Thankful Tree

Happy November

November, when fall turns crisper, winter creeps in, and hearts are filled with gratitude. One way we celebrate gratitude in our family is a thankful tree; a tradition we started  six years ago. What's a thankful tree? Basically, it's a way to share something we are thankful for each day. Every night at dinner, each person says something they are thankful for - no repeats allowed - and then we write it on a leaf and glue them on or thankful tree. 

Each year I sketch a tree on a big sheet of paper from a craft roll (you can find it at hobby lobby, michaels, or on amazon, or from Melissa and Doug) My tree is usually about 4 feet tall.

 I start sketching branches, from the top, keeping in mind that trees are naturally perfectly imperfect, so your tree should be too, don't get hung up on perfection.  Just like real life  - it isn't perfect, but there is still so much to be grateful for. Focusing on the million little good things makes your tree so much more perfect! I just use the Crayola Super Tips. 

Once I get the branches drawn, I start adding lines to look like bark. If you check out my highlights on Instagram I talk about the process, which took about 30 minutes from cutting the paper to hanging it up.

One of my traditions is to add a heart knot with our name and year.  

If you aren't a DIY fan, but like the idea of a Thankful tree, I've seen several options this year - there are several printables on Etsy, and a few premade options as well, Target is even carrying one this year. Another option is a thankful pumpkin. One of my friends gets a craft pumpkin and they write what they are thankful for on the pumpkin each night.

For the past 4 or 5 years I've bought this leaf garland, and cut it apart, but this year I discovered these cute place cards, so we'll be using both this year. 

Last year I saved a lot of our leaves. As you can see, anything goes as far as what we are thankful for! Cookies, technology, friends and family, earth, puppies, nature, electricity, and quiet all made the list last year. 

I love the opportunity to talk with the littles about all the things we have to be grateful for. Hearing what everyone comes up with each day is so fun, and very often funny - today we started with gravity, school, my clean room, treats, and books. 

I hope your November is filled with good food, fun, family, friends, and gratitude. 

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Sushi Sushi Sushi!!!

How does a picky eater from small town Montana become a Sushi aficionado? I don’t know. It just happened. I think along with the rest of the Western world I first tried sushi because I thought it was exotic and sophisticated. The really odd thing is that I didn’t even eat fish the time I first tried sushi! I couldn’t stand the fish. But for some reason the thought of eating it raw was intriguing.

Now I’ve eaten sushi all over from dives here in Colorado, to the highly regarded Sushi Den Sushi Roku in Las Vegas and Kai Sushi in Maui. I’ve had great sushi, bad sushi and so-so sushi.

When it comes to sushi, more often than not I am accompanied by one of my dearest friends. We share a love of the law, fashion, hiking, snowboarding and sushi, among other things. We also share a love of men who are not so fond of sushi. As such we often spend girls nights filling our bellies with wriggling pieces of fresh fish.

Last night Mary and I went to one of her favorite sushi restaurants, Sushi Hai, which is located in the uber trendy uber cute Highlands neighborhood in North West Denver. http://sushihai.com/index.shtml As always it was a great time with great food.

Our Order was as follows:

Shrimp & Vegetable Tempura
Salmon Avocado Roll
Unagi (Freshwater Eel & Cucumber) Roll
Lobster Tempura Roll
# NINE  - The # NINE is a Crab & Tempura Shrimp roll topped with Salmon, Avocado and Strawberries.

The Sushi was fresh & flavorful. The tempura was light & delicious. The shrimp was succulent and the veggies were fresh & crisp. The vegetables included sweet potato, zucchini, carrots, green beans, onions & red bell pepper. I got quite the zesty surprise when I tried the pepper, thinking it was a carrot, but it was fantastic!

And now for the Score…

The tempura gets 4/5 Stars
The Salmon Avocado Roll gets 3/5 Stars – it was fine, not great
The Unagi Roll was the loser of the evening. It was far too fishy. 1/5 Stars
The Lobster Tempura Roll gets 4/5 Stars
The # NINE gets a stunning 5/5 Stars  Whoever thought of puting strawberries with sushi was a genius!  The #NINE was amazing - sweet & savory, fresh & fruity... In the words of Rachael Ray “Yummo!”
Over all Sushi Hai gets a 4/5 Star Rating.

If you’re in the Highlands Neighborhood be sure to check out Sushi Hai. http://sushihai.com/index.shtml

Sushi Katsu
On a more adventurous night Mary and I gave Sushi Katsu a run for their sushi. Mary had just landed from a business trip, I had just returned from DIA for the second time in 2 days unable to get a flight to OKC due to record ice storms. The perfect solution to too many hours in airports? All you can eat sushi? Ok.

As we were exploring the sushi listings at peak dinning time on that Friday night we came across an interesting listing – all you can eat sushi. We giggled and thought why not. We then embarked on a very serious mission to master all you can eat sushi. We greedily order roll afer roll, piece after piece. When the waitress came to take our order she said “Just you two?” Yes we replied. She then explained the catch to all you can eat sushi: “You must eat everything you order – no eat it – pay full price”. Having been saved from what could have been a very, very large bill, we paired down our order and giddily awaited our food to arrive.

To say we ordered a lot of food would be an understatement. To say that the sushi chefs were taking bets on how these two little girls were going to finish over $125.00 worth of sushi would be accurate (Full price for what we originally ordered was over $200 worth of Sushi!).

The sushi was fresh and flavorful. We ate our way through the Alaskan Roll, Fresh Water Eel, Caterpillar Roll, Spicy Tuna Roll, Lobster Roll, Dragon Roll, Rainbow Roll, Denver Roll, Crunch Mushrooms, Goyza, Tempura, Albacore, Yellowtail, Halibut, Scallops and a first for Mary Salmon Roe to name a few.

One of our Many Plates of Sushi

We ate our weight in sushi and almost every bite was worth it. The Scallops were not so good, too much milky sauce and just an all around off flavor. Mary wasn’t a fan of the Salmon Roe, but that was due to personal preference, not to the quality of the food. Over all the food was great and we got a kick out of the all you can eat adventure. I’m not sure which Sushi Chef lost the bet, but I’m sure he was entertained enough that he didn’t mind losing.

We Did It! Every last grain of rice! We win Sushi Katsu!
You should definitely check out Sushi Katsu http://www.katsusushi.net/