Thanksgiving Spectacular! Spectacular!/凄い！凄い！サンクスギビング！

So nice, we named it twice! My break became an extra day when the Immigration Services decided that the day before Thanksgiving would be a nice time for people to take their citizenship test, so around 1:20pm Anna officially passed her citizenship test!! What we did not come close to passing was the paperwork test...that we have to try again on Jan. 27th...we have to provide bank statements and other documents from the past five years that prove we have been together...Anna also has to prove that she has paid off the two speeding tickets she got in Oklahoma from her hot rod days...that should be fun trying to track down. But the good news was she passed the test which she had studied pretty hard for the last month so I was quite proud of her... She had to get 6 out of 10 questions correct besides her writing and reading tests and fortunately she only had to answer 6 questions as below...
サンクスギビングの前の日にアンナのアメリカ国籍を取るテストがあったので仕事を休んで３人で行って来ました。午後１時２０分頃にテストに受かりました！でも、結婚している事を証明する書類が足りなかったため又約２ヶ月後にここに戻ってこなければいけなくなりました。とても面倒くさ〜い！しかも問題なのは大学にいた時にスピード違反で切符を払った証拠も提出しなきゃいけないって言われてしまいました。困った！オクラホマ州のどこの誰に聞けば良いんだろー！まあ一様一生懸命勉強したテストは受かったから良いんだけどね。筆記と読みのテストの他にアメリカの歴史のテストがあったんだけど、１０質問中６問答えれれば良くって、ラッキーな事に６問だけで終わりました...聞かれた質問はこの６っつ...

1. Who wrote the declaration of independence?
1.独立宣言を書いたのは誰ですか？
2. Name a state that borders Mexico.
2.メキシコに接する州の１つは何ですか？
3. Who is the chief of military?
3.軍の最高者は誰ですか？
4. What is the current president's political party?
4.今の大統領の政党は何ですか？
5. Name three of the 13 original colonies.
5.最初の１３植民地だった州の３っつは何ですか？
6. What are the two main political parties?
6.アメリカの主な政党の２つは何ですか？

She said the interviewer was really nice and wanted to her to pass because he could tell she studied hard so when she got too nervous and answered the first question George Washington, he gave her a second chance to remember that it's Thomas Jefferson:-)
面接をしてくれた人は凄い良い人で、緊張して一番最初の答えを間違えてジョージワシントンって言っちゃったのにも関わらず、ちゃんと勉強しただろうに緊張しているだけだから落ち着いてってもう一回答えさせてくれました。だからトーマスジェファーソンで正解：）

After coming out of the test we raced home from Long Island to greet our company of Robert, Holly, Carter and Grant who had just arrived from Connecticut. Once we got Madison fed we headed out to Manhattan for dinner at a restaurant that Anna and I looked up on Zagat and had received high ratings for its pizza...it turned out to be a super fancy restaurant where they re-fold your napkin when you get up to use the bathroom, so we were a little surprised by that, but it also had super yummy pizza. After dinner we headed up Columbus Ave the 20 blocks to where the Macy's balloon blow-up celebration was happening...we ended up taking the scenic route through Central Park and bypassed our intended target by ten blocks...there was no one in the park and we thought for a moment the rain had scared away the crowds, but when we actually got to the road where the balloons were there the crowds were also...so after about an hour of being herded down the streets of the Upper West Side we got to the balloons and were a little disappointed to see they were wrapped in mesh and laying on their side making them a bit depressing as they looked like caged balloons longing to be free...we passed Spongebob and Shrek, Kermit, Ronald and Spiderman and opted not to be herded down the other street to see the other half of balloons, but as it was pushing 9:30pm we decided to begin the long journey home as getting back to the East side was no small feat when the park was in the way...but with the help of a few trains we made it home with little fanfare.
面接が終わった後車に乗って急いで家に返るとちょうどロバートの家族もコネチカットから到着したみたい。マディソンにご飯をあげてマンハッタンに向けて出発。まず６時に予約を入れておいたイタリア料理のレストラントでおいしいピザのご飯を食べてから、明日の朝のパレードの準備をしている所に風船を見に行きました。こっちではこのパレードが毎年有名なんです。いろんなキャラの形の大きな風船とか音楽隊とかが７７丁目から３４丁目まで歩きながら３時間かけて降りて来るんだけど、それをテレビでみるのが伝統みたい。日本の新年の赤白歌合戦みたいなのかな〜？みんな観るもんね！セントラル公園で少し迷った後やっと到着、でも待っていたのは凄い混雑！１時間ほど揉み合いながらゆっくりと並んでいる風船の横を歩いて半分見た所でもう９時半近くになっちゃってたので家に帰る事に...マンハッタンの西側にいたから家に帰るまで時間がかかっちゃったけどようやく家に着いて速攻おやすみ！







