Catching up! Family movie night, Kua ‘Aina Burger, Super Bowl 49 and lunch with good friends...

How are you doing? Are you glad today is Friday? I sure am! I am *so* ready for the weekend (although I have a meeting tonight) However, I am still pretty happy the weekend is here. Let me go and grab a hot cocoa and let's sit for a couple minutes together and catch up with what's been up over here. : ) You know...nothing all too major, just the day to day type of life things. But those are always my most favorite types of posts to read anyway. : ) K...brb, going to go and grab that cocoa. K, I'm back. : ) Let's see, what have I been up to. Hmmm. (thinking) Well, last Friday, Noboru and I went to Costco Chiba New Town. Just to get a few things. Frozen pizzas for nights when we're so busy, say for example if one of my meetings is happening. So buy a bag of salad at the store, throw 2 of those frozen pizzas in the oven, since there are 4 of us here and...granted not a perfect dinner but it sort of covers those super busy...nothing you can do about it..type a nights...when you are at a meeting for 2 plus hours. So for our family, it helps me a ton knowing they're in the freezer and can be pulled out on crazy night like that. Super helpful. Also picked fresh pasta, because I knew I was to be making chicken parmesan on top of pasta. I already made it and it was delicious. One of those packs fed the 4 of us. So we can get 2 dinners from that double pack of fresh pasta. Mozzarella, some of that went for the chicken parmesan and the other pack and a half can go to homemade pizza night (that hasn't happened yet, but it's now a possibility since I have the ingredients in the fridge and pantry.) Ughhh, what else. Tortillas, big hunk of cheese and a roasted chicken for Saturday nights supper. And laundry soap/detergent. 

We did have lunch there, last Friday. I had the curry soup. Noboru had a hot dog and a soda. 

Same day, January 30th. Was expected to snow in our area. It did, which is pictured here. However it snowed for probably 3 minutes max and it didn't stick to the roads or anything. As soon as it hit the ground it sort of melted to drizzly thick gloppy rain. It also snowed and I keep forgetting to say this... it snowed January 1st....for a grand total of 2 minutes. @_@ So while snow has hit our town, ehh. True. However. I am unsure if if it really *counts*...counts. Does that make sense. I hear it snowed in Tokyo even. And stuck to the ground last week. But...not in our part of Chiba at all. Super weird. : ) 

When I was teaching English in Japan a couple years back. I bought myself a cute calendar to keep track of which school, I'd be at, since I was teaching at 2 different hoikuens. It was only about 1500 yen ($13 US) but since I was working, I thought...I should have a cute calendar. I need to whip it out in front of people...my work partner, 2 principals. To check my date book and whatnot. But now that I'm a stay at home mom. I tend to buy my calendars at the Daiso. I guess, I really don't have anyone major...that I need to pull my date book out and in front of. Sure yes...I could spend more on a calendar. Of course. But...to me...I really don't see the need. I have been a yakuin (PTA) member this whole past year and December 2013 I went to the Daiso and the selection was pretty great to get a calendar for last year. However this year...I figured, my yakuin year is coming to a close, I wouldn't need a date book this year. I write the kids events on our calendar on the fridge. However at my last meeting...I needed to write about 3 different dates down. I no longer had a current calendar. And I really felt out of my element needing one and not having one. So last Friday, I thought...I hope the Daiso has calendars...but considering it was nearly Feb..I was not so sure at the end of January they'd even have any left. I bought this January 30th. So, I went there last Friday after Costco. I walked all over the Daiso. Couldn't find a thing. Was about to go and ask the cashier, when I saw the tiniest sliver of leftover...calendars. Yep, you guessed it...the ones that didn't sell. @_@ Holy goodness...why did I wait so long. You know...I am human. Hind sights 20/20, we all know that. Woulda coulda shoulda. Should I go to the book store and spend 1000 yen on one, I pondered. No! I'll need one quite a bit until the end of March. So a 100 yen one is more than enough. I grabbed one...this one and went and paid and checked out. And sure why not...I'll just pencil in all my...observation days and whatnot in this one for this year now too. Since I have it..might as well make use of it. : ) Besides..flannel shirts and flannel scarves were rather... the "it" items to wear this winter so...at least I won't feel too dorky with it. : ) Though...might look a bit hot in the Japanese summer, lol.  Hahaha. 

And still January 30th. I know this looks exactly like my niku jaga, that I usually make with pork. However, this was made with chicken. I have made this twice so far. Early January and on January 30th. It's same recipe as nikue jaga. It comes out so good. We eat it like a chicken bowl, meaning on top of rice. It's really good. : ) Quick, fast and cheap!

