All of this post happened last week. But since we were busy enjoying it so much. I couldn't find the time to post it up. A week delayed but that's okay. This is what we did last Tuesday, Noah's first official day on Spring break. We took him fishing. At a local creek in our town. Tuesday was a lovely day weather wise. The weather forecast said possible chance of rain. It didn't rain all day long. I kept telling my husband, "you watch, if it does rain at all, it will rain right before we have our BBQ" We joked and laughed about it. Hoping it wouldn't happen, but sorta making light of it, if it did. We fished here for about an hour and a half. And it was about an hour and a half before Branden would get off of school. And this creek is pretty close to Branden's school, and the town is so quiet and with so many rice fields at every which way and wide open spaces we can actually hear the school bell chime when the bell rings.
Rice fields behind and the school is actually in the background too. Our house is on the opposite side of the school. Not on this side of the school or on this side where the creek is, we actually live on the opposite side of the school near some other rice fields. Not near this creek. We do live near creeks but not this particular creek. Okay TMI. ; )
Okay I zoomed up a tad. See that nice big modern newly built school sorta elevated? That's Branden's elementary school. It's a really nice elementary school. Central heating and everything. His school is awesome.
Father and son walking down getting ready to get their fishing on!!! ; )
Playing and dancing and happy. And look at that sky behind. Big clouds loomed, we wondered "hmm maybe it will rain after all" Fishing was fun for them. They fished and fished and fished some more. They released a few back before we left. We heard the school bell chime. And we gathered our stuff, hopped in the MPV and drove to the school to pick up Branden. Nothing like the entire family with smiling faces picking you up! B happily got in the car and we headed home. The meat by the way was already sliced and marinating with sauce in the fridge. And the rice cooker had been programmed to have the rice ready at 3pm. So we knew it was just about finished when we got home.
Here's a pic of Noah fishing from last Tuesday!
Noboru loves fishing. Where I enjoy blogging when I have the spare time. That's very much the way my husband feels about fishing. And with so many canals and creeks around where we live, and with an ocean pretty close to us. He's in hog heaven for much of the year regarding his fishing. He fishes with a few of his male coworkers, his buddies. And he also takes the boys when they have off school. I go sometimes. Granted I really don't care for it. I find it pretty boring. But I go because I know it makes him happy. And he never complains when we go shopping and I try on outfit after outfit. Or get sucked into a makeup counter. So if he can go and still smile and not complain I have to do the same too. And I do. : ) And being married since 1997 we are most definitely not newlyweds here. But respect for each other we have always had and sorry if this causes an eye roll so be it, but my husband is my best friend, he really is. ; )
While I clicked this picture, Branden was upstairs changing his school clothes to his house clothes. Noah was also changing into sweatpants. This is a house where we don't put on airs. Sweatpants and long sleeve tees for the kids and hubby. And cropped wide leg black yoga pants with pink 3/4 sleeve shirt and a pony tail for me. Not a stitching of make up on. The meat was marinating for most of the day. We marinate it in the sauce on the right. And we use the sauce on the left as our dunking sauce. The veggies were also lightly marinating in sauce last Tuesday.
And then poof guess what happens. Literally minutes after I pulled the meat from the fridge? Rain! Not a down pour. Not raining cats and dogs. Just a sprinkling. As you can see the few light sprinkles on the patio window. But yup, we were right. It rained for our BBQ! We got a chuckle out of that! And no...it most certainly did not stop our BBQ one bit. : )
Skinless boneless breast meat and I cut off all funky and fatty bits. Charcoal BBQ's give the meat the best flavor. Man this was good.
I had the kids sit down to eat first, I wanted them to eat while it was hot. Noboru had his beef and pork grilling. We use plastic mats when it's just regular meal time and only pull out the cloth ones when it's holiday meals or when company comes over. Shhh. ; ) But for just us, we keep it simple and easy wipe downs of the mats is totally appreciated. Especially for your average night.
Everyone is eating. Talking and eating, talking and eating. We heard every detail of Branden's school day. Right down to what he had for lunch (of course we could read it on the school menu) but getting his version about lunch is always interesting. Some pretty funny stuff happens at lunch time in his class. They do not have lunch in a big lunch room like how we do it in the US. Here, they have lunch in their own individual class. So they eat with just their own class and their own teacher.
