Super Bowl 48

The Super Bowl just finished! Super Bowl 48. The Denver Broncos vs. The Seattle Seahawks. And it was a bloodbath! It wasn’t even a close game. We got beaten and beaten badly. Seattle deserved to win, because to put it bluntly, they out played us, in every step of the way today. The 1st and 2nd quarter Denver had a score of 0. The 3rd quarter 98-99% of the 3rd quarter our score was 0 still. It wasn't until like the last minute or two of the 3rd quarter did we finally score. I love my Broncos and will be a fan forever and ever! But my gosh...it was painful to watch the last quarter of the game. The 4th quarter we knew, we had almost no hope. Love you Denver Broncos.....at least you got us here! : ) Well done, Seattle, you played amazing, your defense was so good, so strong....we could not make a touch down because you just played too strong! Good game. : ) The final score was Seattle 43- Denver 8.

The halftime, was great. Bruno Mars and then the Red Hot Chili Peppers came out for 1 song, then it was back to Bruno Mars.  The commercials did not disappoint, Noboru and I laughed our butts off at many of the commercials we saw today.

Bits and pieces.... not having to do with the Superbowl. We found and bought Noah 2 pair of Adidas sneakers (on sale), pics of those coming some other time, on another post. Branden liked a few pair but they didn’t have his size, no worries we will be looking for sneakers for Branden this weekend again. Oh yeah....Noah did win 3rd place in the town marathon...town marathon consisted of, kids from both of the elementary schools in our town. That will be a whole other post entirely, Noah is getting a medal at school today for that. : )  And last but not least, I have the turkey in my oven right now. Yep tonight will be our turkey dinner night. : )

The boys did have light sore throats, Saturday, but, I ran and bought another bag of mikans, and I mikan/citrus-ed them to pieces. Also some cough drops/throat lozenges seemed to ease and stop their scratchy throats, I also gave them plenty of hot tea. And they are totally fine, thank goodness. Me on the other hand, my throat hurts. And I have the chills. @.@  I am just taking it easy today and having tea with fresh ginger in it. Keeping warm. Alright that’s about it for now.

Tomorrow snow is expected for our tiny town. Will we actually get it? Eh, it’s possible, we’ll see. : ) It’s certainly been cold enough. Anyway, I better end this post, I have a heck load of potatoes to peel right now for mashed potatoes. Have a good Monday everyone.

The Denver Broncos are heading to the Super Bowl!!!

What an awesome game this morning for us in Japan! The Denver Broncos beat the New England Patriots and so the Broncos are heading to the Super Bowl! I am beyond excited and right now, I am watching the game between Seattle vs. The San Francisco 49ers. So as of right now, we know the Broncos are going to the Super Bowl but we do not yet know, against which team, Seattle or San Francisco. Both the Seahawks and the 49ers are both fantastic and strong teams, so this game is going to be quite important right now. In this pic you can see the Broncos fans in Mile High stadium.

To be fair the Patriots are an extremely good team. The odds in Vegas were that the Patriots would basically clean house with us. Meaning beat us and beat us bad! I was a little worried. However we played so hard and for most of the game is was The patriots 3 points and Denver in the double digits. You can see by this pic, barely in the 4th quarter did the Patriots start to get a slightly better score. Denver was on fire today! I was reading the sports online during commercials and I read somewhere they said "The Broncos are firing on all cylinders!" And they were so right! We kicked a** throughout the whole game, sorry to say it, but it is true. 

Anyway just wanted to say the Denver Broncos are heading to the Superbowl and I am wondering who will join us, Seattle or San Francisco. Either way it's going to be a tough game! 

Lunch date. Yoyo Market. Turkey dinner. Family board game night. The Super Bowl, what a game, what a half time! And American Idol, Hollywood Week

As usual, so much to say and stories to share. But so little time to get online and actually say them. Hahaha. : ) But, I'll try my best right now. Everything on this particular post either happened this week or happened last week. Last Thursday, Noboru and I went on an afternoon lunch date, just the two of us. We went to our favorite Indian restaurants and had a curry set, with salad,, naan and chicken. I had the kabocha curry as usual. ; ) This was so good. This week, when we went on our weekly date, we went and had ramen.

Yoyo Market was mentioned to me in one of the posts down below. I think it was in the Gap post. Anyway, I did look over their website and I liked what I saw and I wanted to give it a shot ordering from them. Especially considering the good review, I got in my comments section about them. What did we think of Yoyo Market?  They totally rock! Would I order from them again in the future? You betcha! I also like their shipping prices much better then Flying Pig. I also love how their website is all in English. I also felt their website was easy to navigate too. 

