The last bits from GW, like heading to the sento for Children's Day, etc.

These little cuties are the koi nobori (carp streamers) that Noah made at yochien this year. : )
Over the Golden Week holiday, one day while Noboru was at work, the boys and I went to Chiba New Town/Inzai. I have blogged about that place many times before. They have the closest Gap to us (haven't been into it in a long time though ; ). And they also have a great big homecenter and the Japan Meat (name of store) is really nice there. So, I wanted to get some ricotta at the Japan Meat store. They have a huge cheese selection.

The store was so packed. You know, you go in there for 1 item, meaning the ricotta cheese and I ended up getting marinated miso pork we had for dinner that night. And I also picked up some chicken leg quarters for teriyaki chicken also. And the cheese too. Didn't do huge amounts of shopping in there just ended up with about 4 things. Three things more then I planned though. : )

The drive was longer then expected because the main way to get there was detoured. So knowing we'd have an even longer drive back home, I let the boys get 100 yen shakes at McD's on the way back. Yep, the lady gave us this huge giant bag for 2 tiny choco shakes. Go figure. If I were in the McD's myself, I would have politely declined and said... we don't need the bag etc. But as I was only looking through the glass and guarding the shopping cart with items while the boys ran into the Mc Donald's. We ended up with the huge honkin' bag. Aw well. : )

And at a red light trying to get us on our way home. Listening to music, the boys happily sucking their shakes.

On a totally different day, it rained buckets. That's the kind of weather we've had lately...real nice almost Summery type days and then...real rainy sort of semi chilly type days. ; ) Definite Spring weather.

The rice fields are so filled with water.

Miso pork, potato salad. Made some rice and some chopped up stir fry veg, I made real quick and dinner was fast that night.

So yummy. My family's came out lighter, and I like mine really really super well done, so mine were slightly darker then every one else's. We really enjoyed dinner that night. We love miso pork.

The next day in Golden Week, Noboru cooked me dinner. I loved that. He made Indian style curry.

Carrots and onions are blended up in the food processor.

I meanwhile finally got around to using the apple crisp from Knott's Berry Farm. I cut lots of apples, sprinkled with cinnamon. And then melted some margarine and mixed with the crumble/crisp part and baked in the oven while Noboru continued making us curry.

It was so good. And we all enjoyed the naan.

The apple crisp was really good. I am not even counting how many apple crisps we've eaten these past few months. : )

Another night we had buffalo wings.

Buffalo wings, the last bit of the potato salad we got at Joyful Honda in Chiba Newtown. A salad with carrots since we were having the ranch for dipping anyway. ; ) It was a really good dinner.
The different color in wings, some were mild for the kids and some were extra spicy since Noboru prefers extra spicy.

The flowers we ordered 2 weeks ago got here (we wanted them to arrive after we got back from Osaka). We were so happy.

And we ordered new hanging baskets for the front porch as well.

The plastic liners with holes.

Noboru and I each worked on the hanging baskets. My job was to pull off all the flowers. So they grow bushier and fuller.

I felt badly pulling them all off, but after doing this for a few years I know it works. Noboru meanwhile placing coconut liner little pieces at the bottom for extra soaking up of water.

The boys playing soccer like crazy. And both Branden and Noah's comforters hanging outside.

Sheets and any extra blankets also hung out.

Another day, thinking about school starting shortly I washed all the boys sneakers. See that stuff on the grass, Noboru has been working hard on the grass. he has been throwing all sorts of things on it.

Towels all drying up. Gym uniforms. And I think you can sort of make out...my bright pink short sleeve top for the hotter months/weather and periwinkle blue night tee. Many chisai towels (from using at the sento the night before) and handkerchiefs and undies drying for the boys. If the weathers good the clothes are out there. If it's crappy weather, then they're in the dryer.

Everything jeans for the boys, pants and shorts. And 2 summer dresses of mine on there, navy and the other black (have had them for ages). Noah meanwhile riding on the terrace.

