in this shot on the right, Andrew has just stuffed Brianna in to the snow and he's pointing to her mocking, "Haha... look what I did." They had a great time out there.
Except for Justin, we're all up here; even brought Shadow and Grandma Nancy. Had to come up in two cars because Michelle's van is in the shop with transmission problems. My MDX was the lead vehicle with a canvas car top carrier strapped to the roof rack with bungie cords, and Nancy's Accord was the trail vehicle. Unfortunately, the Bungie cords were apparently too old to handle the combination of cold weather and 60+ mph speeds. When the cords snapped it was SO LOUD in our car, and when the carrier went sailing off the car, we were lucky on a number of accounts: 1) it didn't take out the trailing vehicle on highway I-55, 2) it didn't fly off the highway in to the largely-frozen Payette River, and 3) absolutely nothing inside got broken! We had no choice but to just put it in the back of my MDX, leaving Shadow with almost no room back there. Oh well... it makes for a good story!
We got up here about 3:30pm and the rental home we are in is really nice, with a large backyard where there is a good two feet of snow on the ground. Since we got in sort of late, the kids (and the dog) just played in the snow in the back yard. It was funny to see Shadow sink way in to the snow, but you could tell he had fun.
After playing in the snow we came in, had some dinner and watched TV. We also took the occasion to exchange Christmas presents with Grandma, since we hadn't done Christmas with her yet.
We had a great day. Check out a few more photos below, and all 45 of the pics I posted from today (here on Facebook, and here on Flickr).
Our kids love tackling Shadow, and Mark has him pinned here. Shadow doesn't seem to mind.
Steven exploring.
Andrew making a snow angel.
Andrew TOTALLY gets Brianna with a sled full of snow!
Hey, Brianna. You're a little wet. Did you REALLY think you could beat Andrew in a snow fight? :-)
On the way home from skiing last night we stopped by this insanely decorated house in Boise. It's even listed in an article in the local newspaper about Christmas lights in Boise. A more detailed article is here. This place has 500,000 lights, and it's really amazing. The owners of the house let people come right up on the driveway to check it out. Check out the pics I took below.
Panoramic shot stitched together from four shots; sorry for the multiple time stamps.
Christmas day yesterday was really great. Got to talk to Elder Justin Goodale for nearly two hours; he sounds like he's doing great! He is absolutely in love with Missouri and having a great time there. Then in the afternoon we went skiing at Bogus Basin along with the Briggs family. We always have a great time with the Briggs and we love our great friends in Boise. To the left here is Mark skiing in his Santa cap. How festive, huh?! :-)
I didn't get too many pics. I started out on the bunny hill with Steven, so he could get used to skiing again. I caught Mark there once so got some pics of him, too. But aside from Steven and Mark, I didn't get pics of anybody because my skiing day ended on only the 5th or 6th run. Steven and I had a nasty collision which tweaked my really bad knee (I'm enjoying narcotic painkillers even as I post this, so I hope you enjoy the hallucinations as much as I do). So enjoy the pics and videos below.
A video of Steven on his second run down the bunny slope. Love his, "Hi Dad!" on the way down. Nice snowplowing, Steven!
A video of Mark heading down the hill. He says he got in a tuck and started going faster further on down this run.
Hey Steven... I think it might be more fun if you open your eyes. :-)
As you can see, there weren't too many people on the slopes last night - it was AWESOME! In fact, when we left at about 9pm (the lifts were open until 10pm), I'd say there were less than 50 cars still left in the parking lot.
Ahhhhh... I love Christmas. And Christmas traditions! Every Christmas Eve we:
Read the story of the birth of Jesus Christ from Luke 2 in the New Testament.
Read "The Night Before Christmas."
Put out all the baby Jesus figures in our nativities. Michelle collects nativity sets and we have them all over our house at Christmas. We pretty much collect only nativity sets where the baby Jesus is not attached to the manger's bed. When Michelle served a mission in France, she noticed that they did not put in the baby Jesus in the nativities until Christmas Eve, and this is a tradition we have kept in our home.
