Lunch date with my husband

April 15th, Noboru and I went out for a lunch date. We went to the Shisui Premium Outlets. Not to shop! : ) We went because it's a fairly new outlet mall near Narita, they have Cold Stone, California Pizza Kitchen and some popular caramel popcorn type shop called, Garrett. So with the boys at school, we went for our date. 

They have 2 regular EV chargers and 1 quick charger! We used the quick charger that morning. 

Yep, you've seen that card before, we have that card and I posted a pic a few weeks back.

She has 2 chargers, the one on the left is for a quick charge and the one on the right is for a regular/normal charge.

So we plugged her up and she was ready to have herself a free lunch... while we went to check out the food court! : )

California Pizza Kitchen, glad we have one near us now, but the prices were a bit high. 1200-1500 yen for a personal sized pizza and the drinks were almost 400 yen, 380 yen or something like that. $30 bucks (US) for the both of us, for lunch is a bit high in my opinion, for dinner $30 would be fine once in a while, but for lunch? So we ended up not having lunch at the mall at all. Hahaha. But the bright side is...we at least got to look around. 

The Cold Stone lacked a lot of the signature combinations like the one in America has...no "That's How We Roll" (the cinnamon roll one which is my fave...no Birthday Cake either. Pretty disappointed with the options Cold Stone in Japan has.

The bright side is, we did get to walk around, so we got some good exercise that morning and the car got to charge for free. So not a total waste. 

Inside the food court, it is pretty though.

Yep, Narita! : )

Cold Stone.

Such a small menu, versus the one we're used to seeing in Guam.

A lady checking out the prices at California Pizza Kitchen, we did the same thing too.

Look at this line and it's barely 10:30am-ish, hahaha. According to Noboru there are only 3 Garrett Popcorn shops in all of Japan. We are lucky that 1 is near us. However, I must say the prices are absurd so I am glad, we tried it once at least, however we probably would never buy it again, because the small amount you get for the price is just not such a great deal. Just too expensive for the little amount you get.

We ended up going to the Ohsho for lunch and we had very nice affordable lunch sets. I picked this. Fried rice, karaage (Japanese style chicken nuggets), egg drop soup and salad for 679 yen ( about $6.79 US).

The chicken is all white meat and so good. : ) All in all, a nice day, a very nice walk around an outlet shopping mall. We did buy 1 medium bag of popcorn, plus we had lunch at the Ohsho and had a nice time with one another all morning and afternoon. : )

Look how small this bag of popcorn is you guys and would you believe this is a size medium!!! @.@ This was close to 1000 yen ($10 US) Never ever ever again. Don't get me wrong, it was delicious... but not $10 delicious, let's put it that way! Hahaha. : )

Noboru told me...the popcorn at Tokyo Disneyland's actually cheaper, and we both laughed! And it is...especially if you have a refill bucket like we do! lol. Oh well, bright side is, we had ourselves a lovely date. : )

Spring break, Spring cleaning, seat covers for my Nissan Leaf and getting our charging station built at our house, for our 100% electric car...

Spring break is nice, but it also means spring cleaning around our house, which I like too, because it needs to be done. Just a time of year to go through Branden and Noah's closets and see what fits, what needs replacing. Deep thorough room cleaning time too! Here in this picture, we had taken everything out of Branden's room except his desk and bed, but even that was moved, mattress flipped up, vacuumed under his bed. See the indentation of furniture on the carpet in this pic? That pic was taken before we vacuumed that area. We moved Branden's desk to where his bed used to be and vice versa, put his bed where his desk used to be also. We went through Branden's desk, anything 6th grade that wasn't a "keep sake" or a study helper for junior high got tossed. We spent the entire day, dusting his ceiling fan, wiping down his baseboards, vacuuming, going through clothes, books, toys, vacuuming his blinds. I mean Branden's room got deeply deeply cleaned, spic and span, like brand new almost. It was exhausting on one hand yes, but it is also so satisfying, once Branden's room was done and then we knew, we were all set for junior high. Clean room, now just needing new text books, which he should be getting tomorrow (April 7th) when he goes to junior high for 1 hour (10:30am to 11:30am, doesn't even need to wear his uniform just pick up his books and find out which class, teacher and where it's located and stuff).  Then it was Noah's bedroom the following day... 

Once again, we moved everything out of Noah's room except his bed and desk set. And after much debate we decided Noah's configuration of his furniture just works best the way it is, meaning it shouldn't be moved. So, though we moved everything and vacuumed Noah's carpet and under his bed and wiped all his baseboards. His furniture stayed the same layout. But again, it was spic and span. Dusted his ceiling fan, walls (pictured here), vacuumed his blinds, cleaned and wiped down his windows. And we went through Noah's desk and my gosh was inside his desk a mess! Pencils that should be in his pencil holder were all inside his desk. @.@ So lots of rearranging, again it was an all day job! But when all was said and done, we were so happy Noah's room got the great big deep clean! So yeah totally worth it!