Noboru's credit card was used so the order came to him, in his name. Which is why the note starts off with "Dear Noboru." But they took the time and wrote him this hand written note. Saying they were very thankful he ordered from them and they hoped he would enjoy the turkey and provolone. This little personal touch, completely won me over. To me that little extra bit of care really got me. In a busy world, when Old Navy and Gap is known to have robots do their packaging for their orders (and if you caught 20/20 last week or two weeks ago, lots of companies in the US do that now). I often wonder in Japan, who packed this? A human? A robot? Or Conveyor belt packaging style. It was nice to get that hand written sentiment in there though. Just a really nice extra touch. : )

My first order, just kept it simple, just ordered 1 turkey. And...

This was shipped and packed separately and even wrapped in paper.

It was cheese. Provolone cheese for leftover turkey sandwiches.  Anyway, 3 cheers for Yoyo Market. And 3 cheers for a turkey dinner and it not needing to be Thanksgiving. : )

What else have we been up to? Well Saturday evening. The night before the big town marathon on Setsubun/Sunday. After shower and bath time both Branden, Noah and myself played our family favorite board game. We played Sorry!

We have floor heating, so the floors downstairs stay at a constant 40 degrees C all winter long. So it feels kind of toasty good and comfortable to sit on the floor and have a good little board game going. Both boys in their jammies/pjs. : )

People always ask me. Doesn't matter if I'm Skyping with a girlfriend of mine from back home in Denver. Or if I'm skyping my friend in Osaka. The question always comes up. "Watching anything good lately?" So here's what I have been watching. I am still enjoying the Oprah Winfrey celebrity interviews. 2 weeks ago, I think it was or a week ago. I caught the Drew Barrymore interview! With her husband and adorable daughter Olive! Love Drew Barrymore btw, she seems so down to earth, she's a free spirit and she seems genuine and that's rare now days. She's also beautiful. Plus, all her movies are awesome.Some of my most favorites are,  Never Been Kissed. The Wedding Singer. Irreconcilable Differences. Poison Ivy, E.T. Just all her movies but those are my favorites. And I can always tell her voice on Family Guy when she voices the character Jillian, Brian's ex-girlfriend. lol.

She seems like such a cool girl. And I'm so glad she's found happiness, she totally deserves it. Fantastic interview.

The commercials for this interview ran all week. It got me interested. Oprah interviewed, Whitney Houston's mother and her brother. Whitney Houston was warm funny and when I caught her Oprah interview years before she seemed open. Her mother was very different. I remember even during the funeral on TV they mentioned that Whitney's mother was tough. Etc. So anyway I watched the interview. She did seem tough. I forget now what was said between Oprah and her. I believe they were talking about toxicology, what types of drugs were found in Whitney's body. And Oprah said like 4 and she said 3. And Oprah said it was because of drugs that she died and the mother corrected Oprah and said she died of a heart attack. And it was like an awkward 30 seconds there for a bit. @_@ Ahem. And I could tell Oprah bit her tongue on that one. Another time, the mom, said, "Whitney was too nice. Now, I'm not so nice, if you come at me, I'll say something, I won't go for it" I'm paraphrasing but that was the gist of it. Don't get me wrong she wasn't rude during the inetrview. But she was just really different then you'd expect. Then Whitney's brother came out, that's him in this pic. She had 2 brothers and this was her closest. They were often mistaken for twins? I never heard that before the interview. Anyway that's what they said during the interview. The biggest shocker for me, was Oprah asked Whitney's brother point blank. "Did Bobby Brown get her hooked on drugs or was she doing this with you before she met Bobby Brown" Oprah also said, "America's assumption is she was America's sweetheart and she married that very bad Bobby Brown who ruined her, is that true?" ..silence and then.......Her brother said, she was doing drugs before Bobby Brown. @_@ My face was like...what???? That totally took me by surprise completely. A very very interesting interview. Oh and the mom of Whitney said she and Whitney's daughter Bobbi Christina are not very close, when she calls her granddaughter she often can't get her on the phone and she heard Bobbi Christina wasn't too happy the grandma wrote the book. She was on the interview promoting her book btw. Anyway interesting interview.

Apples were 50 yen each. I thought that was a fair deal, for where we live. So I baked an apple crisp, of course. : )

Oh goodness, it was so good.

Did anyone catch the Super Bowl? How about the half time? Beyonce rocked it! She was freaking amazing!

It was like a mini concert, so many of her hits! And then...

