Trying to catch up with you all, a little bit...

I'm sorry, it's been like 5 months since I have written here. Honestly, life here is just so good. Yep, I had an unexpected adjustment when we moved here last April. And we went back to Japan last June for the summer. But, when I came back to the US last August 2018. I made it a point to getting myself adjusted. And I did. You know, I first started this blog. Because I would have about 15 family and friends weekly email me... when I first moved to Japan. They'd all have the same questions for me. "Gina, how are you, what are you doing, how is the baby (because at that time Bran was a baby when we moved to Japan) so I found myself writing one email and then cutting and pasting the same *exact* mail to all of whoever asked...ykwim? That's why I started my blog in the first place. To let me family in the states stay updated with me. Sure I picked up mass amounts of new viewers and friendships along the way. But I am finding it. Honestly so hard now to get on my blog to update. Because now us in the USA...is so normal. It's so regular. We have this rhythm here. And it's just working. But, I do find myself getting emails from so many of my good friends in Japan now...asking me...."Gina...how are you...how are Branden and Noah?" "please update" LOL. And so, I am going to try my hardest to compress stuff, I didn't get a chance to tell you until now. What is this pic of? This is a random pic of some of the stocking stuffers, that I stuffed both Branden and Noah's stockings with for Christmas. The fantastic part of living in America is, as soon as the stocking stuffer stuff started coming out at Target and Walmart and stuff, I would grab 2 of whatever I knew the boys would like. Those gumballs were gigantic. 

Christmas was fantastic here and super low key. I baked a spiral sliced ham and gratin potatoes the night before. Baked 2 pumpkin pies and the morning of Christmas we all opened presents. Had breakfast. And then around 1pm we went to see the movie Bumblebee movie. We had movie snacks, a tub of popcorn. 2 large sodas. And after movie, we went home. I smartly cooked the day before. So we went home and had leftovers. There was no feelings of pressure of it having to be perfect. It was just chill...super laid back and it was a perfect Christmas.  

What the Christmas tree looked like inside the movie theater.  About 8-10 days after Christmas Noboru flew here to be with us the entire whole month of January.  

With Noboru here, in January we decided to take a small little overnight trip. 

At our hotel room that we just checked into in January. Noboru pictured on the right. 

We went to Uwajimaya, a Japanese grocery store in Oregon.This location of this store had much better stuff than the one in Seattle did. 

We went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory. It is absolutely free. They also had an "all you can eat cheese" area too. 

Giant cheese above our heads as we entered the building.

Cow footprints going up the stairs, showing you the way. We found this hilarious.

Just follow the cow prints...

American farmers! Love them! But also love Japanese farmers too! Farmers in general are what make the world go round. : )

Noah got the chance to feed a baby calf. Fake calf but it let you know if you did it wrong. Good thing, he fed the calf correctly.

Branden practiced milking. First 2 times the machine said, nope! The 3rd time was right. 

Getting to watch the cheese go through all the stages.

All you can eat cheese. OMG! They had different varieties and flavors but, I stuck with like a basic cheddar. The entire time. I told my fam, next time if we should ever go there again... we should bring crackers. I was semi-joking. Another family laughed and joined our conversation and said...next time they might bring crackers too. Nice to meet another friendly family. At the ol' all you can eat cheese area.

That night we had Popeye's for dinners. 

The next day, we went to the mall. I bought a pair of Kate Spade reading glasses, omg they're gorgeous! Kids went into this huge candy and chocolates of the world shop and bought stuff. 

We went to Chick fil A after leaving the mall. Hmm, were we feeling really chicken-y? That trip? Or I dunno. The 4 of us being together as a family just clicks. And feels so perfectly right for all of us. 

The kids received otoshidama from uncle Jun and auntie S. My kids made a thank you message and sent it to them on Line. And I of course messaged my sister in law and stuff too. 

In Portland there is a lot of Japanese people and grocery stores and we found a Japanese bread store too. I really liked Portland a lot.