Noah's underwear that were a size too small, some even 2 sizes too small (hey!!!! How did they pass the last cleaning???). All of them, went into the trash bin. The outgrown clothes go to friends children, we know locally or Noboru's coworkers son. But not undies, lol. But yep, we went drawer by drawer, hanger by hanger, what size is it...does it still fit? Took freaking ages to actually do everything, but again just really relieved when both of the boys rooms were super cleaned...spring cleaned and ready for a new school year (school year starts in April here)

Regular weekly cleaning. Me, vacuuming the living room mirror. Yes, I vacuumed the ceiling fans in the living room, both of them, the blinds...also cleaned the mirror and windows with glass cleaner.

Dusted the phone...

Lamp shade gets a good once a week vacuum

Lamp base...

Fake plant...I did hold the pot and vacuumed it too..

Just everything....

When the boys are on break, they help! I raised them to always lend a hand and help out and they do so. In the 2 week break, I didn't have to vacuum the downstairs or stairs not even once. They trade daily. Whoever vacuums the floors downstairs one day, the other brother will vacuum the stairs and then the next day they switch between downstairs floors or stairs. It only takes them each about 10 minutes. I appreciate that they lend a hand like that. They also each unload the dishwasher every single day, year round. Wipe off the table after dinner. Just little things like that, that really help me out a lot. Noah has always made sure the shoes in the genkan look perfect and straight and tidy and he does that year round too. Again, I do most of the housework and that's fine, and it's not really all that hard. But yeah they do help out at home.   25-30 minutes of helping out around the house while they're on break is good for them. And because they do so, I'll go and treat them to ice-cream, or go and buy them that cool eraser all their classmates have or you know what I mean. : )

Me vacuuming the window in my upstairs sink area and laundry room. I also cleaned the sink, wiped down the floors, vacuumed the top of the dryer, then wiped it down, wiped and scrubbed down the washer. 

Vacuumed our Canadian Solar device that is part of our solar panel system. Wiped the walls, basically just made sure the sink area/laundry area was again, really spic and span.

It's really Spring like weather lately, some days are very nice and sunny and some days it's overcast, cloudy, gray and rainy. It just depends. On the sunny days, I can now start to hang things outside to dry. This day, the couch blankets we usually wrap up with and get cozy with while watching TV at night, were nicely washed and hanging outside to dry and after these dried, I washed every one's pillow case and hung them outside. Some days I can get the boys comforter/duvet with cover and hang them outside to get fat in the sun and then whack them with my futon stick. anyway, enough spring cleaning talk...

We knew my car interior was pretty light colored and with 2 kids, that was sort of a very scary thought. 

Lucky for us, before we even picked up the car from Makuhari. We had found and ordered some seat covers for her. They were pretty expensive as far as seat covers go, but the reviews on these were really high/good. Everyone said they took forever to get on their car, but once they do, they're so happy they're on. They sell them for your individual model, so we bought seat covers specifically for the Leaf. Like it says here, quilt type seat covers. It did take a very long time to get the seat covers on, but once Noboru was done putting them on, they look like the actual seat and the color is black. So now we really don't have to worry so much. 

March 25th, at 2pm, the people who were coming to build our cars' charging station came. They were done around 6:30pm, so it did take a very long time to get it done, but their particular company had the best reviews from others who had hired them and they did a very professional job, so it did take long, but worth it, for the job they did. 

Panasonic charging station. You see a picture of a little car on here with a 200V mark on it. 

This comes with each Leaf. This is hers and it charges her up here at home. This part plugs in to the front part of my car. Looks sorta like a gas nozzle, but it's not. 

This is the other side of the gas nozzle looking thing. It will plug into the Panasonic charging station. 

This was taken another day, because it was pitch black when those 2 nice guys left, but this is what it looks like. It's small and unassuming, it doesn't scream at you, if you know what I mean. We had a choice of color, we chose that off white color because it sorta matches pretty good with our house color. They had black, silver and I think white. We went with this color though, because again it matched out house color best and we don't want it noticeable really. And we put it towards the bottom again, to be sort of, out of view. 

The night the charging station guys left, we were all pretty tired and we wanted to go take my new car out for a cruise (that was the plan, a drive and the Ohsho), and since we were all hungry and had originally planned to go and eat at the Ohsho. However we were planning to go to dinner around 4 or 5pm tops. By now around 6:30pm-ish we were now thinking take out, so we drove to Pizza Hut in Narita City instead. Neither of us expected it to take as long as it did, but you know what, sometimes stuff happens and we both rolled with it...just accepted it and plus we were happy the charging station was on and done and everything was A-okay. We totally thanked the guys for the job they did on our charging station, we bowed and they drove away and then we went on our way to Pizza Hut. It was a good drive from our town, we picked up the pizzas, it's still 50% off at our closest Pizza Hut and so we ordered 2 large pepperoni and mushroom pan pizzas and 1 large baked order of fries. We picked up some Pepsi Twist on the way home, enjoyed the drive, plus we went home and enjoyed our supper. We all took turns taking showers, got our jammies on. Charged the car and enjoyed TV for the rest of the night. 