Noah looking at his big brother listening and hanging onto every single word. Noboru eating and listening. And me listening and taking one of the last pictures before I put my camera away and enjoyed our private time, our meal time.
My serving. We ate, we dunked we wrapped our meat with flat lettuce leaves. Not iceberg lettuce but a different kind. It was so good.
Now his eyes are fixed on daddy. Noah was now listening to a story from Noboru. Being the youngest in our family he does get to hear a whole heap of stories. Anyway this was my last shot of our BBQ from last Tuesday. We had a fantastic first day of Noah's start of Spring vacation. We fished, we BBQ'ed. It was a pretty great day.
Wednesday morning and Noah does what he usually does on the "weekends only". He's unloading the utensils from the dishwasher. You see, I'm a firm believer that chores are a good thing for kids. Granted we're not talking huge tasks, but tasks all the same. They make kids feel useful and productive. And I've been having them do that since Branden was a little guy. With Branden, when he was 2 years old, I had him start with tidying the shoes in the genkan. Put his toys in the toy box. Those were his 2 main tasks as a wee little 2 year old. Granted sometimes the shoes were not EXACT matches. Sometimes my shoe was paired with Noboru's shoe and we thought...what???? But try he did. And we applauded it. And he got so good, he whipped that genkan into shape like a pro in no time. Fast fwd. And Branden is now 8. I don't have my kids do tons and gobs of chores. I do want them being kids. And I know with all the extra curriculars B does, I don't wanna add extra stress. But chores he does do. Branden's chores are, he vacuums the stairs once a week. He makes his bed every morning. Keeps his room clean. I wash and fold his clothes but I place his clean folded clothes on his bed everyday and his chore is to put his clean clothes into the appropriate drawer, obviously I hang the hanging stuff. He also sets the bath at night. Granted we have buttons to turn the bath on from downstairs too. But rolling the bath cover on top and stuff he runs up and does every night in the colder months. And this is basically it. Not huge gobs of stuff but just enough to make him responsible. And he is. Now what are Noah's jobs? Well, when Noah was age 2, I had him start with the same job I started B with. Fixing the genkan everyday. And even at age 4, this is still Noah's daily chore. Every morning and every evening he fixes the shoes in the genkan. Our shoes are always straight and orderly thanks to Noah. Noah's other chore is, he has to put his clean clothes away into the appropriate drawers too. I place Noah's clean clothes on Noah's bed every day and when he comes back from school, he puts his underwear and undershirts in his underwear and his undershirt drawer. His shirts in his shirt drawer and his pants in his pants drawer and his sweatpants in his sweatpant drawer which is also his PJ drawer and so on. I watch and I sit on his bed and still watch but I be darned he gets it right and he does it and I am so proud of my son for doing this. He's growing into a wonderful responsible little boy. Granted I hang all his clothes that need to be hung. But helping out, he does do. Noah also is responsible for keeping his room clean meaning his toys have to go back into his toy box when he's done playing with them. Granted he's not perfect and I can tell you, I have stepped on my fair share of lego or train track to kill my foot! And have me limping ouch ouch ouch. I vacuum their rooms daily, wash their bedding weekly, keep their windows in the bedrooms sparkly clean. And the furniture dusted. All Noah has to do, is make sure his toys go into the toy box and his clothes go into the correct drawers. And he does. he's still in training. ; ) But he's doing fantastic. I also make sure Noah is the one who unpacks his obento when he gets home from yochien everyday in the afternoons and I am always standing by in case he needs my help. And he leaves it on the green counter for me every day. And I clap and whatnot. Well done Noah. And I go upstairs and make sure he takes all his yochien stuff off and get his stuff put away. He's really trying hard. And he's a good kid. What's in this picture? Well, on the weekends, I ask the kids to unload something in the dishwasher. Granted I do 95% of it but I do want them to help. Noah unloads the utensils every Saturday and Sunday. Not sharp knives and stuff, just forks, spoons, butter knives. And Branden unloads all the kids plates. They both do this every weekend. And I do the rest. With Spring break now in effect, Noah is now unloading the utensils everyday now. And Branden as soon as he gets off for his Spring break will be doing the kids plates daily as well. Good kids. Good good kids. And they do like helping out. It gives them a sense of pride and confidence that they can do stuff. ; )
Well done my son!!! You know which spot the kids spoons go, where the adult forks go, kids forks, and whatnot. What a good sweet kid you are! A very helpful boy!