Put out milk and cookies for Santa.
And finally, our kids get to open a gift, and it's never a surprise. Every Christmas Eve our kids get a new pair of pajamas. The first picture you see here is of our kids in their new PJs by our Christmas tree.
This year we also did something new. For the first time (I think), we all stood around the piano with Brianna playing, and sang Christmas carols. It was a lot of fun. You see a pic of us below, and there are more online (here on Facebook, and here on Flickr).
Today we had our annual kids-with-Santa picture taken down at the mall. Of course, everybody but Justin was there. However, we received a Christmas card from Justin and his missionary companion Elder Moxon the other day. You'll find both pictures below.
Of course, last week Justin transferred from Stockton, MO to St. Robert, MO and is no longer with Elder Moxon. His new missionary companion is Elder Hirshfeld. We look forward to talking to Justin on the phone on Friday, but for those who want to write to him, his new address is:
Elder Justin Goodale 181 East Lawn Ave., apt. 124 P.O. Box 929 St. Robert, MO 65584
This past Sunday evening Steven, Andrew, Brianna and I were snuggling up on the couch watching TV and we all dosed off. Mark snapped this picture. And certainly, there was a fire in the fireplace. Does it get any better than this???
And as you can see, our dog Shadow gets in on the act pretty frequently, too. Though he hardly looks comfortable here! Good times!
Me travel with a camera? Hoodathunkit?!?! I like taking pictures wherever I go, and it's especially fun to travel around Christmastime. Things are so festive everywhere, even in countries where Christianity is not all that common. To the left here is a close-up shot I got of a Christmas tree in the Takanawa Wing section of Shinagawa.
To the right here is a Christmas tree display inside the JR Shinagawa East Building, right next to my favorite book store in Tokyo (Ooi Shoten). If you're ever in a need for the latest English-language paperback book, this place has a pretty good selection.
I've inserted a few photos and videos below, but for all I've taken thus far on this trip, please check them out here on Flickr.
When I go out on the town, I wanna wear my brown cowboy boots, purple pants, pink shirt, and leopard-skin coat. Woohoo!!! Taken on the subway the other night.
My awesome French toast breakfast last Friday morning (Thursday afternoon in the U.S., when everyone back home was pigging out on turkey).
Note to Daughter: If something ever possesses you to wear blue shoes with blue fuzzy balls at the toes, I might have to hurt you. Secondly, if something ever possesses you to wear a skirt with a slit this high, same result.
Fall is still in the air in Yokohama (taken in front of Hiyoshi Station).
Haha... baguette delivery scooters. I would much more expect to see this in Paris!
Ahhh... check out these cute little yellow hats as part of these girls' school uniforms. I bet my kids are jealous they didn't get such attire for school!
There's probably scientific proof for this, but on Tokyo subways, 4 out of 5 people have their noses buried in their cell phones; the 5th person sleeps.
Lately in Japan, I've favored what they call "weekly mansion" style studio apartment facilities over hotels. Now keep in mind, "mansion" is about as mansion-esque as a "limousine bus" is limousine-esque. :-) Most importantly, these things feature at least a small kitchen (my "kitchen" pictured at right), so I can prepare my own meals and hence save a ton of money. They also feature either in-room or coin-op laundry facilities on site, also saving quite a bit of money.
What's more is that they are typically CHEAPER than hotels. Most of them do not have a concierge desk nor room service nor any of those other "niceties" of hotels; therefore, I couldn't in good faith recommend them to foreign guests who do not speak Japanese.
