Summer Fun: Enjoying lots of shave ice/kakigori...

One afternoon, the 4 of us, went to a super teeny tiny kakigori shop. This is like a very old school place. They only have 3 tiny tables for customers to sit at. Branden was sitting to my left, but they only make kakigori 1 at a time and mine happened to come out 3rd. But if you can see how tight and close Noah and Noboru were sitting next to one another. That's how close Branden and I were sitting next to each other too. This place is not in our town, but it's about 2 towns over and we started coming here last year. We like this place very much. This shop is owned and run by an extremely kind and friendly old woman and her husband, very nice couple. : ) 

Also, we have been making our own kakigori/shave ice at home too. We have store bought white peach, mango and lemon flavor syrups. This mango one is *so* freaking good! It's so good. : )

Since before we left to Denver. And even after we got back. We love these mikan shave ice, from 7-11. We love these *so* much!

They're not stingy with the amount of mikan you get at all! Very generous amount!!!

And this pic is of another batch. We always have a handful of these in our freezer. They're just so good. : )

Enjoying some shave ice (kakigori) in the Japanese countryside...

August 13th, my family and I went to eat shave ice (kakigori) from another little shop. This shop is a little stand in front of their house. It's just 10 short miles away from our house so it's pretty close to us. Yes, I live in rural Japan, so this shop is obviously in rural Japan as well. : ) Which is totally fine and fun actually! This is in Ibaraki Japan and you already know that... I live literally a 2 minute drive from the Ibaraki border. Think of prefectures in Japan like states in the USA. So the actual edge of Chiba and edge of Ibaraki is where we live. : ) Noah ordered a ramune flavored shave ice. Somebody else just pulled up and wanted shave ice too and parked near our car, so Noboru was watching a dad and his child : ) 

Branden and I each picked the same flavor. We each ordered a mikan shave ice. Also, I should mention this lady who was probably mid 40's in age, if I were to take a guess. She made all the flavors handmade/homemade. She only has like 8 flavors for that week on the menu board and that was very nice, flavors change weekly. This mikan was out of this world, it was so good!

We were enjoying. Noboru's was meanwhile coming up.

This was Noboru's. Noboru ordered a matcha (green tea) with azuki beans on top.

They had 2 goats and this was one of them. He was just munching on some greenery. 

Here's the other one. 

And a sheep. There was also a medium brown sheep and a dark brown sheep too.

I love that my 11 year old thinks that he can whistle to the goats. Childlike innocence, I tell ya! : ) 

It's a wonderful area for kids to be raised.

Love that my teenager was updating his Line message with a picture of a goat! What a country teen! LOL. : ) His friends were laughing apparently! : ) He also shared a pic of his shave ice. 

Natural weed control right here! Hahaha. : ) 

Their house was this modern very nice red house with solar panels on top. I have been watching the show Tiny House and Tiny House Hunters all summer long, so I was really excited to see their house. The style really was cool. Their door was super nice. I love that she had about 30 cucumbers on her front porch on the ground. When we pulled up. We waited outside for a few minutes. We at first wondered if they were open? Her husband was a farmer and saw us coming and he must have realized his wife wasn't outside, he ran and knocked on their door and said "wife you have customers outside" She was really nice and really modern looking. She said I am so sorry. I usually always hear if a car comes down our road. Noboru said, "it's not your fault we drive an electric car so that's why" And she was laughing and said..."that must be why." This was their own car and I did white out their license plate. But she sold fresh veggies in those blue and orange crates. This day she had sweet potatoes and kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) I love kabocha. : ) She also sold flowers too. Freshly picked flowers. These were her other customers. Selling shave ice is just her summer hobby. The silver building is her little stand her husband got for her. : ) Nice...wonderful couple. : )  

Their land is huge. They had this huge wood pile for winter stoves and fireplace, I imagine. In their new and modern home. 

I am not sure if you can see them or not. But there are 2 chickens under this tree. They were just relaxing. And they did walk around, they are the true meaning of free range chickens. Hahaha. : ) 

A huge garden area for their own personal usage. 