Lasagna night. The reason I made the drive earlier in the week for Golden Week in the first place. : )

This was so good. Seriously, Noboru said, can you make this again. Okay.... So, I'm going to be making that drive back to Chiba New Town again soon to get more cheese. LOL.
Hopefully the road work and detour are finished by now.

Man dinner was good that night. This was the night we went to the sento by the way.

After a very good dinner. Noboru said..you know what, let's do something! I was sorta feeling a little tired. Ready to take a shower upstairs and relax on the couch for the night. But I'm game for anything... so I said..like what? He said, let's go to the sento. This happened because we had mentioned to Branden while we were in Osaka..we used to go to Senbayashi a lot and go to the sento there. Branden loves sentos and onsens of any kind. So he really wanted to go to the sento in Senbayashi in Osaka. And we even briefly thought about going until we realized we had no towels or shampoo etc to go. So we nixed that idea while in Osaka. Anyway Branden really has been wanting to go. So I think that's why it was in Noboru's mind. So, I said yes, the kids were really happy. I went upstairs and got everyone a chisai towel (which is why there were a ton hanging on the laundry outside in the pic up above) packed both Branden and Noah some clean underwear and fresh pj's. My own fresh undies and a pair of comfy shorts and a tee. Some deodorant for me and off we went.

Yep, if you have a tattoo you cannot come into the sento.

The koi nobori hanging nicely in the sento. Branden and Noboru went into the guys. And Noah went in with me. I told Noah this is the last year I'll let him go with me. : ) But we went in and enjoyed ourselves. He washed himself next to me, where I washed myself. I washed his back and went over his hair a bit before he rinsed himself. I threw my hair in a pony tail and we started going from bath to bath. We went into a bright purple one. It smelled of lavender. There was 1 little girl and 4 other little boys. 3 of the boys were around Noah's age and 1 of them was older. After the purple bath Noah wanted to head outside, so we went to the 5 different baths they had outside. One even had a big hanging flat screen TV. I recalled reading on a lovely bloggers blog last year how in Japan TV's are everywhere. And I chuckled when I saw one hanging at the rotenburo. I thought....yep she was so right. ; ) We went to all the different baths. And we had agreed to meet in the lobby at 8:30pm. So at 8:10pm, Noah and I headed to the dressing room. He got into his pj's and I got dressed as well and we met up in the lobby.

One of the best parts of the sento is getting a snack afterwards. Noah had a vanila icecream in a waffle cone. Branden had a Pino brand icecream from the machine that he really wanted. And I chose the lemon shave ice. And Noboru picked this big Pepsi. However...everyone wanted some shave ice, so they all ended up sharing my shave ice. : ) Which was totally fine. So anyway there you have it...for Golden Week 2011, we went to Osaka. Went to the sento (public bath), we mostly stayed home, the boys played tons. And we planted flowers in the hanging baskets. Noboru worked on the grass to get it ready for the Summer months. I did heaps of laundry (because it really is just absolutely endless isn't it : ) We had many warm nice days and 1 rainy GW day.

We've still been renting plenty of good movies from Tsutaya Discas still. And I've been loving the new episodes of Glee and America's Next Top Model, a lot lately... have also been watching a lot of cooking shows lately too. : )

yesterday....

Yesterday was pretty uneventful but nice. One of my friends (Darlene) came by my house yesterday morning to pick up a Christmas CD I made for her. I also gave her the little omiyage (gift) I brought her from Korea. We sat and hung out in my living room, chatting away for about an hour. It was a really nice visit. Chatting about building houses and info sharing about that. And also my husband joined our talk because we all chatted about NWA, since her husband works at the same company my husband works at, so we gossiped a bit about which manager left etc. LOL. Just a nice chat and I always like hanging out with her!

