The Beaty's come to town

Saori's sister Ayumi and her husband Tim came to visit us for a few days while Tim inteviewed at one of the local hospitals.

We exchanged and opened presents on the first night; Tim and Ayumi got me a nice glass jar for tea, with a slate surface for writing in chalk. While they were here, we played a lot of Wii and bananagrams, and had a few really good dinners. Saori and Ayumi cooked us nabe which is a kind of Japanese hotpot, and then last night we had okonomi-yaki which is pronounced like "Economy"+ "yaki" which is like "teriyaki". It was pretty good stuff. The day after Tim's interview, the two of them borrowed Saori's car and drove up to the Grand Canyon for a night.

While they were gone friday, I went to the vet to pick up some more cat food, and then we hit the UPS store to send out some packages. Saori had a package she was sending to Japan, and the clerk told her that the lowest cost was about $140. "UPS doesn't actually do the international mailing," the clerk admitted, "we mark it up thirty to forty percent." We thanked the clerk for his candor, and decided to hit up the post office to send the Japanese package, although I still sent out a set of boxes for Salt Lake and also one to Oklahoma. That night, we drove to mom's house and grabbed burritos at the Ahwatukee Fillibertos before playing a few great rounds of Scattergories.

Saturday, we had a late start to the day, but we drove around looking for ski pants since they're pretty essential gear for skiing. We waded through the masses of people at Christown mall to the Big 5 sports before I could tackle a sales rep as he sprinted down the asile. "Ski pants? We didn't get a shipment this year."

Listening to our stomachs, we continued to Carls Jr. Burger, for a change, and were pleasantly surprised. They've been reworking the menu and the restaurant concept- all the burgers are charbroiled now, the fries are better, and apparently they've been trying to beat their competitors for customer service. Overall a very good experience.

We decided to go straight to the source, and hit Ski Pro, where the selection is as high as the prices. There were a few good deals going on, after about two hours of trying on pants, looking at features, quality, price, etc. we both found a pair. I was really happy with mine- nondescript black ski pants from Columbia for about $60, down from $100. They're going to last me a long time.

Tim and Ayumi came back that night, and we played more Wii games and bananagrams.
It was a pretty quick trip, we drove them to the airport this morning before hitting the nearest available waffle house. I'm not sure if its in "stuff white people like" (it may fall under the breakfast restaurants category) but they do serve up a good quick breakfast without much pretense, and good friendly service.