And woohoo... check out the tiny bathroom pic on the left. With a mere twist of that faucet you can either fill the sink or fill the tub; what an efficient "feature." As with everything in life, weekly mansions come in all shapes, sizes, and budgets. The one I'm staying at on this trip (Weekly Mansion Tokyo Akasaka) is really quite cheap, old, somewhat dirty, and ANYTHING but fancy. In fact, it feels very much like a pretty low-end college or company dorm (company dorms are somewhat common in Japan). Out in the corridors, the flooring is an immaculate, fancy CONCRETE. The door to my room is only about 5'8" and I have to duck going in. But... this place is less than $100 per night even with the horribly weak dollar right now. The very moderate ANA Intercontinental Hotel just a 5-minute walk from here would run $300/night!
There's also quite a bit of "riffraff" here that you wouldn't find at the nearby ANA, but hey... I suppose that's part of the ambiance. Below is a panoramic shot of most of the glorious 24 square meters (258 square feet) that occupies my "home" this week. In both this shot and the bathroom shot above, the panoramic stitching utility I used sort of whigged out, but you get the idea. It will be really nice to get back to my REAL home on Thursday!!!
This (Sunday) evening here in Tokyo I decided to be really geeky and get some fun pictures down at Shibuya Crossing - sort of the "Times Square" of Tokyo. My 360-degree panoramic shot is here at the left. Without clicking on it to see it enlarged, it may be tough to see because it's so long and skinny (and I never dated a girl like that). Anyway... it's always a fun place to people watch. I ended up taking in some very interesting propagandizing. In Japan causes, politicians and others can use vehicles laden with speakers to be mobile propaganda platforms. These things can actually be quite annoying, just because they're so loud. I'm sure even here in Japan you need a special permit, but I'm not even sure you could get such a permit in the U.S.
Anyway... tonight parked down at Shibuya Crossing was one of these propaganda trucks for Taikousya Sumera. Upon doing some research I discovered that they're a right ring group here in Tokyo of about 700 members, and they even have ties to the yakuza. Lovely. For the most part, their propagandizing wasn't bad. They brought up several speakers, each addressing the topic of how to make Japan better. Not a bad cause. They were even saying some really logical things like, "You'll have a chance next summer to participate in elections; study up on the issues and candidates to make an informed choice."
It's all good so far. As was one guy who said, "We can make Japan better by honoring our parents. Even if you don't like your parents, you still need to honor them because they brought you in to the world. Take care of them, and don't let anything bad happen to them. Don't let the medical establishment treat them poorly." And so on. All good stuff. But wait a minute... this is a land of socialized medicine: on that last point, how could that happen???!!!
One guy even got up and said, "You know... for as long as I can remember, at this time of year, we also light up all parts of the city with 'Christmas light-up' every year. Even here a Shibuya Station, erected back in the 1920s, in its first year it had Christmas light-up. Why is it that we all do this? Why do we like this so much? I believe it's because in the vast craziness of living in such a big city, it makes us feel like a small community..." (you can see a little bit of that "Christmas light-up" he was talking about at the right).
Interesting, huh? Man... he just DOESN'T GET IT!!! We like it because it's the Christmas spirit, you nitwit!!! Christmas. Christ. Geesh. Oh well... I'm glad this guys feels the spirit of Christmas, even if he doesn't recognize it for what it is.
But the most interesting part was when the guy got up and spoke about how we need to rely on ourselves to make Japan better. OK... I'm a self-reliance kind of guy; I'll go with that. But then he went on to rip on all foreignors, and that's when he lost me. He said that "in our own circles of trust (individually), we trust ourself the most. Then just below that we trust our family. Then just below that we trust our friends." OK... I guess this isn't so bad; I'll go with it. But then he lost me. He said, "Trusting foreignors is way down on the bottom; we cannot trust them. We can't trust the Chinese; look at what they do to their own people. We cannot trust the South Koreans because look how we treated them for several decades last century. (OK... he sort of has a point there.) We cannot trust the Americans; they nuked us. Why didn't they nuke the also-white-skinned Germans instead?"
Whoa wait a minute, fella (pictured at left). Maybe it had something to do with the fact that despite overwhelming losses for over three years the Japanese were still entrenched throughout the Pacific and were not giving up, but the Germans had already surrendered???
