An update of sorts

Noah is at his ensoku/field trip today. He will be dropped off at the entrance of our housing community along with, the other kiddos who live in this housing community, so I will be walking down the ped path around 1:55pm today, his arrival time is at 2pm. But I know it takes me a couple minutes to walk the ped path and around and past the tennis courts etc. What else, their observation day on Saturday was awesome. So, expect an "observation post" coming next and then an ensoku post coming after that. : )  This is another "bits and pieces" post. Anyway, this pic is of lunch last Friday. Last Friday, Noboru and I went out, on our weekly lunch date. We went to our favorite ramen shop. Noboru had ramen and I had ramen also, I had the tantanmen, without meat. We shared gyoza and fries. And we both had melon sodas.  Anyway that was our lunch last Friday afternoon.

What else have I been up to lately? This pic is 2 fold really. ; )  All the Brat Pack movies have been on TV a lot lately and I love all these movies. All the John Hughes movies are great. So, the other night, I watched 16 candles (not pictured). Hilarious movie! And Jake Ryan!!!! I think many of us Gen X'ers had a huge crush on the character Jake Ryan. ; )  Anyway, flipped through the channels again another night and as luck would have it, Breakfast Club was playing with 16 Candles playing right behind it again. Didn't watch 16 Candles that night again granted, but I watched The Breakfast Club.  The jock/Sporto, the dweeb, Molly/Claire and her sushi obento, lol. : ) and Ally Sheedy and her dandruff hair, she put and shook onto her picture. : )And Judd Nelson. Oh yeah and I changed the furniture in the living room. You can tell a pinch by this pic, I think. So, I am kicking butt on the Spring cleaning so far too. ; )

The Yuka-sensei had brought gifts to her former students. Meaning Noah's class. She's teaching at a different school now.

A notebook and an eraser. And a good bye letter.

She had given everyone in her former class this letter with class picture and at the bottom right, a personal note to each child. The bigger bolder words above the picture says "thank you and I love you!" Awwww! : ) I think her giving this note to each of her former students was amazing. Noah for one, read the entire note and especially her words and special message to him. He asked me to put this in his school scrapbook and I did. : )

It basically says, she knows he will be a big help to the new ichinensei. And she asks him if he will play dodge ball with them? : ) And she says to Noah, that he is so good at sports. But, anyway, her message meant the absolute world to him. Our school will miss her and on a personal note, Branden and Noah will miss her. : )

I am always cooking something around here. It can be Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Indian, Italian, American, etc, I mean seriously you never know what you'll find if you show up for dinner at our house! Hahaha.  I had been dying to make pork carnitas for like...forever! Having eaten carnitas in many yummy restaurants in Colorado and California. I have been really wanting to eat some. However, I have never made them before in my entire life. Do I know what good ones taste like? Yes, for sure. But it doesn't mean I know how to cook them though. lol. ; ) So, I started a month ago, reading all over online. All recipes. Other websites. But basically the highest rated recipes I bookmarked and then I started to notice similarities in cooking the pork. Just similarities in the recipes. So, I finally decided I'm going to make them. And if they're great, they're great and if they suck, they'll suck! Hahaha. But they turned out amazing! I actually even surprised myself with how well they turned out. In this pic is seasoned pork. I just cut a good amount of fresh cilantro to add into the salsa. Grated some cheese.

I also boiled a little batch of beans and refried them easily. And dinner was pretty easy.

Bean, seasoned pork, lettuce, cheese, salsa with fresh cilantro. They were great. And Noboru ate about 5 of these. Branden had 4 and Noah had 3. I had 4 too. Very filling and I will definitely make these again for sure.

A common meal we often have here at our house is chicken parmesan. However I haven't made it in a while. Month and a half maybe. So, Noboru finally asked, can you make that again. : ) So, I did. I made this just a couple days ago. I had my Italian breadcrumbs. Dipped the chicken in egg then the Italian seasonings and breadcrumbs and then fried in a skillet of olive oil.  Then I baked them in the oven.

We are a family of 4 but I made 6 chicken parmesan. So Noboru could take obento the next day with salad and garlic bread. I also had 1 for lunch the next day also.

On top of a bed of pasta. It's filling, very filling. We had this with garlic bread and a simple salad with some vinaigrette.