An adult horse. 

A better pic of their garden.

They had plenty of fruit trees. A totally self sufficient family!

Two ponies.

No barrier between the 2 little ponies and the adult, these horses have a huge area to run and play and walk and be happy horses. 

You can see their cute little red house in the background. 

Lucky country sheep! : )  

All in all, a pretty good afternoon spent, just 10 miles up the road from us, enjoying some shave ice. Chit chatting with some nice folks and enjoying watching some happy and well taken care of animals. Definitely a great afternoon! : ) 

Eating kakigori at a Japanese traditional sweet shop (a wagashiya)

Saturday, August 6th our family went to a Wagashiya. Wagashi are traditional Japanese sweets. And so a Wagashiya is just a shop that sells traditional Japanese style treats. Besides carrying the regular ones in the display case. This place also sells kakigori which is shave ice. Japanese shave ice is the bestbestbest!!! And this place also sells homemade soft serve ice cream. This place is about a 30 minute drive from our house. So not too terribly far, but not in our town either though. 

Noah picked a lemon kakigori. Which is a lemon shave ice. There was one old woman working this shop. This is her shop, she owns it. She was mid to late 60's if I were to take a guess. She was incredibly nice and friendly. She made all our stuff for us, 1 at a time, since it was just her working here. She made Noah's first. It was huge! And the ice was so light and fluffy. 

Mine came out second. I picked white peach flavor. It was so good! And huge! Branden ordered a homemade vanilla ice cream. And she gave us a bowl so I could share my shave ice with Branden if I wanted. And I did. I shared. : ) Noboru ordered a matcha, which is a green tea, shave ice with red beans inside. He loved his. He kept saying. This is *so* good! We all agreed, her shop is so good! : ) A perfect way to spend an afternoon in the Japanese summer time! : )

Mikan kakigori at 7-Eleven...

About a day or two after we went to Tokyo Disneyland for Noah's birthday. I was in 7-Eleven grabbing my favorite ice coffee from 7-Eleven. The small is 100 yen and the large is only 200 yen and it's fresh brewed and divine. The cups with ice for that are kept in the ice-cream/shave ice freezer bin. So, when I grabbed my ice coffee plastic cup with ice chunks in that, I happened so take a quick look at all the new flavors of ice-cream or kakigori (shave ice) and I noticed this. I was in a hurry at the time, I was just grabbing myself an ice coffee at the 7-Eleven in my town and heading for my weekly drive to Costco in Chiba New Town (Inzai area) but knowing how much the kids and hubby and I *loved* that mikan shave ice at Disney. I did make a mental note of it and thought to myself. I better go and buy the fam-bam each one of these, when I have more time. I bought one the next day, I bought 4 of them so we could all try. And the whole family really really loved these! 

Just like at Tokyo Disneyland they have mikan slices on top. Not as fresh as the ones at Tokyo Disneyland of course, but honestly these are really REALLY good! I usually favor the lemon ones that look like these. But now I have been going back and forth between the lemon ones and this mikan one. My family has eaten these since then....about 5 times? Perfect in the Japanese summer heat. Mikan shave ice at 7-Eleven, meaning you can pretty much find these all over Japan. Definitely gets the thumbs up from us! Yum. And they're cheap too. : )   

Shave ice, zucchini from the garden, helpful kids and Noah's Ripstik fun!

We've been having shave ice (kakigori) nearly every day since summer break started. We usually use lemon, however, I was really pleasantly surprised to see mango flavored shave ice syrup at the chain store Trial. The usual flavors that can be found most anyplace, are lemon, blue Hawaii, strawberry and melon. But finding mango at a store...this was my first time seeing it... in all my time living here in Japan, so I was pretty happy. I will be going back to Trial and buying a few more bottles. The price was cheap/fair 198 yen or 220 yen something around there. Not a bad price. : ) And the flavor was so freaking good. : )

We have been getting zucchini in our backyard a couple times a week. Like every 2 days or so. It's nice. If you recall, we had bought 2 zucchini plants, but 1 died. So not bad for just 1 plant. Plus we are leaving on vacation soon and I appreciate a low maintenance garden. : ) 

Here he is...