A pic of the baked fries. Anyway, more posts of our Spring break to come. : ) Have a wonderful night everyone. Noah starts school tomorrow but it's just opening ceremony, so he gets out at 11am and Branden has book pick up and it's just 1 hour. 

My new car, yay! : )

Well, we did it! I found my "new" car and I just love it, you guys! Monday, March 10th, we (Noboru and I) ended up going to the car dealership first thing after sending Branden and Noah to school, we drove all the way to Makuhari. We had originally planned to go on March 11th, but something came up for Noboru and also for me too... I ended up going to the movies with 2 of my closest friends on Tuesday, March 11th to see, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. So anyway, this particular car dealership has the largest selection of the Nissan Leafs, the 100% electric car, in the Chiba area. They had them all lined up in a row here and they also had another row on the other side and a handful also in the showroom too. Wine color, black, silver, blue, white and silver. I knew, I didn't want white (white cars are just really really common here), didn't want silver either, too basic (again I think the 2 color cars... I see most here are white or silver, not that they're necessarily bad colors, mind you, it's just I'd like something a little different, is all), wasn't interested in blue either. I was interested in wine and also the black. However, my last car was wine colored... Pepper was the same color. So, since I had driven a wine colored car for the past 6 years.. I really wasn't wanting to drive yet another same exact color car... for another 6 plus years, if you know what I mean. Plus...I just really wanted black! I really did. In fact, I told Noboru, either I'm gonna get a black Nissan Leaf or a black Toyota Prius. I really am not interested in any other color. This particular dealership had 2 black Leafs. But 1 of them was a special model/special options available on it, meaning it had the full skirt around the car. And I love the back of this car...it is so distinct, lol. You know how some cars, just have a certain look. Do you know what I mean?  Like the old 80's Saab, I always really liked that model car, the butt/rear of that particular car was always so cute. : ) or the VW newer bug just has a really cute look too. Even the Prius has a certain back/rear look, that's again... so cute too, I think. : ) This car, also has a certain butt/rear/back too and also by the really long back lights, I always know it's a Leaf. : ) 

This is her you guys... my "new" car. She was a dealer test drive car, so she has never lived at a house or had a family before...not ever. : ) She has only 1875 miles on her, if it helps...for you who are more familiar with km, she only has 3000km on her. That's nothing! She smells like a brand new car, she is so amazing guys. Look how shiny she is, even. Aww. Oh, and she's only 2 years old, but was only driven on test drives. : ) 

Yep, absolutely zero emissions! Can't possibly be anymore eco than that! lol! : )

See this wine colored car, see the bottom of the car door? How the car ends a bit after the door, a little wine colored metal after that... but not too much. There is no side skirt, front or back skirt on this car, like mine has. This is a regular model. A typical Leaf. 

She was moved because I just took her for a test drive. She has so much power! And we just filled out the, we are buying her paperwork. They asked me, if I had any favorite numbers to pick for my license plate numbers? Yes, I did! So, they have to do lots of things on the car dealers end. Meanwhile us, we have to make her charging station at our house and we already have a company coming to make it and we ordered the color on that already too. Plus in Japan you have to show proof  that you have a place to park the car.... yes we do have a parking space. : ) But again we needed to show proof of that, so we had to go to the police station for a parking space certificate. Yada yada yada. So, it will take a while to finally get the car, but yep, Noboru bought her for me. She has no name as of right now because...she just doesn't. :  ) But see, she does look a little different than the wine car on the above pic, and that slight difference is the front, side and back skirt. In America, the skirt for the Nissan Leaf is not available!  And, out of 300 used Nissan Leafs sold in Japan, on the week of March 10th when we bought ours, only 2 in all of Japan...whole country wide.... had the skirt that were for sale, ours was one of them, so it is a little unusual to find a Leaf with that detail on it. I'm just glad, I found one and in black nonetheless. : )  And the condition of the car just couldn't be better. I also like the extra tinting for the back windows for the kids.

Also, this little extra detail which I think makes this car even way cooler than she already was, being 100% eco and all.  Is the emblem at the front of the car. It glows at night. My car doesn't have this on it yet, but Noboru has promised to call up our nearest Nissan dealership immediately and pronto, just as soon as we bring her home with us.... and he's going to order me the glowing Nissan emblem and I am really excited about it. I can't wait! This glowy emblem isn't available in American either. The only reason we know this is as new Leaf owners, we have been reading the Nissan Leaf owners forum in America for info, and..who knew... many of them were trying really hard to find a way to order the skirts for their Leafs and the glowy emblems that are only available for us, in Japan. Go figure.

It doesn't show up so good on a silver car... but it's gonna look so tight... on my black car! Anyway, so this whole car switcheroo is nearly done. Oh and this is so cute, the grandma next door, asked Noboru a few days ago...where is your wife's car? Meaning our Subaru R2/Pepper. We had already bought the black Leaf, but as usual...Noboru is so tight lipped. He just said...We sold my wife's car and we bought her a new one. You could tell she was hoping for some...extra info...but nope...he wasn't sharing. Hahaha. I asked him..you didn't want to tell her, huh? He said, "no...she'll find out eventually." : )