And wanting to keep my boy a bit active, on his 2nd day off school. We baked a banana bread last Wednesday with 3 overripe bananas. Which made this bread so sweet and delicious. And Noah was taking a pic with Noboru's old cell, it still works, granted it can't make calls, but Noah charges it daily and the camera works and whatnot. ; )
About to mash those bananas.
Creamy smooth batter and about to add some pecans.
And done! You baked a very delicious banana bread my little cutie pie!
And right before we went to go and pick up Branden. I had Noah help make some lemonade. I had him shake the bottle. I said....shake, shake shake. Shake, shake shake. And he did! All in all, Noah enjoyed his first week off last week. He was off from last Monday at 11:30am. That's when his Spring break began. He fished, he enjoyed BBQ. He baked banana bread with mommy. We did laundry together. Another day, we went out in the backyard together and we played kick ball with each other. I loved that! We had so much fun doing that. We've worked on some flash cards. The # cards. he can count 1-100 in English and Japanese (I should have him learn 100-200 during Spring break). I have an animal flashcard deck as well and he can say them all in English obviously and 90% of them in Japanese. Like monkey and horse and stuff he knows in Japanese, easily. But for words like camel and armadillo in Japanese he forgets. But we're getting there. The phonics cards he loves. We also took time to enjoy lunch together everyday. And we also had down time of just vegging out together watching Tom and Jerry and Bugs Bunny. He is also aware he will be starting Kumon this year and he is okay with it. He knows that Branden will be in the actual same classroom with him so that's going to be nice and totally reassuring to have big brother sitting nearby. I also will be sitting in the classroom for probably the first 2 weeks until he gets used to it. Sitting on the parents seats toward the back quietly reading a book. I'm thinking sometime in April, May or June. Anyway that's what Noah did last week for his first week off Spring break. I will also be blogging Branden's Spring break as well, as soon as it starts though.
Let me give you some dates: Branden's last day of school is March 24th. March 23rd and March 24th are half days for Branden. He has already brought everything home already for the most part. Pianica is here at the house, his crayons, all his books.
The boys start school: Branden returns April 5th and Noah returns April 7th. So they will be out of school quite a bit and the rest and relaxation is going to do us all a world of good. They still have swimming though. That's year round and they both love it. We are still greatly wondering who will be Branden's 3rd grade teacher. Man or woman, nice or mean. We don't know. And half of his class will be split into another class. There are 20 kids in the ninensei #1 class and 20 kids in the ninensei #2 class (B's class) And this year, they will get 10 from each class. So it will still be 20 in each but they will be mixed from the 2 classes. Just when the kids are so used to each other have bonded for 2 years, eaten together daily 5 days a week. Etc etc. They will be split up. And the other classes parents we really don't know all that well and they really don't know us either. Talk about being taken out of your comfort zone. ; ) Granted, will we survive? Obviously, yes we all will. But it doesn't help the wondering and bit of butterflies we're all feeling. Either way, I'll blog it and that way you can all go through it with me, even by just virtually going through it with me. I'll feel, I'm not alone with you all reading and rooting us on. ; ) Ehhh, but that's not until April and no sense in losing sleep about it now. No sense in worrying about something I needn't worry about yet. In April, I'll let you all know how I'm feeling. ; ) ; )
Anyway you guys, our family had another first last week. It's a pretty big milestone as kids go. Noah had his training wheels taken off last week. I was going to put that at the end of this post. But you know what. When Branden had his training wheels taken off, I created a post especially for that. And I felt somehow horrible or bad if I would have put that major milestone for my youngest on the end of this post. So, I think the right thing to do, is to do the same that I did for B. And create a post highlighting just that very subject. About Noah's training wheels being taken off. So that's what I'm gonna do. That post will be coming shortly.
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