I thought the bread was good. Not as good as my bakery near my place in Japan but yeah it was good I thought. Noboru said it was no different than cheap Pasco of Daily Yamazaki bread. @_@ 

The 2nd week Noboru was here, he said he'd like to eat some honey baked ham. So, I baked him a ham and made some homemade from scratch gratin potatoes. Yes, we had that a few short weeks earlier. However, my husband loves my cooking and if he requests... whatever to eat...I will make it for him. Noah loves ham so much.... so he was thrilled.  

The 4 of us went to see Glass. This movie wasn't very good. We had high hopes. We loved the movie Split. But found this one rather...meh. 

Noboru loves Wendy's. 

Bran needed this book for his Leadership class. Noah has already requested to be in Leadership class for the Fall semester. I was always in student council growing up and it's important to be involved with your school. 

The boys have so many Vans. They both have these ones and their latest ones are the tie dye ones. 

Noboru's birthday is in January and it was so nice to be able to celebrate his special day with us here. I took him to the Outback Steakhouse. We started with some fried mushrooms.

We had a really nice dinner. It was so nice for Noboru to be here the entire month of January. He also came for 4 days in March and 4 days in April. The kids and I will be flying back to Japan as soon as school is out. By June 15th we'll already be in Japan.

Branden is a Junior this year. Noah is a 7th grader right now. And in the Fall, Branden will be a senior. He's the class of 2020!!!! Noah will be an 8th grader this coming Fall and also be graduating middle school next June too. The reason Noboru came here in April was because we did buy Branden a car. So he's got his own freedom... with having his first car!

We go to the movies a lot in our free time. We have seen the movie the Intruder. That movie was a great, thriller suspense. We saw John Wick 3. Such a great movie too, we loved it!!!! We also saw Pet Sematary, the remake. We saw Us, holy crap that was good. Wasn't expecting that ending though. We saw Greta while Noboru was here too. The movie Greta was creepy and excellent.  And we also saw Pokemon Detective Pikachu. I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of the titles of others we've seen but we've seen so many. We go to the movies about twice a month.  Anyway that's enough for now. : )

Tickets for Aquaman already purchased and we'll be watching it tomorrow on opening day...

Tomorrow, December 21st. Besides being the kids last day of school and the start of the winter holidays in America. Tomorrow is also opening day for those of us in the USA. For the movie Aquaman! The kids and I have been eagerly waiting to see this since this summer. Seriously, we can barely wait. As, mentioned our nearest movie theater, you reserve seats too, same as Japan. I told the kids, as soon as the seats go on sale, I will go and buy them. Especially since we knew that opening day was also their last day of school too. Double celebration. I checked the website every morning and every night. Not sure if you can see this but, on the bottom it says when I bought the tickets. It says December 15th. I went to bed December 14th and checked and nope...Aquaman tickets were not for sale. I checked Saturday December 15th and yep! I already washed my face and had moisturizer on my face. I put on some foundation, a little concealer and powder. Anastasia brow wiz in medium (ash brown) and some Dr. Pepper Lipsmacker and in about 7 minutes, I left, went to get the tickets. And was on my way home. Tickets bought. Phew...relief. Seats saved. No worries. And yep. Cool! Everyone I know...is eagerly waiting for this movie to come out too. My friends, who are..the parents of my kids friends. I usually chit chat daily with a group when I pick up Noah in the afternoons. LOL. : ) 

Gray means the ticket was purchased. When I got to the movie theater. 4 tickets were bought by the time I got there. And this is the pic, I snapped as of this Monday. And, I just checked right now and even more tickets and seats are turned gray...meaning someone bought the ticket. We're sitting, last farthest row, far left. Those are our 3 seats, I picked. We love those seats...those are the seats that are our favorites. Bran is lucky in that nobody is sitting directly right next to him. There's that heavenly buffer seat. It's going to be in their premium theater which is like surround sound and the seats vibrate and stuff during action scenes. It's how those movie theaters are called here in the U.S. Which is why the tickets say PLF, short for premium large format. Technology is amazing is this type of movie theater....really enjoyable to see a movie like this.

