Throwback Thursday...

We get a bunch of free tickets to this place every year. Some years we go and some years we don't. May 2010, our family went to the Narita Athletic Course, it's also called the Narita Airport Course, but there's nothing remotely airport-y about it. It's in my opinion more so, an athletic course. It's fun for adults, it's fun for kids. It's a good place to go and spend an afternoon. I'd say a few hours would be plenty. Don't bring your "good clothes" though... if you know what I mean. Go in your "play clothes" because you will most definitely get dirty. It's just dirt, so it all washes out okay, but most definitely...don't dress fancy shmancy. A t-shirt and a comfy pair of shorts and a pair of sneakers is perfect. : )  In this pic is Noboru, and Noah and Branden about to enter. : )

Noah swinging around.

Branden was doing this obstacle course thing. He did pretty well. We spent a good 2and a half hours there and that was plenty. The kids were sure tuckered out... after all that. : )

Anyway, we're flying out of Japan very soon. And I'll be catching up with you all, when I get back. So...that's about it ya'll...I'll be sure to catch up with you when I get back! : ) 

Noboru's birthday...The Narita Yume Bokujo, The Narita Airport Athletic Course and to the yakiniku restaurant afterwards

Sunday, January 18th, was Noboru's birthday. We had free tickets to go to the Narita Yume Bokujo. Our grocery store was giving out free entrance tickets, and each ticket was good for/up to 5 people per ticket. We thought that was pretty great so we wanted to go and enjoy. So Sunday morning, we all quickly got dressed. We also had a plan to go to another cool place after we were to leave the bokujo/farm, that we also had free entrance tickets for. So I packed the boys an extra set of clothes (emergency outfit, for in case they needed it) And we left the house for the entire day. Didn't come back home until after dinner. First stop...The Narita Yume Bokujo. : ) Pictured here.

It was about 10am -ish. we had all finished off the leftover homemade pizza we had for supper the night before that morning, so we were all stuffed. So we walked around and enjoyed. 

Ice cream fresh from the dairy farm. Yumm. : ) We knew we would be getting one before we left. : )

At the bokujo, there are a lot of free activities and also there are a bunch of pay activities. We were just going to spend an hour and a half there, so we just enjoyed the free activities.  This was free and the boys slid down and ran back up the hill and slid down again and again and again and again. 

Noah having fun...

Father and sons chatting about these moo moo cows. : )

We did buy some goat food, so the boys could feed the goats.

Branden feeding this spotted goat.

This goat wanted some hay, but Branden put up his hands in this picture and said..."I'm sorry, I don't have anymore to offer you." So, I gave the boys an extra 100 yen to go and buy 1 extra amount to feed the goats again. : )

Noah feeding a goat. A goat was walking over to Noah while I snapped this picture. : )

This was a free activity and the hay here was free. The sign said to grab a basket, pick a guinea pig and they will snuggle in the basket and stay there. The boys picked 1 each and in this picture Noah was feeding "his" guinea pig. 

The boys petting them. I told the boys to put their (the guinea pigs) backs facing the sun, so they'd warm up. These guinea pigs were in the right spot to get warm, got petted nicely. Some hay for snacka lackin'. They were all set.

Noah asking..."are you okay, how are you?" : ) 

Hi Mr. Dimples...time for the both of you to go get an alcohol spritz and to wash your hands. There was washing your hand stations all over with alcohol sprays all around the bokujo, as well as soap and sinks all around too. : ) The boys washed their hands and then it was time for ice cream. : ) And to head to destination #2.

Farm fresh chocolate chip ice cream. Delicious. Noah and I each picked chocolate chip. Noboru and Branden each picked vanilla. 

Bran enjoying his ice cream.

Branden also wanted a bottle of milk because his classmate said/mentioned how good the milk was so he wanted to try some. : )

It was a very nice Sunday. We hopped in the car. We did make a pit stop to a grocery store to purchase a bottle of drink for each of us. And to destination #2 we went. : )

How was the weather Sunday, January 18th? Absolutely freezing cold. As you can see in this picture, in the shade areas the dirt is frozen. Just about every part of Japan has gotten hit with snow this year (well not Okinawa of course). I even hear Hokkaido was hit with a blizzard a while back. As for our area of Chiba...the end part. Not a single dot of snow, this year so far, just cold as heck. 

We made it! We went to the Narita Airport Course. What is this place? It's an athletic course. You know...sorta how the US military has basic training...and you run through an obstacle course? Well sorta like that. There's 40 things you go through. It's like in a mountain-y jungle-y type of area, there's lots of dirt. Expect your kids to get DIRTY. Which is why we brought a spare pair of clothes. There is also 3 parts where you go over water. We have been here once before. Noboru got about 20 free entry tickets to this place gee...about 5 or 6 years ago? I'm not sure exactly when. But it was a long time ago. Like I said we have been here once before. Branden was a 1st or 2nd grader maybe. Noah was super young and only went through a handful of the obstacles, because he was just way too little, when we were here the last time. I do recall though that Branden got super dirty last time. And the only other thing that I remember from years back, was some other misc kid fell into the water. Flash back to now...both the boys are at a perfect age to come here. Plus we have had free tickets for ages/eons... with no expiration date on them. : ) 