Towels drying outside on another day. And also the thing on the front pole is the table cloth for the kitchen table. That day, I mopped the heck out of the kitchen floors and dusted and cleaned the windows in the kitchen and figured, might as well wash the table cloth. : )  So my Spring cleaning is indeed slowly but surely getting there.

My boys love to read! I made it a point to read to them at bed time each night, their entire lives and even now, I go into each of their rooms and let them read to me every night. Or sometimes we take turns reading pages. So needless to say, Branden and Noah needed some new reading material. : ) Nothing an order to Amazon.com can't help fix. : )

Two Shark books. I specifically picked the book on the left for Noah and the book on the right for Branden. But they can switch and share no doubt.

This is Noah's book. Slightly simpler reading since he's younger, but for his age group though, no doubt. And very big close up pictures which I know they both enjoy.

This one has a lot of fantastic pictures, but has a lot more text also because it is a book for an older aged child. And it answers a lot of questions Branden might have. And explain things a bit better for his age bracket.

For each shark it gives a "danger rating" and it's fun for Noah to read and to read to me. Noah will tell me, "mama this shark, right here, the Tiger shark, he's very dangerous" Hahaha, that type of thing. : )

Snake is for the both of them to share.

Excellent pictures and it shows where on the globe, each snake lives. What part of the world they come from, basically. And both of the boys ohhh and ahh over this one.

I am interested in the Titanic. I have a book for myself on it. And the boys enjoy looking at my Titanic book.  And they also enjoy watching the movie Titanic and watching Discovery stuff on the real Titanic too. And they often ask me a ton of questions. So, I went to Amazon.com and I checked in the kids and young adult section what Titanic books they offered. I would say out of these 2 books, though they are both great, the one on the right is way better. It answers a ton of questions and has so many facts.

Why are there 882 1/2 answers? Well because the boat was that length. ; ) Now if the boys ever end up on Jeopardy and the question ever comes up, of how long was Titanic they'll surely know! Hahaha. ; )

Random facts about the 2nd class accommodations. What they ate. What they did for fun.

Steerage, a peek inside. What their cups looked like right bottom of this picture.

Their beds had blankets and pillows but no sheets if you can read this. Again, just an interesting fact.

What did they eat in 3rd class? Well now Branden and Noah know. And sorta cool facts to learn. : )

Little tidbits about the rescue. Amazing facts actually. Yep the 882 1/2 Amazing Answers book is awesome!

What did a 1st class passenger do for fun, 2nd class, and 3rd class. I enjoy going upstairs to check on the boys and find Branden reading this book in bed, with his lamp on, even after I have tucked them in bed and said good night....hahaha...Branden will be in there with book in hand. And he says, "come here mama, did you know....." And I will lay down next to Branden and let him tell me all his new facts he's just read. Or listening at the dinner table, Branden and Noah giving new random facts to each other back and forth. They're excited. Excited about reading, excited about learning and I like talking to them about it too. So yeah this past week or two, we've been in random fact mode about Titanic here. : )

Did Titanic have their own newspaper? As you can see in this pic, yes, yes they did! : )

Was there anything to eat or drink on the lifeboats? I thought that was an excellent question and yes there was! However if you read this, most didn't know these were on the lifeboats. @_@ Oh my! But yeah again....this information the boys have gobbled up. They want to watch Titanic this coming weekend, so I think we'll do that now. : )

I also picked this picture book on Japan 1945.  Pictures from a Marine photographer. Branden is a 6th grader now and he's learning about WW2 at school. Our school is approaching the subject very carefully and I appreciate that.  I also picked up this book so he can see the pictures of the devastation. This particular picture it's a picture of a boy holding his dead brother on his back, he was walking him to a cremation place.

Just very sad.

Twice a week, I make a yogurt run and a run to the bakery.

The boys like to put the squeeze yogurt in the freezer. Anyway, it is now 3:25pm and Noah is now home from his ensoku/field trip, Noah says he had a blast. : ) And Branden gets off school today at 3:45pm. It's still raining here, so I better motor and get myself and Noah to the plaza to pick Branden up. Dinner tonight is curry. And fresh pineapple for dessert. : )

The upcoming "haunted" elementary school, some new movies and books from Amazon and a last day of school pizza party