The Wednesday excitement or should I say exhaustion, was enough to keep us from venturing into the city Thursday morning for the parade itself so we gladly watched it on TV with the 50 million other viewers...we were proud to convert Carter and Grant into parade watchers for the first time and it was fun to know the order of the balloons (at least the first half). Anna got busy in the kitchen as she attempted to follow her meticulously planned out schedule. She broke down the meal into its different components (salad, potatoes, rolls, turkey, etc) and knew exactly when each one was supposed to be started so that everything ended at exactly at the same time... It was pretty impressive and went decently close to schedule (although the turkey took a little longer to cook then planned). We enjoyed our relaxing Thanksgiving meal together and were overjoyed to hear Carter exclaim, as he downed his second helping of turkey, "This is the best Thanksgiving Meal ever!!" The fact that he is becoming less picky of course didn't hurt, but we will still take it...in your face Grandma and Grandpa :-)
昨日の混雑で懲りた為パレードには行かずに家で他の５０万人の人達と同じようにテレビで見る事に。そして今年は初めてカーターとグラントも興味を示して一緒にパレードを見ました...半分だったけど次に何が来るか分かったのが面白かったです。アンナは朝からご飯作りで大忙し...でもあらかじめ作っておいた品別予定表にしたがって、全部最後に一緒に作り終わるようにする事が出来ました。ちょっと七面鳥に時間がかかったけど何とか終了！味は自分で言うのもなんだけど上出来！しかもカーターがお代わりをしながらこれが今まで食べたサンクスギビングのご飯の中で一番!!って：）やった〜！前より全然好き嫌いがなくなったおかげかもしれないけどそれでもうれし！リンダお婆ちゃんとスティーブお爺ちゃん、羨ましいでしょ：）



Unfortunately, Robert has to work tomorrow so our company hit the road around 4pm and we hit the hay! We had dreams of going to midnight madness at one of the outlet malls like we did two years ago, but better judgment won out when we thought about how much it would throw off Madison's sleeping schedule, so we will be heading out at the boring regular time of 8am or so tomorrow...unless we change our mind...I guess you will have to read tomorrow and find out :-) Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving yourself wherever you might be and took time out to remember who is responsible for all the blessings in your life...the answer is God in case you were wondering :-)
残念ながらロバートが明日仕事に行かなきゃ行けない為、ご飯を食べた後コネチカットに帰る用意をすることに...こっちではサンクスギビングの次の日に特別にある安売りの買い物に行くのが有名なんだけど、やっぱりマディソンの事を考えると朝の１時に買い物に行って、マディソンの睡眠予定を崩さない方がいいからとしょうがなく明日の朝普通に買い物に行く事に決定...アンナもデイブも大人になったもんだ！

Here Madison is playing with her toy... We totally forgot about this toy sitting in the basement until Grant confessed to me right before he left that he was playing with Madison's toy... Thanks Grant!
これは、寝る前に座っておもちゃで遊んでいるマディソン...このおもちゃが下にあった事をすっかり忘れていました。グラントが思い出させてくれました。