A mini Destiny's Child reunion on stage! Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland. Kelly Rowland is amazing on her own also. She of course has sung hits like the song Dilemma with Nelly a few years back. And she remade that song with Michael Buble, "How Deep is Your Love", anyway was pleasantly surprised by the half time. Beyonce did amazing and happy to see Destiny's Child back, even if it's just for the super bowl.

In the actual football part of the Super Bowl, it came on for us Monday morning Japan time. I had just thrown in my turkey into the oven. And enjoyed the football game. There was a power outage during the actual football game in the stadium. Before the blackout, during the football game, the Ravens were beating the 49ers quite badly. But after the power outage, it's like the 49ers got their power back too. lol. Because they came back fighting! It was an extremely good game and close game after the black out was over.

This player was so happy he made a confetti angel on the field. Sort of like a snow angel. Hahaha.

Pulling the turkey out of the oven Monday evening.

It was not a fancy Thanksgiving dinner. Not that our Thanksgivings are really over the top anyways, but... It was a simple turkey dinner. We had the plastic dinner mats out. Regular plates. Just a regular dinner.

Our dinner from this Monday. Again even paper cups that wink at you! Yep, we put no airs on here! lol. ; ) But gosh was dinner good. Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy, green beans and black olives.

Lunch this past Tuesday afternoon. We have been eating turkey all this week. We're done with it now of course. But yep, that's what we've been doing this week. Finishing up and enjoying the turkey.

Tuesdays lunch done and bread cut and I went on the couch and I enjoyed my lunch while watching Dr. Phil. (talk show) lol.

It's Hollywood Week on American Idol now. If you're in Japan and worried about spoilers stop reading now. : ) Anyway this kiddo was in a group they said which was the youngest bunch, so these kids went on together.

4 teens, trying their best, they sang the Billy Joel song. "The Longest Time"

They did a pretty good job. I don't show videos too often on here. but it's worth a watch down below of them singing. And it's not too long of a video either. And somebody from the group of young teens did not make it. But to be fair, I am not saying who was cut. : )

Anyway, that's what we've been doing the past 2 weeks at our place.  I'm so happy today is Friday. Yes!!!! The weekend is here. And we have nothing to do this weekend. No community clean up, no marathon to run. Ahhh weekends are bliss, aren't they. : ) Have a lovely weekend all of you.

First backyard BBQ of the year and the Superbowl

Sunday February 5th, we had our first backyard BBQ of the year. Weather outside, that day? Absolutely bone chilling freezing cold, just about sums it up! : ) I had sliced up the meat that morning after breakfast and let it marinate all morning and afternoon. By the time 4pm rolled around, Noboru started the grill. Noah went outside to "help" daddy.
Just about done! Good thing because it was just way too cold to be outside. But boy oh boy did it smell yum!
And into the house. A very super simple dinner. Nothing fancy shmancy but oh man, was it fantastic! We sat, chatted and enjoyed our Sunday dinner together as a family.

Super Bowl Sunday happened for us last Monday morning, it was live! Sent Branden to school. Quickly made Noah's obento, the pregame stuff was going on then. Ran him to school and came back just in time. It was a great game! Both teams played well. The NY Giants won it though. Anyone hear about the whole supermodel Gisele Bundchen tidbit that happened after the Superbowl though? She's married to quarterback Tom Brady by the way. Some heckler was talking crap to her and her husband, saying "Eli Manning rules! Eli Manning owns your husband" She being a protective wife, backed up her husband. Granted being married to the quarterback, she should've just ignored the rude comments and known better. But she's human like us all. And she shot back! To defend her husband and in the end it basically sounded like she took a swipe at her husbands teammates. I bet they weren't thrilled with that. @_@
The half time was freaking awesome! I knew it was going to be Madonna. As did all of us. But wow, when the first start of the music, it gave me goosebumps! It was such a great half time show! It was like a mini concert. She played so many songs! LMFAO was with her for a bit, Nicki Minaj who I really like, also performed with her. MIA performed with her and flipped off the camera and it was a huge hoopla, the comments on yahoo over that! @_@ People were fuming. However honestly, I didn't catch her gesture because my eyes were on Madonna. And I read a few comments saying the same thing. Didn't catch it....was too busy watching Madonna. Same here. I thought it was tacky MIA did that though. And apparently Madonna's quite angry with MIA over the whole thing as well.

Anything else to add. My dad's heading to Saipan this weekend. He's going to be staying at the same resort we stayed at, last time we went. I bet he'll enjoy himself a lot and relax. And enjoy more of his retirement days. We're quietly working on our March plan. Noboru requested his days off. He wants to head to Osaka, to visit his family. We're not sure if we're going to go to USJ while there. Or if we should head to Guam before going to Osaka or head to Guam first and fly to Osaka directly afterwards. Not really sure how it's all going to happen in the end. But things are starting to form and take shape lately.