The very next night.  January 31st. I preheated the oven and put the rotisserie chicken into the oven, so it could get hot and a crispy skin again. I meanwhile made mashed potatoes, poultry gravy and some corn. It was a pretty easy Saturday night dinner. It was a family movie night for us. Because I had no meetings last weekend. And we just sorta wanted to kick it here at home and relax and have a delicious, but fairly easy dinner at home. : )

While, I got the dishes put into the dishwasher, the kids went upstairs and quickly took a shower. I also popped some popcorn. The boys came downstairs in their PJs. And all 4 of us watched Labyrinth. We had popcorn, chocolate raisins or Kit Kats for whoever wanted. : ) As usual Noah zonked out to the world. Noboru carried him upstairs. Noboru and Branden played an airplane game on both of their Nexus, while I jumped in the shower real quick. Branden was sort of exhausted, because he has been studying earlier that day and still has been studying like crazy for his huge test coming Feb 12th. So he went upstairs to his room, but he said he'd play Mine Craft for a bit in his room first. I heard when he switched his lamp on his night stand...so he stayed up for about 20 extra minutes. Meanwhile Noboru and I started to watch Annabelle. It was a good movie. And it was scary! Really scary. : ) I think this is coming to movie theaters here in Japan at the end of February. 

Sunday, the day after that, Feb 1st, the family plan was to get ourselves to Makuhari and to Urayasu ...to our favorite burger place and also to the new Aeon Mall. Remember we went to the Makuhari Aeon mall, once before...I blogged about it too. We had the Hawaiian shrimp there. Anyway, we wanted to go to Ikspiari and have Kua 'Aina Burger again. And also, in the magazine Biteki, a product was in there. A fairly new product, I think it came out last year. Anyway I had mentioned to Noboru the night of my last yakuin meeting, that I wanted to try it. However there was no rush and it was more a...just in passing thing that I mentioned. And so a week later...as we were planning our burger plan. Noboru mentioned weren't you looking for something from Shu Uemura??? I said yes but no rush and that's when he said...since we are going to Kua 'Aina Burger anyway and it is already along the way and since...this is the only Free standing Shu Uemura in all of Chiba (he checked their website in Japanese, lol...he's a planner a good planner). Sure there are a few small Shu make up counters around... but not too many. And from where we live...our nearest is this huge free standing store at Aeon Makuhari or a small beauty counter in Mito Ibaraki inside a mall. Again though, it wasn't a purchase I needed immediately or there was a rush to get it or anything like life threatening that I needed. Frankly...Summer 2015 would be more than fine too. It was just...we were going to be in that round about area...and you know, we are very rarely in that area to begin with and you guys know that. : ) So...since we were going to be there anyways...like Noboru said...this was the chance. He said...do you want to swing by the Shu Uemura  store...it's your chance? I said sure, what the heck. I was in there for maybe 10 minutes the longest. I had my magazine in my hand, she knew right away what I was interested...she color matched me. And we bought it and left. It's my Valentine's gift from Noboru. Which is why...I'm not sharing the pic of it now. But yep,within 20 minutes we arrived at the mall, parked our car in the close to the entrance, parking for EV cars, charged up Olive while we shopped and we zipped in and out early and headed to Ikspiari. We did window shop and walk around Ikspiari but we didn't buy anything. Oh wait...we bought the boys each some jelly beans from Sony Plaza. 

I ordered what I always order. The chargrilled teriyaki chicken breast sandwich. And onion rings. My drink was guava juice. And Noboru's burger in the background. Everyone always takes their onions off their burger and puts them on a side plate for me. While I do like onions, gee, it's not like I'm an onion fanatic though. hahaha. I did eat 1 extra onion slice though. 

Branden and Noah's chargrilled cheeseburger combos. It was a nice early dinner. It was around 3pm. Noboru is thinking about purchasing a small drone for his Valentine's Day present this year. It flies, it records. He's still researching right now. As for me, I have been putting a few treats here and there away. Nothing major. But...I think they will enjoy. : )

