The typhoon that lost it's punch (thank goodness) and I got my permanent residency!!! : )

I just wanted to tell everyone we are all okay in our neck of the woods. This is what happened for us. It started raining quite heavily around 11pm last night and rained all night long. The wind howled. But nothing too major. When I woke up this morning around 9:30am. Boy did it feel nice to sleep in, by the way. Hubby was still sleeping and so was Branden. Noah was playing Anpanman type legos in his room. When I looked outside it was bright and sunny. Windy as all heck, granted. But not a drop of rain. Apparently the rain stopped according to my hubby around 7am-ish today. All day it's been windy windy windy, but that's it. We had a power failure from 10am this morning until around noon. So for 2 full hours we were without power today. But then it went back on and that was that. Did the typhoon indeed lose it's punch? Did it run out of steam or perhaps hit another area? I really don't know. All I can tell you, is it didn't really do anything over, where we live. We're all safe, and fine. We are all sorta having a nice lazy day. So for us the brunt of the typhoon never happened. And boy are we happy. Phew! : )

This is a pic of our stove during the power failure today. The clock and everything, off during the power outage. Glad every thing's fine now.
The rice fields behind our house, it looks like we have about 8 separated lakes back there versus rice fields. Yup, the rice fields are really full with water right now. But other then that, every thing's fine. By looking at the rice fields, you can imagine how much rain we had last night. A lot! : ) Today, the mailman came and brought us our mail and I got a postcard from immigration that my permanent residency has been approved. All I have to do now is go and pick it up. I am so happy you guys. I know a lot of you already have it, but I applied for it in April or May 2009 and was pretty happily surprised to see I got it. Yay. So, that means I will have to get myself down to Chiba City within the next 30 days sometime to pick it up. : )

TV talk wise, nothing much is happening just watching the same type of shows. Still watching, Wizard's of Waverly Place and Hannah Montana every night with the kids. And I am getting ready for the new season of the Terminator series to start October 21st. Umm, what else. Ohhh, that Will Smith movie, Seven Pounds was amazing. I think Will Smith was brilliant in that movie.

We already rented 4 DVD's from our Tsutaya delivery DVD thing for October (2 of them came today and the other 2 will come in mid Oct. sometime). They come 2 at a time. And these ones came today, along with my permanent residency approval post card. Obsessed with Beyonce, this sorta looks like a Fatal Attraction type movie, but a modern updated version, I like Beyonce a lot, so I am sorta really wanting to see this. And the other one is called. Passengers. It's with Anne Hathaway. It looks interesting. We usually don't watch DVD's until the weekend, so we will hold these until tomorrow. Friday night we can watch 1 and Saturday we can watch the other one. Obsessed I think hubby and I'll watch together after the kids go to sleep. Anyway....have a great evening you guys. And I hope everyone is okay and the typhoon skipped all of you as well. : )

Permanent residency, Costco Makuhari and the Outback Steakhouse!!! : )

The day before we left to Guam, was the day the hubster, had been planning to take care of my immigration stuff. I still have 2 month's to spare on this 3 year that I currently have now, but he's always a little ahead of schedule which is a good thing for me, I think. : ) So March 26th, Thursday was the day! We woke up at 6am. Got dressed, everyone had cereal real quick and we left by 6:45am. We hopped on the highway and hoped we'd get there well before it even opened. Hubby is wonderful in that he planned everything, did all the paperwork and all I had to do basically was go with. For that, I am very appreciative. We were there way before it opened and we grabbed a #. We were #11. Our wait time was extremely short, when they called our number the hubby, myself and the kiddos went up. He checked the paperwork over, said that Noboru had brought actually too many documents. The way he said it was complimentary though, not as a slam, so we were happy.: ) Hubby got the permanent residency forms online and had them all filled in via computer before we even got there and all nicely printed. We were so ready, or I guess I should say he was so ready! And then that was that. So, now I have officially applied for permanent residency. He also applied at the same time for another 3 year, just in case it took longer then the 2 month's I have on my current stuff. Very smart of the hubby to do that. Anyway so that was that. Now we'll just wait and see and relax. : )

Hubby had a bit of business to do in Tokyo after the immigration stuff was finished. And with it still being morning, we were making great timing.

On our way into Tokyo, Thursday morning.

And on our way out of Tokyo in the afternoon. You can see Odaiba in the back.

