Pics from our weekend...

Let's see, Friday morning, I had got the house cleaned and finished by 9:45am-ish (kids are gone by 7:20am at school already). So, I had the whole day to do whatever basically. So, since I usually, use a face mask and paint my nails on Sundays to be ready for a whole other week. *However* since I knew I'd be busy at the kids club thing on Sunday, I decided to do my personal care/just take care of myself then on Friday instead. I usually color my hair at home once a month, and it was time. It's just a basic brown color, I have been using for over a year. When I buy hair color in Japan, this is always the one I buy, in color "earl grey." I also put the Tony Moly plastic booties and liquid on my feet for 90 minutes because even though it's rainy season right now, sandal season could be any day, as long as it's not raining. So, my feet need to look nice, so I like to use these every few months. Your feet peel super crazy after about 5 days and then they are smooth and soft like a brand new foot. : ) I did this on Friday because I knew it wouldn't be peeling on Sunday. : ) I also painted my nails and gave myself a weekly face mask, Good thing the doorbell did not ring on Friday, because I would have looked quite scary with hair dye/color, face mask, feet in bags, lol. : )

The Sally Hansen one, I bought at Target last year, I like this color in Summer. Very feminine. And the sparkly pink in the middle, I put on top of the Sally Hansen one and then I layer it with a clear top coat, far right to prevent chipping. The sparkly one and top coat I bought at the 100 yen. I did my toe nails and my finger nails, so I'd be ready for the thing on Sunday, because I knew I'd basically see the entire town population there, and sure I did, hahaha. And also I do believe in taking good care of yourself. : )

Kept this on for 20 minutes. It really brightens the face. : )

This was our finished dinner Friday. We did have green beans with this. I like to make a nice big filling breakfast for the boys every morning, as you know, scrambled eggs, breakfast sausage, pankcakes, Yakult, yogurt, the whole bit. And I also know how hungry they come home from school, so I like to make a nice great big filling dinner every night too. I want to know they're well fed and that it's pretty much ready when they come through the door. : )

We did have movie night on Friday after dinner and showers were done. And everyone had some popcorn and it was just a nice way to enjoy the start of the weekend. 

Monday morning, we had bacon and eggs and toast for breakfast. For lunch we had leftover cheesy gratin potatoes and leftover pork chops. And after lunch, I made a pack of cinnamon rolls. I also made my pizza dough immediately after breakfast so it was resting in the kitchen all day. : ) 

Just rolled the 2 pizzas out and just about to put our toppings on the pizza. Saturday was fun and just spent here at home, same with Friday. I knew I had that kids club event though on Sunday (the following day), so we all went to sleep Saturday around 9:30pm. 

Sunday morning, we all woke up and had some cinnamon toast crunch type cereal and also some toast with butter. Noboru and I also had a hot coffee, the kids had apple juice. We all immediately got dressed after that, so we could head to the plaza. Our housing community (us 3 yakuin) also worked in this gym also. We did however like this game across from us, they made a "bowling game" with 1.5 liter plastic bottles, they filled them half way, made the water colored and they rolled down basketballs or dodgeballs. The prez and my fellow vp, and I, took notice and we'd like to use this game this year on one of our "housing community's" events. This was a great idea! : )

We did this....the ring toss! : )  We will borrow this game from our town and use this in our Christmas party as one of our games. We already talked about it. Hahaha. : ) 

There were 3 ring toss games right next to each other. Us 3, were handling 2 of the ring toss games and another housing community was handling the one way in the back. That is the prez's Converse in the pic. : ) 

Look at the crowds! The crowds came in waves, we got slammed throughout the morning too. Many times we'd have 10 people or more waiting a turn, all 3 ring toss games had tons of people and then at other times we were so dead...no crowds at all. We would joke and have fun with the kids! Can you get a ring on every number? OMG, try to get #9. We'd clap when they'd get a ring. When little babies 2-3 year olds came, we'd help them toss each ring. They'd get all excited and happy. Their mom's were very happy we took the time, crouched/squat down and helped their child. And we also got groups of JHS boys, like 8th and 9th graders. They are competitive against their friends, JHS boys. Okay the prez would say to the JHS boys..."he's got 27 points...are you gonna let his score tops yours", ...The Jinbei boys mom would add jokingly..."yes you can't let his score get higher than yours." I'd chime right in and add..."ask for a rematch!" The JHS kid would say shaking his head in agreement..."You 3 are right! Rematch!" Hahaha. Those JHS boys played a few rounds battling each other back and forth. Again we would play with all kids, toddlers to 9th graders, didn't matter. We made sure you left our game with a smile on your face and having had a good time. 1 little girl (2nd grader if I were to take a guess or maybe 3rd grader from the other school), liked playing with me, especially. She couldn't get many rings on there and she'd watch my face for a reaction and I would tell her.. "you are doing fantastic kiddo"...you will get 1...and I sat there patiently with her and when she got a couple I'd high 5 her and she was *very* happy. She came back throughout the day 3 different times to play ring toss with me. : ) Also, I did get many kids say..."hello" and I'd then switch and say "hello, how are YOU?" hehehehe, they'd say while smiling. Just have fun. Be able to anticipate ...do they need extra cheers, some support or.... Also, these JHS kids are still kids and they liked being clapped and cheered for, as much as the toddlers. They really did. Make it fun though #1! And we did. 