I made a pot of beans this morning. They're done. I am making pork green chili tonight. It's 89% done right now and it's barely 2:53pm. And why am I mentioning this now? Because I made enough for 2 dinners. Smartly, I know that after school tomorrow. Kids will be excited and so will I. And so...dinner for tomorrow night is in the bag. Dinners done for tomorrow too. We'll have big warm bowls of homemade beans and green chili. Be super filled up, before heading to the movies. I also bought movie snacks at Target on Monday. Bran asked for Swedish Fish, Noah asked for Skittles and I picked a box of Raisinets for me. All were 90 cents a box. Which the price is appreciated. : ) I will be buying a large freshly popped popcorn tomorrow at the movie theater and 2 large sodas, which are free refills. And we'll be enjoying Aquaman as a family. And just happy that the winter holidays have started.

Noboru will be here next Month. Super soon actually. He arrives towards near the first week of January and will be here until the end of the month. So for about 3 full weeks. We're all super happy about that.  Happy holidays everyone.

Touristy stuff in Seattle Washington. Pike Place Market, The very first Starbucks, etc etc...

Saturday, September 29th, 2018, our family went to do some touristy stuff. We went to Pike Place Market! We went to the the very first Starbucks. The one that started it all! We also went to China Town aka the International District. There's a an area called "Japan Town" Which is an area with a huge Japanese grocery store in it. We had lunch in the food court there, by the way. And it was delicious! It was a very cool way to spend a Saturday for the 4 of us. 

Noboru and Noah walking towards the very first Starbucks.

Of course, I had to take a picture. The original logo on the window! 

I hope you can see the reflection of the window, just how many people were trying to take a photo of this special spot! The very first Starbucks. There also was a very long line to get a drink. We didn't go inside. Because frankly there was another Starbucks but 1-2 minutes away on foot and empty. So if you need a drink, maybe go to the empty less famous one. And of course take tons of pics outside this one, just as a keep sake. : )

The address of the original Starbucks. 

These next couple of pics were taken inside the Pike Place Market. The whole vibe being there was excitement. There were tons of tourists. American tourists as well as from overseas. Everyone was happy to be there. Everyone was with a camera snapping pics. The workers were used to it and smiling. The whole place was buzzing. Exciting and fun.

Fresh fruits, veggies. Vibrant colors. And my gosh are the people in Seattle friendly! So nice!

King crab legs from Alaska.

Lobster. The only seafood, I like is shrimp and lobster. I was thinking..."hello there you gorgeous delicious looking lobster tails!!!" LOL.

There was so many interesting shops inside Pike Place Market. Like this candy shop.

The kids enjoyed this button shop which had former president election buttons. 

Clown shoe. : )

Hi Noah! And the World's tallest man. It said actual size. 

When I first saw this, I immediately thought, Zoltar from the movie Big with Tom Hanks. And then near Noah's hand, it does say, "Think... Big" And of course, I smiled. I'm sure so many have thought of the Big movie too. : )

China Town was very cool. We went inside quite a few shops. 

The Japanese grocery store, Uwajimaya. My goodness is everything inside there... double and somethings were even triple and quadruple the price of what you can buy in Japan. I didn't buy 1 thing in there. It was still cool to look around in there though. 

Noboru handed them $30 bucks, while we guarded our 4 seats to sit and eat and said to pick anything they wanted in the food court and to bring him back the change. They both picked a big hot bowl of ramen. 

I went to the Korean restaurant in the same food court and had a spicy chicken breast with veggie dish. It came with rice and a salad. Mine was delicious. The 4 of us enjoyed our lunch. 

Random pic inside the Japanese supermarket. It's nice to know it's available. But wowsa those prices. Anyway, it was a fabulous way to spend the day.