The boys love going outside and picking a fresh zucchini every couple days. In fact we have 1 big one right now that I will have the boys go and get... as soon as I finish this post. : ) 

I don't know if it's just me or maybe I'm just weird... but I honestly really hate coming back from vacation to a dirty or messy house. So, I am really working hard this week to get the downstairs spic and span. And the upstairs clean too. I wet a cleaning rag with hot water put some creamy cleanser (generic 100 yen from Cainz/Beisia) and Branden went out there and kicked butt wiping the chairs super clean because, they do get grimy after a month. So, I appreciated he jumped right in and helped with that.

I had the table cloth already washed and hanging to dry outside in the sun, same for the rug runners, kitchen rugs.

Went outside and soaked the trash can. Noah antibacterial wiped all 3 of the trash can lids. 

I scrubbed/mopped the floor. I also scrubbed the heck out of the entrance way/genkan tiles.

A fresh clean table cloth. 

Perfectly clean tiles in the entry way. Shoes on the opposite side of when you open the door. Behind those 2 doors is a shoe closet. Windex-ed the mirror, dusted the table with pictures and plants. Gain Febreeze and mosquito spray near the door, in case I hear a car door close and a guest is approaching (our street is so super quiet it's noticable when a car goes down our street) or Branden and Noah are going outside to play and need a quick spritz of mosquito spray. : )

Brought the chairs back into the house, put the table back together. We also had Branden's teacher coming to our home Thursday for a conference. So, I just had 1 more reason to make sure it was tidy and ready for visitors. : )

The glasses and coasters waiting on the green counter waiting for the teacher. The teacher said he's 38 years old, he was married late and has an 11 month old baby (his first) he said Branden is an excellent student. He sat facing the backyard and jungle gym, he really enjoyed his visit and he stayed a whole hour, even though he was only to stay 15 minutes. Hahaha. : )  They do not have the conferences at the students house at our elementary school, but the JHS does. So a slight difference between Noah's school and Branden's regarding that. : )

I did take off the plastic table cloth that goes over the linen table cloth... but I did put it back on as soon as he left because, with kids you know how spills and accidents happen. : ) So just safer to put it back on. 

Three spic and span trash cans. That's where my mop usually goes, now it's laying down on the ground behind the trash cans though. 

In the summer it feels nice to lay on these huge beach towels on the couch. And maybe a towelket over at night to watch TV and get snuggly. : ) Ceiling fan going to keep you cool, plus the 24 hour central air is nice (and no bill since we have solar panels). It's hotter than hell outside, so it is nice to be inside and keep cool. : ) I think after we get back from California, I will take my couch stripey cushion covers off and go to the local laundry mat and wash them. The stripey covers unzip for easy cleaning and they haven't been washed in about a year, so they could use it. : ) It's always something...always something. Having a clean house is endless, it truly never ends, no matter how hard I try. But that's okay. : ) 

A quiet kitchen at night, squeaky clean floor. I went in the kitchen for a drink. 1 teacher conference down, 1 more to go. Noah's is on Friday/today 1:30pm at the school. 

The haunted night at the school is this Friday evening/tonight. Plus firework celebration. Since Branden is in JHS, and Noboru's running it, being in the Father's Club, he thought why not invite any JHS kid that would like to help "scare" or help in general and do so. : ) Only 3 or 4 kids would like to, Akira, K (he is the one we have a pic of during last weeks firework thing in our housing community and his little brother K is in Noah's class) Branden and maybe 1 more kid is coming too. Anyway Branden needed a costume. A scary one. And we didn't want to spend buku bucks because... we're just about to go on vacation so as affordable as possible. We went to Don Quijote and they didn't have as much stuff as we hoped for. : ( Also the prices on wigs were 2200 yen/$22 US. No way...for just a 30 minute- 1 hour thing, absurd. However we did buy this super creepy mask...smiling evil looking mask! It was 550-580 yen. And then we hit the Daiso, we purchased this rainbow wig for 200 yen and a tie in the costume section at Daiso. 

