Thanksgiving in Yamagata

Chris has been planning to join his family in Japan for a while now. Today he arrived there and did it all as a surprise to the family. He did not tell them he was coming now but he did encourage Kiyomi to cook a Thanksgiving dinner anyway to maintain U.S. traditions. He brought the Stove Top with the plan to show up at the door and say, "I brought the stuffing." They don't cook turkey there but she was going to do chicken and potatoes. I wasn't allowed to post this in case they looked at my blog so I had to wait until the surprise part was over.

I got a voice message that Chris arrived before 9:00 PM our time last night. I was sad to miss the call but he said everything went fine. I'm anxious to hear the reaction of Kiyomi and the kids!

Update on Chris's family's response:

"Kiyomi was very surprised to see me. I came in the house and opened
the inner door to see who was in the living room. Jasmine spotted me
and said "Daddy!". Kiyomi had her back to me working on the computer
and said "It's just Jaelyn", but Jasmine kept saying "daddy, so Kiyomi
finally turned around to see me. She had this confused look on her
face like she couldn't tell if she was still asleep and dreaming, or
really awake. After a minute it sank in that I was really there,
after which came the obvious relief. Jaelyn wouldn't come over to me
for a minute, she had that same dazed look. After I went over and
picked her up and put her on my lap it took her about 30 seconds to
warm up to me, and then wouldn't let me out of her sight for days,
thinking I was going to leave again. It was a real trick getting her
in the van to leave the swimming lessons when I was staying behind to
watch Jordan and she was going home. She was sure I wasn't headed
home after. Anyway, they were all happy to see me. Kiyomi promptly
got sick. She thinks it was just that she could finally relax and so
her body just crashed. A couple days later she was back to her normal
self. Anyway, nothing spectacular, but definitely worth it."