No pictures taken at Costco but we actually went there. We got the tiniest amount of stuff, since we knew the kids and I would be going to Guam anyway the next day. After Costco, we went to dinner at the Outback Steakhouse. Getting a free appetizer:.....I mention it every now and again, as a helpful reminder, for us living in Japan who live near an Outback. : ) Now if it helps ya fine, and if not, well then no worries, no harm, no foul. :P But, in any case. If you have a Costco membership, and you show them your membership card, you will get a choice of any of the appetizer's. We had a hard time deciding since the Outback Steakhouses in Japan have such good stuff. But we ended up choosing the nachos.

They were so good and like 1,100 yen? Yet we got them for free by just showing our Costco card. So, yay! : )

What my meal was last Thursday night. Such big portions and great prices compared to the Outback in Guam. Yup we're both still slightly fuming about that place from back in January. LOL. :D

The things we picked up at Costco Makuhari last Thursday. A big case of the Snyder's peanut butter pretzels, these were like 900 yen or around there, and what a great deal for those! And we all love those so we were quite happy to score those! : ) A big honkin' bag of shredded cheddar cheese! Yum, cheese maniac family here! 2 bags of Tostito's chips for dipping. Great for movie night! : )

Dishwasher detergent. 2 packs of vitamins for the kids. 1 pack of socks and undies for Noah.

Funny what 1 item will cause a mom or family take pause and debate. For us this night, it was the underwear! LOL! The problem was, Noah is so thin! So, we sat there debating if we should buy him the size 3T or the 4/5T. Granted he's 3 years 6 month's right now. So it seems smarter to buy the size 4. But what it was....was that size 5T that sent us swirling. He is barely a size 3T now. Could he wear a size 4T slash 5T? That slash 5T thing was the problem. Would he wear them and they fall straight to the floor? Would they even stay on his body? Ha ha ha. So there we sat, thinking quite deeply about it. Hubby said, we should get the size 3T. So we threw them into the cart and were about to head downstairs. But that something...I dunno a tiny bit of doubt kept nagging me and so, at last second, I made a U-turn and went and got the 4/5T. We did try them on him when we got home, and they do stay on, they are a pinch big, but not all saggy or anything like we worried about. So in the end we were both glad we got the 4/5T. But man, what a decision. Ha ha ha. : )

When we got home it was like 7:30pm. Pitch black and wow, what a long day! A card sat in my mail box and it said, something was delivered but I wasn't home. Hmm, wasn't expecting anything. Was glad we were all packed for the trip. And so we just relaxed. Then the doorbell rings. It was from Girl Japan. She sent me a cake for my birthday!

A little card that said "Happy Birthday Gina, xoxoxo" Awww! Man that was so very thoughtful. I contacted her immediately and thanked her and she told me, "it's jasmine because I know you drink jasmine tea and like jasmine." She's right. Wow, she really knows me..... anyway, I just thought it was very thoughtful. Thanks April!!! : )

While I was in Guam, hubby and I talked by Skype every day. And on one of those days he mentioned my stuff from Amazon got there. This is what I picked for White Day. I am always impressed by the fast shipping Amazon.com does (my books woulda got here sooner but I chose the lump my items in as few shipments as possible route, and the Twilight DVD wasn't released until recently)! Anyway, about one of the books, I read the blog of a wonderful lady in Japan and she mentioned this book by Dr. Laura. I'm in the middle of reading it right now and I really agree with a lot of the things this book says. Also picked up this book, "Eat this Not that", it has every American restaurant imaginable in here and shows some of the unhealthy choices from each restaurant and some good or better choices those restaurants have. It also shows better choices from the grocery store, better choices for Easter candy, better choices for different holidays and the food that goes with it. I like this book because it isn't trying to tell me not to ever go to those restaurants it just shows me the better choices I might have at those places. And the book isn't preachy and I like that! And my much awaited Twilight DVD!!! I saw this the night we got back to Japan. And all I can say is wowsa, I can now understand all the hype! This movie is so ggrrrreat!!! : ) I want to see this one again, I'll probably watch it again this week! And I can't wait for the 2nd movie to come out now either!!!! But I know I have to be patient about that one.

Anyway, I know I have to still blog about the boy's and my trip to Guam. But will do that in a day or two. : )

PS: the mailman just got here and it's a post card from immigration, it seems my 3 year spouse visa has been approved. Wow, barely took a week, how fast. Because I'm sure they mailed it a day or two beforehand. Very cool for being so speedy. Hubby says he wants us to hold off on running down to immigration to pick it up this month though. Because he says in case my permanent gets done before May (forget the date), then we can save ourselves making 2 trips down there. Good idea and I agree. So sometime in May for sure we will be going back to immigration, to either get the 3 year or the permanent one, whichever is faster. Which means 1 more Costco trip is in our future next month. Ha ha ha, and I'm usually so Costco deprived : ( so I'm happy, awww. : )