Our local elementary school is having an "exploring at night" walk through the school hosted by the "Father's Club" It is taking place this coming Friday. How did this come about? Well, the last Father's Club meeting, the guys were eating and drinking with the male teachers and principal. And Noboru brought up, you know how in Japan it's common to say, some ghost is in the bathrooms at school. Or in the science room. All the men began to laugh, "oh yeah we used to say there was a lady in the restrooms." "Yes us too!" Even though like Noboru comes from Osaka originally and some father's come from all over Japan, they all still had the same more or less types of stories going around. As the night wore on, Noboru said...we should make a "walk through" for the kids. "Yeah let's do it" they said and  many said "let's scare them!" "Yes let's scare them!" @_@ And so...the "Father's Club" idea for the kids in our local school can walk through at night. With flash light. And maybe a few father's lurking around trying to jump out and give someone a scare! : ) Anyway, Noboru is at a "Father's Club" meeting right now, it started at 6pm and they are doing last minute top secret scare plans for the kids. Since Noboru will be "working"/volunteering at the school. I will be doing the walk through with the boys this coming Friday. @_@ My heart is beating already. : ) Good ol' country fun! A Haunted elementary school basically. Sounds fun. : )  Yep, our school is a little bit different, ha ha ha. Fun though.

I wanted to order 3 movies from Amazon. The Sitter, with Jonah Hill. And 21 Jump Street also with Jonah Hill. And "Gone" not with Jonah Hill, lol.....anyway looks so good, we are going to see "Gone" tonight Noboru and I after the boys go to sleep tonight. We saw 21 Jump Street, we loved it. And the Sitter was hilarious. I remember the TV movie with Fred Savage and Candace Cameron, "No One Would Tell" it was good, and since I was ordering those 3 already,. I just went and threw it in that one also.

Noboru also bought me 2 books to read for the Summer. Plus that one we bought in Guam. I started the Kris Jenner one last Thursday and I am only on page 40 right now. But it's good but I'm just enjoying Summer break too much so far. Hopefully I'll get through it soon.

A small order of study materials for Noah for this Summer (the first grade ones are for this Summer and the 2nd grade ones are for next Summer) just saves on shipping is why I bought both grades now.

This Friday at 11am, the boys were out of school and began Summer break.  Picked them up, they went for a haircut. But it was packed so we took them Saturday instead. And around 3pm we went to Narita and ordered 2 pizzas so we could have a small family pizza party, just us 4. : )

2 large pizzas. Then they had showers and were in jammies and we had popcorn and treats and watched a DVD all 4 of us. It wasn't a huge gigantic way to start the Summer. But it was a nice low key...."we're proud of you guys....way to go...time to kick start Summer"  type of night. : )

As far as the homework. Noah is 100% done with his Summer homework given to him by his sensei. He just has the 2 diaries to write and  also to color in how many morning glory he has each day otherwise he's seriously done! All math... all Japanese, etc etc all done. Just the diaries left.

Branden was given 39 pages of homework for Summer @_@ He's done 21 pages so far! So he's on top of it! I feel pretty much they homework the kids to death anyways more or less. And in Summer it's just overload. Barely feels like Summer with all the amounts they get but...as long as they can get it done. They won't have to think about it again. Phew. So Noah done minus the diaries and Branden over half done.

Tonight's plan.....watch some cable, enjoy my time with Branden and Noah and then after the boys go to sleep we'll watch Gone. Dundundun. : ) I hope it's as good as the previews.

Yesterday, the boys and I went to the yochien for the Summer festival and today we hit the pools! I'll try to get those posts up tomorrow. : )  So, I have stuff to say...just trying to soak in the Summer break time too. But I'll work on those 2 posts tomorrow.  Good night every one. : )

PS, thanks to all of you emailing me about the Colorado stuff in the news lately. It was honestly awesome to get about 5 emails saying...."hope your family is safe" etc etc.. Immediately as soon as it was all over the news....my dad actually skyped me and said..."did you hear!" "yes I did", I said. Most of our family thankfully lives, in in Westminster, Arvada, Northglenn and Denver. However I do have 1 cousin who is 1-2 years older then me living in Aurora. We did have a slight panic. My dad called my auntie. He wasn't at the movie was he? No he wasn't. Oh thank god. Once everyone was accounted for in our family and we could sort of just exhale a bit...and go phew. Then we started to feel shock and sadness of what happened and it really sank in.  Anyway, my heart and my prayers go out to the families. I'm just a Denver Colorado gal all the way over here in Japan. And it makes me really sad hearing stuff like that happening in my home state. : (