Monday, Feb 2nd, Japan time...but Super Bowl Sunday in America!!! As soon as I sent the boys to school, it was Super Bowl watching time for Noboru and I. Super Bowl #49. The Seattle Seahawks VS. The New England Patriots. The Patriots won. However, I have to say, they both played a fantastic game. They both wanted this win badly. And the game was very good. Because it was such a close game. It was truly any body's game for most of the game. Last year, my favorite team on the planet, the Denver Broncos went to the super bowl. And we played miserably! It wasn't a close game at all, it was a massacre. We lost and lost BIG TIME. By half time it was like...well this game is pretty much over with! Let's just slink on home ya'll. : (  And believe me...I love the Broncos. You all know, that I do! But this Super Bowl this year was a real nail biter...again it was a hard fought game. Everyone I know, enjoyed the game this year. Both teams played super well. Anyway...in my mind...both teams should be proud. They both played at their best! : ) I also loved the half time show! Amazing. : ) And the commercials are always something I look forward to too. : )  In America...super bowl commercials are always the new ones...because they know the whole country is watching. : )

Wednesday, February 4th at 11;30am, I met up with my 2 most favorite girlfriends. The 3 of us always have a blast when we 3 get together.

We went to Coco's for lunch, they have one of the best drink bars in Japan. My friends love their selection of teas. They have a ton of flavors and varieties. So each of them picked a delicious tea. I enjoyed their hot cocoa. They make the best tasting hot cocoa. I also picked a soda and had that when my meal came. We sat there until around 2:10pm. So for a few hours we got to unwind and have have fun, while eating our pasta sets and salads.

We 3 have been friends for a very long time. Years and years. We go to movies together and lunch together. One has known me since Branden was in yochien and the other one moved and started our yochien when her daughter and Noah first started yochien. So we 3 have known each other for ages. Our personalities just mesh together really well. We joke...we laugh. I feel like I can talk about anything with these 2.  They both have 2 daughters each. One has an 8th grade daughter and a 5th grade daughter. The other one has an 8th grade daughter and a 3rd grade daughter (Noah's age and former classmate). We're thinking about going to the movies soon. March maybe. : ) Having friendships in real life and in person is so important..friends you can talk with and laugh with. : )

I have a yakuin meeting tonight. It will be about the final party we will be hosting. The good bye to the 6th graders party. I think tonights meeting might run a little long. How many presents do each of us need to buy? Go through the games once again. We did pass the kids club kairanban around last week. I collected the one for my area already and returned it to the prez days and days ago. So we have to go through a few extra things tonight as well. Branden gets out of school today at 3;20pm and Noah gets out at 3:45pm. I meanwhile have to jump in the shower now and put my make up on, blow dry my hair etc. To slowly get myself ready for this meeting. We are having curry for supper tonight, because I needed something I could make in the day since...like I said I have that meeting tonight. I guess I could grumble and bitch about the meeting tonight, but....I'm totally not going to.  Because for real..it's happening tonight whether I like it or not. So, since I am going anyways...I might as well go on a positive note...besides...it is *so* almost over and done with. And the ladies are fantastic too. Really good group of ladies. So...best for me to just make the best of it...I say. : )  Plus the prez and my fellow vp and I have a lunch date this coming week too. I'm looking forward to that. I can do this meeting tonight no problem...I've got this. : ) Have a wonderful weekend everyone. : )

PS...we're going to Hakone this month. Staying a night at the hotel. Soaking in the coffee and wine and other onsen too. I can't wait! : )

National Foundation Day...a holiday in Japan, day off school. So, mini getaway! Palm Terrace Hotel, Kua’Aina Burger at Ikspiari and Blue Water Shrimp at Aeon Makuhari Shintoshin

Tuesday, February 11th was a holiday here in Japan. School would be closed, so the perfect time to have a little getaway/overnight stay. Last month, we decided to book a hotel stay at that hotel near Tokyo Disney. We have 4 free hotel stays to use up, before the end of March, don't think we can use up all 4, but we at least used up 1, for this little trip. Plus it gave us something to look forward to, this little mini over night get away. : ) Then, the snow storm happened and we wondered if we would indeed be able to make it? But it turns out we did. : ) So, Monday as soon as the boys got out of school, they came home, dropped off their randoseru/backpacks. Noah did his homework since he got off school at 3pm and we waited for Branden to get off at 3:45pm. Branden came home dropped off his stuff and we hit the road immediately. Everyone had an overnight bag packed beforehand. Just jammies/PJs, next days clothes, not too much. : ) Also I know different areas of Japan, got hit with different amounts of snow, here are the pics of the snow in Izai/Chiba New Town. Where we live.... we also got slammed with snow! And Chiba New Town/Inzai was also slammed, with a ton of snow. This pic was taken in Chiba New Town. Lots of snow on the side of the road. This was taken Monday evening, so a couple days since the snow came (Saturday), it still had not melted at all. In fact it snowed a bit more even. 