By this point, probably 100 people were standing there listening, including another white guy standing near me. He and I both started shaking our heads at the same time. He came over to me and asked in English with a very thick accent, "Do you understand this guy?" I laughed and said, "Yeah, I do." As it turns out, this guy I was near was from Russia but also speaks English and Japanese. He told me, "This guy's stupid." Well... I actually think he seemed pretty intelligent, just a little nutty.
It was really interesting. I was here in Japan in September when they had their big parliamentary elections, and I sat glued to my hotel room TV that Sunday night watching election returns in Japanese. I got really in to that then, and observing this tonight was pretty interesting, too.
Below, and linked here, is an embedded video of the massive throng of people crossing at Shibuya Crossing when the light turns green. You can hear one of these guys talking in the background.
My readers here know that I love taking pictures. My favorite camera is my Canon Digital SLR, but it's just too big to take along on business trips, so I have a smaller "simpler" Olympus digital camera that I take along with me when I travel. It also shoots video (which my larger digital SLR does not).
So I brought it along with me to Tokyo on this trip, and I go to download a few pictures that I've taken with it. Lo and behold, I discover that back on November 9th, somebody (I'm assuming Andrew) used this camera to record Brianna singing "Hero," undoubtedly one of the tribute pieces of her Uncle James Michael Cotter ("Uncle Michael"). Michael was a proud member of the Hi-Tops Dance Team, and they always perform this song. Whenever they perform it, each member of the dance team wears a shirt with his/her picture on it. At Michael's funeral, the Hi-Tops performed, and they all wore a shirt with Michael's picture on it.
Anyway... I don't know how Brianna got through this, but she made it without crying. One of these days we should record her doing this mic'd up so we can hear her voice better over the piano. If any members of my family can watch this and listen without getting all teared up, my hat's off to you!
There's a YouTube link to the video here, but chances are that YouTube will remove it due to copyright protections. I'm also embedding it here below, directly to my blog (blogger link is also here). Enjoy.
Though it's Friday morning here in Tokyo where I am for a week or so, it's Thanksgiving back at home, and I thought I'd take this opportunity to list some of the things I am grateful for. There are sure to be many MANY things I'm missing, but this was just sort of a brain dump here.
I approached listing God first, followed by immediate family members in descending age order, and then everything else is just alphabetized. I am more of the persuasion of Matthew 6:4 ("That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.") and so I usually don't discuss this much, but I have a deep and abiding faith and perhaps some day I'll do a more extensive posting on this, but herein I list it first and know that it's the cause of all of my other many blessings.
So here goes, and I apologize for the many things I've left out:
God and Jesus Christ. I’m grateful for God’s great plan of happiness that makes all of this possible, and for my Savior who in spite of me loves me and offers me an avenue of repentance for all my imperfections.
Michelle.My wife is my best friend and I love spending time with her. She’s a terrific mother and wife. All parents encourage their children to “marry up” – I certainly did that, and I’m glad that Michelle ignored her parents’ counsel in this regard.
Justin. I’m glad that Justin has turned out to be such an awesome young man, in spite of being our “guinea pig” in the parenting experience. He’s super talented, funny, full of integrity, and is doing a great job serving a mission right now for our Savior.
Christopher. I know of few young men whom have a greater love for his fellow man that Christopher. He always wants to help other people, and is doing a great job serving our country.
Brianna. I once heard a father explain that with the birth of his son, he thought he had no greater capacity to love. But then his daughter was born and he found a little corner of his heart that he had no idea existed. And so it is.
Andrew. Quiet, unassuming Andrew. Sort of a quiet, blend-in-the-scenes young man with incredible intelligence, whit, athleticism and talent that continually takes us by surprise.
Mark. “Hey… I coulda made a hat out of that!” The poor kid got my sense of humor (sorry, Mark). We can always count on Mark to make us laugh and to appreciate life in all its wonderment.