This is so scary...truly disturbing! Hahaha. Noah flat out said, "Branden you look really scary!" Even Branden looked in the mirror and said.."I'm frightening!" Noboru laughed. But yeah we were really creeped out... so I think the kids will get a good scare!!! : ) And he can keep this for next year's event too! : ) Branden will be in 1 dark room, nothing in there except for the 4 hanging pumpkin heads from our house that usually hang on our front porch at Halloween time. When the kids are distracted looking at the glowing pumpkins Branden will make a small noise and they will turn their heads and see this scary face!!! This is going to be so much fun! And I think Branden is such a good sport to offer to do this and help his dad out! : ) Good kid good kid! : )

Noboru went and set up the school last night. Thursday night. With his fellow Father's Club guys, the head teacher, a few guy teachers and the principal. 1 lone stuffed animal sitting in the hall waiting to creep out the kids. : )

Bones...

I shared pics of Noah's very cool, Japan only special edition Ripstik last month.... however, I forgot to share this pic of his matching helmet. He also got a 3 piece set of protective wear. You all know how nervous I was with Noah having a Ripstik in the first place : (...so needless to say, he was going to get safety equipment as well. Better to be safe than sorry. And when I was growing up, a boy my classmate at the Catholic elementary school I went to, he was a little blond Irish American kiddo he looked sorta like Thomas J from My Girl. He was 4 or 5 months older than me. Anyway, he rode on some body's back of their dirt bike. It didn't happen on our street it happened elsewhere. Anyway...long story short, he fell off or something, he was in the hospital. Skull fracture. And he had to wear a doctors helmet to protect his injury/head for a whole year after that. That just always scared me. So...while I might not be a complete nazi about helmets when the boys ride bikes (since we live in inaka-ville...and yes I know they should use it all the time, regardless but...), however with this Ripstik, I just feel better knowing he uses one. 

Noah rides this so well, so smoothly, he's a natural. Which is amazing because if I were to try, I know I'd kill myself for sures! : ) He has the elbow pads (which Noah hates, lol), hand guards (which he loves the hand guards/protectors) and he also has the knee pads which Noah loves too. 

My pale one, smiling and having a good old time. : ) 

Such a gorgeous happy boy! Love you Noah! : )

The knee protectors you really can't see, but I asked Noah to lift his pant leg and show..there they are. : )

Today's plan: teacher conference with Noah's teacher at 1:30pm. Make dinner immediately as soon as I get home after that, early is fine and we can eat it later. Dinner will be chicken parmesan and spaghetti. The haunted school fireworks thing is tonight. Come home have the kids take showers. Finish last minute packing items...though we are 90% packed for California already.

Saturday...day time I am free, but I will rest. Saturday evening I will be working the summer festival, we are eating Coco Ichiban curry Saturday night/tomorrow since I'll be busy working the festival all evening, chicken tenderloin curry here we come... this Saturday! : ). Sunday we're leaving. We are debating leaving via Narita or Haneda. Depending on how full the flight is, we might fly to like Portland or Seattle first and connect also...so that is also on the back burner too. Just superly busy these last few days. This might be the last post from me until after we get back form California. We all have Universal Studios on the brain. My list has been written and is done. I am so ready for Target and Sephora. And for lots of good foods, good eats. We have been running on fumes, running around like crazy... this whole past week, so if we can just get through until Sunday...we have made it! And we will be off...taking a break. I never blog while on vacation. I also do apologize that I have like 3 emails I have yet to reply to a few of you reading. I am so so sorry. I am a nice mom, nice wife, good yakuin/PTA leader... but I am a very bad email responder. I truly get an F minus minus on that! : ) I'll respond more than likely when we get back. Things have just been crazy town here. Boy oh boy... do we need this vacation. And boy oh boy.. do we need us some Universal Studios, Transformers ride, Minion ride, etc here we come. : )