Chiba New Town, a bit more city-ish but again tons of snow, snow in the middle of the road/median, huge amounts of snow the the right. Again not melted at all. And the roads start to freeze as it turns to night, the streets become black ice. Driving on a sheet of ice. Same for our area as well. 

Still Chiba New Town, look at the level of snow. 

Chiba New Town, 1 car abandoned pictured here. Snow all over the road and again once the sun sets the roads will become a sheet of ice. Usually snow melts in a day. Not this time....let's see, it snowed last Saturday and Monday it will still here. It even started lightly snowing on Tuesday as we were driving back to home. @.@

Look at the street on our side of the road, where's our driving lane? Under snow, that's where. Hahaha. : ) Shovels were sold out everywhere. It just....never snows like this here... really. So sorta really weird. 

Sun is indeed setting... there is ice patches on the road already. 

There was still the same amount of snow there Tuesday when we came back home. And I was just at Costco Chiba New Town yesterday and yes still snow on Wednesday. And snow is supposed to hit us yet again this coming Friday/tomorrow. Anyway....we made it to Urayasu just fine, where the hotel is and Ikspiari is. : )  Checked into the hotel, dropped our stuff in the room and headed to the mall for dinner. 

Walking around Urayasu ready to grab a bite to eat! : )

Yumm, Kua'Aina Burger! We have been thinking about you, for the past couple weeks, almost month, we were so ready. : ) 

Noah picked the chicken strips and he shared fries with Noboru. Last time we ordered Noah his own fries and it was just, way too many fries, we didn't eat them all, so this time, we didn't make the same mistake. 

 Noboru and Branden both had picked the cheeseburger and fries. We all had sodas. 

I had the teriyaki chicken sandwich and half onion rings, half fries. It was a delicious dinner, we were relaxed and happy. We walked around the mall a bit, the boys each got a fish pen at Sony Plaza and we headed back to the hotel. 

We went to Lawson's in the hotel, we each picked a drink and a snack, went back to our room. We had eclairs, Noboru picked instant ramen or udon. We each showered and we again...just relaxed in the room. Went to sleep after an hour or two. And I woke up first, brushed my teeth, did my hair and makeup, got dressed, woke up everyone else. And we went downstairs to the breakfast buffet. 

The buffet here is always pretty cheap, I think the kids are 500 yen each. Adults are 1000 yen. So not a bad price for Japan. And we really filled up. It was a nice leisurely breakfast, because we had planned heading to the new Aeon Makuhari mall, omg, is it huge! So since the mall didn't open until 10am, we just slowly enjoyed breakfast. It was nice. 

I had pancakes, croissants, cheese bread, and the omelets, I made sandwiches out of omelets. : )

There was a stamp rally at the hotel for kids. 

I sliced my croissant in half and put the omelet in there. lol. : ) 

A pretty good selection. 

We stayed at the Palm Terrace Hotel (for free) and had a very affordable breakfast the next morning. It was an excellent way to spend the day off school we thought. : )  

This is the Lawson in the hotel. And behind that is a Disney store. 

This may be one of the biggest Aeon malls (I think this is #3 biggest of the Aeons, but don't quote me on that, lol), and they do have some pretty awesome stores in there, but, it's a pain walking around there. Imo. I much prefer a regular Aeon. :  ) The mall is broken up in pieces and put together by these walkways pictured here. There is 1 kid cluster, so if you want to check out kids clothes for example, you have to walk to the kids cluster part of the mall. We were looking for shoes for Branden, so we had to walk the entire length of the mall to look for sports shoes in the sports cluster part of the mall, long long walk ways between each cluster. We parked at the Grand mall cluster, where the Blue Water Shrimp was. And main food court, however the sports shoe cluster was the opposite end of the entire mall, so we walked through many a clusters, pet store cluster that had a pet shop and pet pool @.@ All and everything for your pets needs inside the pet cluster, then walked through the kids cluster all the way to sports cluster at the opposite end of the mall. Then walked passed every cluster taking the walk ways back, there are windows and also parts where there are no windows and since the weather is freezing, we would walk through overly heated mall temps, then freezing outside temps, cluster,cluster, cluster walk way... freezing walkway to another cluster of the mall. And the corridors to the walkways were quite narrow and since everyone was stopped and blocking walking traffic, it was hard to walk around the hoards of people and folks. Just the whole cluster cluster, narrow corridor, walkway was weird. Maybe in Spring or in warmer weather, I'd feel differently. The positive and bright side is...you will definitely get your daily exercise coming here! : )

A walkway, we walked this to get to the sports area. See Costco in the back, sorta smack dab between all the clusters of Aeon Makuhari. Hahaha. : ) 

This is the grand mall part, whatever that means. But the main food court is in there, though there is a smaller food court in the kids section, at least I think it was in the kids section, we got Noah's KFC from there though. Put it this way...if you went with a friend, take your phone, you will more then likely get lost if you guys separate and go and look at different stuff. : )

I had heard of this store, from Denmark. we walked around, didn't buy anything. There was however, a Hawaiian shop and it knocked my socks off, the prices were fair/comparable. Meaning a big and cute picture frame for 1200 yen/ 1400 yen. Just all sorts of cool stuff in the stuff from the Hawaii store. 