Steven. Rounding out the Goodale lineage with an even half-dozen, Steven always strives to do the right thing and we love him for it. His purity and innocence reminds us of where we should all be.
Acura. Loved my TL when I had it, and today my MDX is really fun to drive.
Air Travel. On American Airlines alone I’ve traveled more than four million miles lifetime to date, and yet air travel never ceases to amaze me.
American Soldier. And all of our military members. Though Christopher’s experiences in the Army have jaded him a bit about the quality of our men and women in uniform, I think overall he still respects them and is proud to be counted amongst that group. I am grateful these brave men and women whom have written blank checks to our government and to us, payable up to and including their very lives.
Blogging. Michelle says I’m voyeuristic and perhaps that’s true, but I love expressing my thoughts and sharing my fascinating (or incredibly dull) life with my loved ones.
Books. Wow I love reading. So many good authors out there, too. You’ll never see me on the road without a book to read. Hey… maybe I do all this traveling because it’s a good excuse to engross myself in a good new book.
Boy Scouts. Two of my sons are Eagle Scouts and I’ll have a third one soon. I am grateful for this great program.
Campfires. Sure… I’m a boy and therefore like fire. And if you know me, you know I’ve always said that if it’s not visible from space, it’s not a campfire!
Cell Phones and Text Messaging. My first cell phone was a BRICK, and my how we’ve come to rely on these things!
China. OK. Is it weird this one would come up in my list of things I’m grateful for? Not really. Over the past few years I’ve had the opportunity to spend a lot of time in China, and I love its “uniquefulness” – a tough thing for a nation of over a billion people. One for personal progression, I love to see the national progression China is making to become a responsible player on the world’s stage. Still a ways to go, but I love China’s progress.
Computers. I grew up in a world where a motherboard was what your mom hit you with (OK… my mom never hit me, for which I am also grateful) and random access memory was just merely selective memory (a practice still practiced by my entire gender). Imagine life without computers now, though!!!
Constitution. I believe the document created to guide our nation was inspired of God, and I am grateful to have it. May we not use it as a doormat.
Dining Room Table. OK… not the table, itself, but I’m grateful for all the great family conversations we have around the dining room table. You see, in our home, the dining room table is not something you pass by on the way to the rest of your life. It’s a destination.
Diversity. Indeed, I think it’s really cool that we all sway our hips (or not) to the beat of a different drummer.
Driving. I love driving, and have driven in some amazing places: cross-country trips in the U.S., the German autobahn, the laneless madness of the roundabout circling the Arc de Triomphe, the French and Italian rivieras, the crazed streets of Japan, another driving-on-the-left experience in Melbourne and Sydney, and other great places.
Earth. What a beautiful planet we live on!
Employment. I am so grateful to not only have a job, but I’m grateful to do something that I really enjoy.
Extended Family. I paid tribute to each of my direct family members, but I am so grateful for all of my extended family. Too many to mention here, but I love you all!
Facebook. I have reconnected with so many long-lost friends through Facebook – it’s way fun. Not to mention being on Facebook is a great way to know your own kids! Thank you Mark Zuckerberg and your geeky fellow computer science friends at Harvard for founding Facebook!
Food. I’m not the smallest guy on the planet, so you’re probably not too surprised to hear that I enjoy food. Speaking of which, while here in Tokyo this week, I can’t wait to go to my favorite yakiniku restaurant, Safari.
Freedom. I am so grateful for the freedoms that I enjoy every day, and admittedly take for granted.
French Toast. OK. Who doesn’t love French toast? While my family is enjoying a yummy Thanksgiving dinner at home in Boise, it’s Friday morning here in Tokyo, and I made French Toast here in my weekly mansion studio apartment room. Yum!
Health. Though not perfect, I do enjoy relatively good health, for which I am grateful.
Home. We have a great house, that truly is a “home.” I really miss it when I’m on the road.
Idaho. I truly love my adopted state (some pics here). It’s gorgeous, and for the most part, I love its people.