If you complete this, you get 2 points, if you can't complete this, you get zero points. The boys finished all the courses, except the one where you could get wet walking over the water, but we weren't keeping points at all. This was purely just for fun. : )

What a good papa, carrying the boys spare change of clothes. It was his birthday, but he wanted to see the boys have fun, so he grabbed their backpacks and carried them. I'm meanwhile the keeper of memories, so I take the pictures. : ) See the green things in the water in the background? That is where the kid fell in the water years ago. Given the cold temps that day, I didn't let the boys do the green leap pad part...if it were summer, sure no problem. But...just didn't want to chance it. So that was the only activity we skipped.

Noah flying through the air, Tarzan style. 

Noboru wanted to give it a shot.

Go kids go. The climbed...they Tarzan-ed. They ran.

They slid down on their butts.

Noah about to slide down on his belly.

Noah swinging through the air.

He'd fly through the air with the greatest of ease, that daring young man on his flying trapeze.

January 18th was such an active and fun day! : )

Hi, my happy smiling boy! : )

You know...the boys were surely going to sleep like logs for sure, that night! : )

Look at Branden's dusty pant legs.: ) This is the type a place, you don't come in your Sunday best (meaning best clothes)...bring some grubby clothes/play clothes, and perhaps a spare change of clothes too. : ) This is why we didn't have Noah wear his bright yellow Gap coat. We knew it would be covered in dirt. : ) Oh...I forgot to mention at this time, we heard over the loud speaker...there was a contest about to start. A...how far can you kick your shoe off contest. We asked the boys if they'd like to try or not. We didn't care one way or the other really. But the boys said they wanted to try. So we walked over and they gave it a shot! : )

Hi kids!

The man in the red pancho was so nice. He let all the kids have a practice kick first. 

The boys about to kick their practice kick.

Branden's went farthest. But this was just the practice kick. 

The man in the red pancho now divided all kids by grade. All yochien/hokuen went into 1 line. They were closest. All 1st graders were in a line behind the yochien/hoikuen. 2nd grade, 3rd grader were in a farther line. Place to kick from. All 6th graders were in a line. There were 3 or 4 sixth graders. And then the man in the pancho said any JHS kids? 2 said yes/hai. Branden and another boy. I felt sorry for the JHS kids because their standing line was so far back....like not even in the realm of being anywhere near the rest of the kids. I mean granted yes they were oldest so they should be farthest back.... however they were like meters and meters away from the 6th graders even. They were put in an absurdly far spot. Like overly far. They had to stand near the entrance of the park just about. Hahaha poor kids. So all the kids kicked and gave it their best shot. 

He said the best 10/farthest kick. You can see Noah's yellow and green shoe in his left hand in this pic and Branden's blue and neon pink lace in his right hand. I was actually pretty surprised Branden could kick as far as he did... considering his start line was practically outer space, lol. : )

Noah's shoe came in 5th place, Bran's came in 6th place. Go figure. 

All the kids coming in 10th or better got to pick a prize. They were just cheap prizes, but the boys were really happy to win something. : ) So, that made me smile and I was happy for them that they can actually kick so far and that they won something. : )

Fire to keep warm. And look at that old skool roof. With grass and dirt and stuff. : ) We had stopped on the 32nd athletic event (so they could take part in the shoe kicking thing)...so the boys went right back and finished up the course.

Noah gliding through the air...

Go Bran go...

Not sure if you can see it or not... but the sign says this was event #39. There was 1 last event after this. They did it! What a very active day! Time for some birthday dinner! We all hopped in the car and headed to our favorite yakiniku restaurant.

We had ordered so much rosu (lean beef) the kids and I were bursting at the seams by the time we left. But we enjoyed our meal. We were there for about an hour and a half leisurely eating. Just kicking back and talking about how cool and awesome the day was! Noboru had a ton of calbi, he grilled. He had many side dishes and soup. We had a free drink bar and free fries. There was no rush, we just wanted to enjoy our meal together.

I don't mind if it sounds dorky or nerdy, but family dinners, family time is so important to me. It's important to Noboru too. : ) It was a wonderful day and dinner.

We finished up our dinner. We drove home and then we enjoyed the birthday cheesecake. The Cheesecake Factory Cheesecake was delicious! We sang Happy Birthday to Noboru. I have to add, during our singing the doorbell rang. It was Rin-kun (6th grader) who lives 2 houses away passing the kairanban (information book) to our house. We stopped mid song hahaha @_@...Branden went and answered the door. And we waited for Rin-kun to walk a way a bit... before we started singing the birthday song again for Noboru. : ) We enjoyed the cheesecake. The boys went and took hot soapy sudsy showers afterwards because... they were super dirty from all the athletic courses and goats and whatnot. : ) Every one's clothes from that day went right into the washer and straight to the dryer after that. : ) We all needed hot soapy showers after our day. Anyway...it was a pretty great day. Happy 43rd birthday Noboru. : )