Music I'm currently listening to, in no particular order:
Rihanna, You Da One, love this song, I have the clean version my my ipod, have been listening to this one a lot.

Avril Lavigne, What the hell. This song is good.

Hot Chelle Rae, Tonight Tonight (Noboru loves this song.) He drove me nuts listening to this over and over in November and December, bless his heart! It happened to play while we were in Guam, he started singing all the words the first 2 paragraphs, as we pulled into the Micronesia mall. I was like......holy smokes! @_@ However it is a great song and I do have it on my ipod as well. Also the boys know all the words to this, so this seems to be a family favorite.

Love you Like a Love Song, Selena Gomez! She's such a pretty girl. And I like this song though I could have heard it too much because I'm listening to this one a bit less now. But I still like it for now.

Kanye West Through the Wire, the version without the annoying DJ screaming at the beginning. I like the lyrics. And I liked the old Chaka Khan song in the background. though this seems like a back up singer and not really Chaka Khan singing back up, also Chaka sang, through the fire, not through the wire, like the person in the background is singing. But I still like this song. And I know his mouth was wired shut, hence the name change to the song.

Love all Katy Perry's songs. I like her songs. Her personality. I have many of her songs on my ipod.

Also, downloaded Madonna's new song after seeing her sing it during the half time. Give me All Your Luvin'.

Sad to hear Whitney Houston passed away. I watched her on Oprah years ago telling of her battle with drugs. It's always sad to see someone so talented go.

Did anyone catch that horrible dog biting the news caster on the internet? That sadly happened in my home state/city. The first couple seconds of watching the video, I caught my old area code, 303. That's the Denver area code. I had that same exact area code my whole life. I recognized it immediately. And then I took a closer look and said to myself, OMG, that's Kyle Dyer. I "know" that lady. I have watched her for years. Couldn't believe it! Anyway my heart goes out to her and to her family. I read her surgery went well. From a Denver native who now calls Japan home. All the best, you are in my prayers.

Super Bowl 45, The Green Bay Packers vs. The Pittsburgh Steelers! Noah's Omise Gokko (play/pretend shopping) at the yochien.

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know we watch the Superbowl every year here live, thanks to satellite. And I usually blog something about it. Just a little snippet. Anyway Sunday for those of you in America but for us back on Monday morning for us in Japan. After both Branden and Noah got sent to school, we enjoyed the game. Though we watched all the pre game stuff all that morning as well. While getting the kids off to school.

Since my favorite football team the Denver Broncos weren't playing. I was rooting for the Green Bay Packers. Because I like their team and come on! What is not to love about those cheese hats the fans wear, they're cool! ; )

Lots of jumping for joy and cheers from our house Monday morning. It was a great game. : )

Also this week, Noah's yochien had their pretend shopping day at the school. These were the Wii's for sale. ; ) Cardboard box ones. All the kids make all the stuff they sell. So very creative of the kids and the teachers. I also liked how much attention to detail they paid. They had black and white Wii's. They also had the wrist bands too. And the buttons were spot on. Good job to all the kids! ; )

Tables and tables of different things for sale. And to buy these? No money needed, they used pretend/fake money too. : )

Burger combos.

Baby tomatoes and grapes in 2 different colors. : )

Churros. These are definitely modern kids. Churro loving kids! ; ) Curry in the background.

Pretend yochien bags. They also had wallets and other types of bags on the other side. : )

Hot dogs. Very useful those toilet paper cardboard rolls are, right? ; )

A ramen and gyoza set. They even colored a nice skillet fried look to the front of the gyoza! ; )

Hi Noah! I also took some good pics of him and his best friend H. Of them goofing around and doing silly poses and stuff. : )

The observation of the shopping day was very short. You could go between 8:30am and 9:10am. We stayed until about 9am and then kissed Noah good-bye. Noboru wanted to go and eat breakfast somewhere. Suggested Coco's and I love Coco's but with it being a buffet. Not sure if I would be able to have self control with all those bakery items. So, had to protect the whole "getting fit" thing and suggest Jonathon's. But Noboru said nah. So, we went to Denny's. I really prefer American Denny's. But, figured why not...go with the flow...so let's go. I had a veggie and hard boiled egg sandwich. It had ketchup on it. Which I would have never thought to use, but it actually wasn't so bad. : ) A little salad and some yogurt. It was a breakfast set/combo.

After Denny's we went to the shoe store. Noboru wanted to get some sneakers for himself. He found these navy ones with the orange swoosh. ; ) He's wearing them today, he says he wants to break them in before the trip to California.