Across from where I was "working"...I see Noah. Everyone knows my kids and they know I'm working right across the gym. But she crouches/squats down and chats with Noah and stuff, everyone is so nice to our kids, all kids actually. : ) And this "bowling" game rocked.

Noah and his very good friend, who is a twin, in the blue and white stripe shirt. His twin, is his sister, she was playing with her friend somewhere else. They live right near us and his mom is the super nice, but shy one. : ) 

Of course Noah came to play ring toss with me. Us 3, yakuin helped and cheered him on too, they said "come on Noah!" We clapped, we cheered, he blushed, hahaha. : )

Here comes Branden. he had to play too. Branden told me, "did you just play with 3 JHS boys, older grade than me?" I said "surely, yes I did". : ) Branden said "they just said, we just played the ring toss with your mom and she rocks!" @.@ : ) Wow...I got an... I rock comment from some older JHS boys. Very good to know. Lol. On the bright side, at least they know Branden has a friendly mom, who helped them on the ring toss : ) I tell ya, everybody knows everybody in our town. : )

This event ended at 12. At 11:30am though many people started to leave. We still had to stay. So the boys played basketball sans the basketball net. : ) 

I'm glad that they still enjoy playing together. They're still super close, even though they go to different schools. To always have one another, to always have that playmate or person who understands you best. : )

And I'm glad Noboru is a hands on dad and the way he is. He loves the boys so much. : ) We went home at noon and rested for an hour and then we left for the rest of the day.  We knew we were going to go to yakiniku for supper (Noboru said, he saw me working hard all morning at the plaza/kids club thing and so he wanted to give me a night off cooking, so he took us to yakiniku), but we decided to go bumming around before that. We went to Don Quixote (didn't buy anything, just looked around, spent over an hour in there). We took the scenic route too. We just wanted to end the weekend fun and on a great note. 

We went and had yakiniku Sunday evening (yesterday) and you can cook your own marinated meat at the grill on the table. 

We then went to charge the car for free at Shisui outlet mall and also walked around window shopping for about 45 minutes and we also spent an additional hour at Starbucks just relaxing the 4 of us. The kids each had an iced cocoa. Noboru and I each had a nice iced coffee drink (Noboru had an iced caramel machiaato, and I had a very big iced American coffee.) We just sat inside Starbucks sipping our drinks, people watching, chatting, talking, just enjoying the end of our amazing and low key weekend. : ) 

A very blurry picture of Noah. We took a nice scenic drive back home, as soon as everyone got home, we all took turns taking showers and ready to start a whole other week of school. 

At Franc Franc, Noboru bought me an apron. And that is only because, as you know I am a yakuin leader/head this year and on many kids club events, I will need to wear an apron. And while I do have 1 nice one, bought from Laura Ashley over 6 years ago at least, having another and finding one at a great price was a nice find. I also have a denim Old Navy one, that we use at home if needed, but I really don't use them at home (Noboru has used the jean Old Navy one twice for making soup with the Father's Club.) It's usually for events, where it might come in handy. 

Nice aprons can run/cost about $40-$50 US, maybe because many people use them here, or I don't know. But this was just 1300 yen $13 US. So, it was a good deal. 

I wish they would have had this in black and white. But this isn't bad either, it's pretty. Noboru did joke with me and said it did vaguely remind him of Minnie Mouse and Branden did say it reminded him a tad of a mushroom from Mario Kart. But, I like it and the price was too good to pass on, granted black with white dots would have been best, but this is really pretty too though.  : )  Anyway that was our weekend in a nut shell. : ) 

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. : )