After we picked up Branden at school, we left to Tokyo Interiors. It is supposed to have a large selection of furniture. Now, they might end up, just having Japanese furniture, i.e.. Tiny shrunken couches and tiny shrunken furniture in general that looks the size of doll furniture or at the very least kid sized furniture. Sigh, lol we have yet to find a place that sells American-ish sized furniture. We are actually looking for an L shaped couch. We got to Tokyo Interiors yesterday and it wasn't opened yet, it won't open until the 9th. Doh! Okay my husband was off a bit on the dates, oh well! No worries, we will be going there this week for sure! Hopefully the place won't be a major disappointment the way Room Deco in Makuhari Messe was. Worst case scenario, is we fly to Guam and have NWA cargo bring the couch back from the US. And that is a real option since Noboru works for NWA, shipping for us would cost us mere peanuts!

And Costco has couches but nothing as big as what we are looking for. Anyway, the couch and dining table are the two things we are hunting for these days.

The drive to Tokyo Interiors was good still because it's right near Costco, so we went there and got a few things for the boys for Christmas. Then we drove to Midori to look at refrigerators.

The only 3 things we are planning to buy immediately for our new house is a new couch, a new dining table and a new fridge. We have decided to buy the biggest fridge ever made in Japan and that's a whopping 565 liter one. The other stuff for our house will have to wait....all in due time you know : ) Besides we are in no rush...we certainly aren't going anywhere lol! So just those 3 things are majorly on our minds lately.

We decided on getting a Japanese fridge, *only* because it is bigger then the GE and it holds more food (the price was the same, since we're getting the most expensive Japanese fridge anways). So the one we decided on, is the Mitsubishi 565 liter and get this, my mil (Mitsuko) told us she will buy us that very fridge as our moving gift! What do I say to that? Hell ya!!!! Ha ha ha. So, we have been trying to determine which fridge we liked and have been going to a number of different places looking. The biggest one is the Mitsubishi one. I was going to choose the 1 size smaller one but Noboru told me yesterday....."if we're getting a new fridge, we better just get the biggest and best one, so we don't have to wonder about it later" Hmmm yeah no wonder I like the way my husband thinks! I agreed. So now that's all been decided.

Now just the couch and the dining table have to be found first and then bought. Geeze, I hope Tokyo Interiors has something good and not total crap! Crossing my fingers.

We also checked out Sky Perfect and satellite dishes at Midori, gee they are really affordable. Noboru said for us to go to Kojima though because they have cheaper deals on them there, who knows but, I agreed. I'm so agreeable lol!

We went to Saizeriya for dinner last night. Because it's super cheap and we prefer save money by either eating at home or eating at cheap restaurants. Especially with moving day so close yk.

I washed all of Branden's uniforms last night. Hmmm, seems I am constantly washing these things lol.

My mil is flying into Narita this evening, she is going to be staying the night at my house. She's coming because Branden asked grandma to come see his Christmas recital. He loves her, just like he loves my family and I want both my kids, to love both sides of our families. Not just my family and not just Noboru's side, both our families. I firmly believe that is really important. So no matter what I think of my mil at times, I keep my opinions about the women, to myself or I go bitch to my friends about her! I figure getting it off my chest is good and healthy. But, I won't tell my children because I don't want my views, to rub off on them. I want my kids to be allowed to love everyone in both our families and be loved by everyone in both our families. So this morning, when Branden told me, "mommy, grandma is coming tonight, I'm so happy are you"? I said.....oh yes honey I'm really happy too! LOL, granted a lightning bolt could have struck me dead, for lying, but hey....sometimes keeping the peace and being polite is the better road to take. Sigh. Hey, I certainly get an A for effort, right? Ha ha ha.

Tonight's plan, I pick my mil and Noboru both up at the station around 10 pm and then we'll be going to the Japanese public bath together (the sento). I love going to the public bath and so does my mil, funny.....we always have a lot of fun together when we go. So, hopefully we'll all have a good time tonight : )