It being a half day yesterday (Wednesday). We went and swung and picked up Noah afterwards. These are the things Noah bought.

See the custard/pudding cup engine? LOL.

Not sure if this is smoke or fire coming out the tail end since the color is red and orange. Ha ha ha. : ) Hope it's not fire. Otherwise we'll have an emergency landing on our hands.

A burger combo.

A Wii. Noah has been playing with this upstairs since yesterday. I was peeking in on him and watching him pretend play... the games were quite funny. ; ) He's quite a character. ; )

Do you know what this is? I'll give you a hint. If your hair is wet and after you towel dry.... you use a......... ; )

A blow dryer. Noah, said mommy I bought this one for you. I thanked him. : )

The wallet that contained all Noah's pretend money. ; )

This is how I have been tracking my workouts. This is the cardio side. All the treadmill I've done that particular week. 195 minutes of cardio that week. And it says for my height and current weight, to lose anything I need to burn 730 calories a week which isn't so bad. And that week I took this pic, I burned 830 or so. Not to mention I also have another page that tracks all the Wii workouts and Jillian Michael's dvd's I have been doing. So, it gives you a tiny peek and idea. I am indeed working out the amount I should be doing. So, I am indeed right on track. And if you check the time spent. I am busy. So, often if you look it says...10 minutes treadmill here. Or 15 minutes treadmill there. I might once in a while do 40 minutes, but often I don't have time for that long. So, every bit does indeed count. And by gosh it is working. My dvd's time fitness minutes is also quite high each week. So....that's probably why I have been a little bit quiet lately. I am just really into working out. Spending any free time I have on Sparks. A bit boring to read I know...but.... It is fun. And something I plan to stick with for sures.

I made sweet and sour chicken recently.

And I did not make these brownies. Branden did. He has taken an interest in cooking lately. And I recall I was about at the same age when I started wanting to cook things in the kitchen when I was his age too. He can make his own over easy eggs, omelet, toast. ; ) But last weekend he said as he saw the boxes of brownie mix in the food pantry. Can I make these. I said do you want me to make them for you guys? He said, no, I'd like to try. Okay I said. I preheated the oven for him. And I sat in the kitchen keeping Branden company and keeping a watchful eye. He read the directions in the back himself. And cracked the eggs... measured the water and oil. And got the Crisco vegetable shortening out and greased the pan even. He even chopped the nuts. I was standing so close when he chopped those nuts, but he did wonderfully. I called Noboru at work that day and said Branden made them, and if he could really talk positively about them. He said for sure. And when he came home. He already knew because of my call. But he said..omg! These are the most delicious brownies I've ever eaten. what did you do differently? Branden's was smiling so much his dimple actually really sucked in. ; ) Branden said...I made them. He was so proud all night. And Noah really laid heavy on the compliments too. "Branden thank you for making such delicious brownies!" So, now he's caught the cooking bug right now. : )

Tidbits. Today (Thursday) is the last day of school for the boys. It's a 3 day weekend here in Japan. Tomorrow Friday the boys are off school. Noboru doesn't work. So, he and the boys will do something fun together (maybe even just play Wii at home but they'll have their guy time though). Meanwhile I have a hair appointment tomorrow at 10am. I haven't been to the hair salon since October. Right before Noah's undokai/sports day. ; ) Anyway I am going to try and go to the salon more often this year. Every 4 month's is my goal. So, it's definitely time. My hair is...hold on let me see how long it is right now. Let me pull my pony tail out real quick. My hair is about 10 CM below my shoulders and will probably be longer after they straighten it tomorrow. And the roots are wavy-ish. So it's time for a hair straightening. I got choppy layers last time and flippy ends. But not going to happen tomorrow. I'm letting it grow out and have face framing layers for right now. And I am getting that thermal hair straightening thing that takes like 4 hours at the salon and they use flat irons twice during the process. But it comes out stick straight afterwards. So, I imagine my entire day will be spent at the salon tomorrow. : ( I plan to take a good book, some magazines and a bottle of water with me. Though they always give me coffee and stuff and a massage during my hair straightening. The bright side is, it'll be so easy to take care of afterwards.
These dvd's came this morning. Eat Pray Love, with Julia Roberts, this movie looks so good to me. And the other is Knight and Day. Remember that time I was supposed to go to the movies with my friends and forgot? : ( Yeouch even now I wince saying/typing that.: ( I guess I just still feel badly about it. Anyway, we were to see Knight and Day. I have yet to see it. So, we'll probably see it tonight since today is the last day of school and nobody has school or work tomorrow. Stay safe and warm everyone. : )