Information. I am grateful to be part of the “information age” when just about anything you can possibly imagine is readily researchable with a few keystrokes.
Infrastructure. OK… on the outset, I can see that this might seem funny, but think of all the modern-day conveniences we take for granted. And when was the last time you freaked out when you flipped a switch and the light did NOT come on. Or flushed the toilet and it didn’t go down. We freak out in the rare instances when our infrastructure fails us, and it makes me grateful to have them.
Intelligence. I’m not claiming to have it, but I love pursuing it, and am thankful I can do so.
Internet. Ever indebted to Al Gore for having invented this!
Japan. I love its people, its culture, its history. What a great place. I am so glad that I was called to serve in Japan as a missionary, and thus began a lifelong love of all things Japanese.
Japanese. I love the Japanese language, and have fun in my never-ending study of it. I am grateful to be bilingual.
Microwave Ovens. Wow how we missed ours while it was on the fritz!
Modern Medicine. It has brought my kids safely in to my world, and has on occasion brought them back from some pretty serious ailments. Who could imagine that a once-daily little pill could save our family from the traumatic epileptic seizures that one of our own was suffering? And as I sit here I can think of eleven separate times I’ve been under general anesthesia while doctors have cut in to me to fix one thing or another! And who can survive kidney stones without modern medicine (I've done it once, on a flight from Tokyo to L.A. - I wouldn't recommend it!).
Mother. I’m grateful to have had a great mom, and I miss her. We had this tradition that I would call her every time I went out of town – and hence we actually spoke quite a bit! There are still times when I get in to the car to head to the airport and instinctively I pull out my phone to call Mom. See my tribute to her here.
Movie Time. Whether going to the movie theater or sitting in our family room with a DVD, I love hanging out with my family and watching movies.
Music. I love music, and with the possible exception of twangy country western and opera, there are few genre of music that I do not enjoy. I am very grateful that I have some musically gifted children. Even as I type this, I’m listening to a recording of Justin playing in the All Southern California Honors Orchestra playing Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” – recorded when Justin was just 16.
Photography. Capturing life is awesome. My Flickr sets can be found here.
Popcorn. Kudos to the guy (or gal) who discovered that if you heat up corn kernels, they explode in to a culinary treat! I’m enjoying some right now, even while typing this list (otherwise I may not have thought to include it).
Shadow. We have an awesome dog. Our 80-pound huskey/malamute mix is gorgeous, loving, and dumb as a rock. Sometimes I think I’d like his life.
Simplicity. In spite of all the fancy things I’m listing that I’m grateful for, I love simplicity, as well, as reminded by Lynyrd Skynyrd’s recent song release “Simple Life.”
Skiing. Though I’m not very good at skiing, and my really bad left knee keeps me from going on advanced runs, I look forward to making good use of our season passes to Bogus Basin this winter!
Snowflake. Our beloved bunnicula? I can’t be thankful for our pets without including the rabbit. Nobody really seems to like him, but I admit to occasionally going up to him and petting him on the head (and miraculously, he doesn’t try to bite me in the process).
Sports. Not that I’m very good at any sports (“Here, Andrew… let me show you how that’s done…”), but I sure love watching them, at every level. From the hysterical tee ball games we enjoyed with our young kids all the way up to professional level contests, it’s all great!
Stormy. What? I’m grateful for our cat? I guesso. Stormy has put a chink in my belief that cats are God’s proof that not everything in nature has a purpose.
Taco Seasoning. It’s unlikely you could ever escape our house without hearing from our children about our taco seasoning experience one Christmas morning several years ago.
Talk Radio. A funny thing, perhaps, to be thankful for, but I love it, and listen to perspectives from all sides. It stimulates the mind.
Travel. Though I spend TOO much time on the road, I am grateful to have seen much of the world, and I love it.