OMG! A free standing Kiehl's! I love Kiehl's! If I didn't restock in Denver, I would have bought something in there. I know Kiehl's delivers in Japan, but shoot, I'd go back to this mall just for the Kiehl's and the Hawaiian store. They also had a big H&M store in there too. Yay!

Blue Water Shrimp. They've had one in Yokohama for a while now. But now they have one in Makuhari now too. Very cool. We've been to the original one in Honolulu many times. 

Prices were comparable to the prices in Hawaii. Not double the cost at all. Same price/cost. 

Next to the Blue Water Shrimp is Honolulu Coffee. 

We checked out Blue Water, but we walked the entire length of the mall, corridors, walkways and clusters and all, to get to the sports section. We wanted the blue ones in this pic to the right, behind the pink shoes. The blue with pink laces. Price is reasonable for Branden's shoe size. However, same as last week, they had 25.5cm. But Branden needs a 26cm size. His shoes he's been wearing since last June are 25cm and he needs a 26cm. We tried the 25.5 and there's almost no room to grow at all. So we left this mall with no shoes and we checked every shoe store in the whole mall and nothing. : ( Gah!!!! 

We thought this was cool! Here at this pizza place you can bake your own pizza that you make. : ) We make ours at home from scratch, so we don't need this place personally.... but this is very cool for folks who might not get the opportunity to make one at home. 2 thumbs way up for this place! : ) 

We did pick up Noah some lunch at KFC in the smaller food court along the way. In another cluster/section/area. 

We 3 picked spicy garlic shrimp. We picked the 10 pieces of shrimp., came with a scoop of rice and a salad.  

The three of us loved it! It tasted the same. Price was the same. It was really nice. Good thing, Noboru checked online last week, all the restaurants this mall had, we had been waiting to try this shrimp since last week. : )  We did walk around the mall for about an hour after eating our lunch. So, it would be fair to say we walked ourselves silly Tuesday. Hahaha. 10,000 steps easy! We walked from one end of the mall and back again, we also like I said walked around this grand part of the mall all levels for a good hour on top of that too. We then headed to the car and headed home via Chiba New Town.  About 2 and a half hours later after lunch, we had dinner.....

We went to the Ohsho in Chiba New Town/Inzai for supper. Noah had ramen and karaage.

We all had plenty to eat. It was a lovely 24 hours. It was just a nice little get away. We didn't even get away very far. Hahaha. : ) Still in Chiba. But...it did us all, a world of good. : ) 

Snow on Tuesday, in Chiba New Town. Did it melt away? Nope, as you can see, it is still here. And still there yesterday, as I went to Costco yesterday. And like I said, snow is expected to hit us tomorrow all over again. @.@ Holy goodness! : ) 

Snow still here on the way home....though we were making 1 last pit stop to Narita in hopes to find Branden his shoes in 26cm. 

Snow level is pretty high. Again not Hokkaido type high, but totally high levels for here. 

Now we were in Narita, this is a rice field right near the Aeon mall in Narita. 

The fish pen, both Branden and Noah each got a fish pen like this. 

Sometimes, it seems we have lady luck on our side, which is sorta nice considering it took us ages to track down Branden's shoes anyway. You will not believe this but...the same exact shoes we were looking for, were on sale for 2980 yen. Under $30 US. @.@ And the reason was, they just happened to be the last pair..the other shoes had actual reasons/notes jotted and written on the tag that said defective or something...these were fine and the reason was blank so, we tracked down and kindly asked the person working at Sports Authority and they said these were the last pair so that's why they were marked down! At Aeon Makuhari, they were nearly 6000 yen! $60US. @.@ And yes size 26cm. Last pair, so marked down? We'll take em'! And we did check these shoes out... with a fine tooth comb so to speak and they are perfect. 

Nice color with room to grow.

Adidas on the toe. Just really nice and the price was awesome. 

Also, Branden got a sweatshirt from Uniqlo, from the men's department. Very cute. :  ) Anyway that was our over night trip in a nut shell. : )