USA. I have the cool perspective of experiencing much of the world throughout my travels, and there is no place like the United States of America. I pass through U.S. ports of entry several times a year, and on more than one occasion I’ve gotten choked up when seeing “Welcome to the United States of America” at these ports of entry.
Video Games. Hey, indulge me here! The industry is what puts food on my table and keeps a roof over my head.
Weather. Now having grown beyond the four seasons of Fire, Earthquake, Flood and Riot that Southern California offered up, I’m grateful now to be living in Idaho where we experience four distinct seasons.
Writing. I’m not a very creative person, but I love writing and it’s the one avenue where I do have at least some level of creativity. I’ve already written a little bit on a couple of works of mine here on this Japan trip, and look forward to more.
Since moving to Boise, we've of course become huge BSU fans. It doesn't hurt that we have two people in our family who go there: Michelle pursuing a Social Work degree and our son Justin pursuing a Music Education degree (though Justin is on a two-year break serving a mission). And its fun to be in the national spotlight with a top ten ranking in NCAA football. Horizon Air has even done a Broncos-themed aircraft now. I snapped this photo (on the right) of our Broncos turboprop just after boarding my regional jet flight to LAX (connecting through to Tokyo) earlier this week. Horizon has university-themed aircraft in their fleet, honoring universities in cities they serve. I've seen the aircraft for the Universities of Oregon and Washington, and now it's good to have one for Boise! I understand that this aircraft did a flyover at Bronco Stadium at the home game a couple of weeks ago - that would have been fun to see.
Boise is a city of just less than 200,000 people, and the whole city goes crazy on a football game day, particularly if it's a home game. Everybody wears blue and orange. All the store marquees have some sort of message for Broncos football. BSU flags are flying on a good percentage of the cars in the city. Local schools even excuse absences for BSU game attendance. At the stadium, tailgate parties are crazy!!! The whole atmosphere is just way fun. People even dress their pitbull dogs in BSU attire on game day (see pic here). I also like this pic from the tailgate parties from the November 14th game, sporting the USA and BSU flags.
This week (Friday after Thanksgiving) BSU plays Nevada in what will end up being the WAC championship game. I'm sad that it won't be broadcast on Japanese TV while I'm here. It should prove to be an exciting game. GO BRONCOS!!!
Below are some additional Bronco Nation photos, and I've linked a bunch more (click here). Michelle's sister and her family were up here a couple of weeks ago, and we went for a walk down at Julia Davis Park and around Bronco Stadium, and that's where these pics are from.
Broncos fans are also patriots.
Pre-game tailgate parties in the parking lot at Bronco Stadium.
BSU-clad dogs pulling a wheelchair. I think this sort of thing could give Santa Claus and his raindeer-pulled sled a run for his money! :-)
Pre-game tailgate parties in the parking lot at Bronco Stadium.
At a tailgate party, one fan even played the Broncos-Vandals matchup on his PS3 before the game. His outcome was 33-14 Broncos. The actual game ended up 63-25 Broncos. Pretty close to the same ratio, ironically, but the wrong score.
We sure have had a great time here in McCall. I haven't been able to do a posting here, though, since the neighbor's unsecured wireless network has been a bit spotty. Imagine that... not allowing us to "borrow" their internet bandwidth! :-)
Yesterday we had breakfast at the famous "Pancake House" here - YUMMY!!! They have these cinamon rolls here that fill a whole plate. Mmm... Mmmm... GOOD! Their serving sizes are ridiculous and prices quite reasonable. We need one of these in Boise! Check out this photo on the right - do you think our kids are addicted to their cell phones? I do NOT know where they get this from!!!
Then after eating at Pancake House we went to a place called "The Activity Barn" which wasn't a barn at all, but a lift-served tubing hill. An 85-foot drop over a 700-foot run - a 12% grade. It had been snowing so much that the run was actually a bit slow, but as the day went on and the snow was packed down, the run got faster. This pic here is of Brianna and Mom at the top of the hill waiting to go down, and Brianna is eating falling snow. :-)
