I didn't forget to tell you all about, how all of us white hat mothers (blue badge) at the yochien ended up very sore. But let me start at the beginning first real quick. Go grab a coffee if you want to, before you start reading. : )
Let see, got up, did the breakfast thing x2. Filled Branden's thermos and drove him to school. Came home. Made obento, filled thermos #2. Hung out the laundry. If you recall the day before Branden was wearing the bright turqouise polo type top, and shorts, you can see it hanging out to dry the following day. Did all the laundry, swimming school towels etc, kids pj's, their undies and lunch mats and Branden's spare gym uniform. I got all the laundry hung, got myself dressed and makeup on. Noah dressed and we left.
So last Thursday was Noah's observation day. We got into the school. Not counting the Summer festival time when I was in there for the game booth....I haven't stood in the blue badge class for years! My first time in a long time. Anyway, we were sent home a note since last week that we'd all be doing art and gym. Okay, so we were all told to not wear a dress or skirt (hmm we seem to get these notes a lot ; ). The pink badges went and did gym class first with the gym teacher upstairs. Meanwhile we started with regular class. They sang about 5 songs. And then the Yayoi sensei unwrapped this huge paper scroll and it had directions and a step by step process...it said we were to make origami snails. 5 of them in different sizes. With glue and crayoned little faces on them. They made the background paper blue sky with rainbow, the day before. So, after giving us parents instructions, we each went to our child and we did that. Noah made all 5 origami snails. And we then glued them onto purple hydrangea water colored paper flowers and glued those onto the blue background. We together colored faces on each of the snails, I gave each snail eyes and antenna and Noah did smiley faces on each snail, lol. When we were done, we still had about 30 minutes of time left before it was our turn to start gym class. So, it was free time. So, some kids got out clay and played with their clay. Some kids got out their sketch pads and drew some...meanwhile some kids whipped out books and read. Noah took out his sketch pad and started writing his name in English and then in Japanese. And then started drawing faces and whatnot. Then we went upstairs. And the kids started gym.
You know this gym teacher always has us poor mothers do something really wild. last year he had all the mothers flip over the horse. We're lucky none of us killed ourselves! Ha ha ha. Seriously. He's sorta tough on us mom's! ; ) But I'd have to say this year was the toughest by far! : ) But...it was all in good fun and the kids enjoyed it.
He started with warming up the kids. And then it was our turn. He said..okay mothers. Speaking in very fast Japanese (lucky for me I could understand him just fine and had no problem with that phew), when I toot/blow my whistle once bend down...and when I toot my whistle twice like this...toot toot. You jump high in the air. Okay ready???? And if he isn't blowing the whistle at all you are to jog in place. So, here we were all jogging in place and then he tooted once and I went down. Then he tooted twice so I jumped high in the air. I gather about 8 mothers behind me got it wrong? I was busy... so wasn't looking myself. But he sorta fronted them off in front of the rest of us. Ha ha ha. So he said...to them. Not me. But with a big smile and in a kidding tone he said to them in Japanese... Do you ladies UNDERSTAND??? @_@ So, here we went again. This lasted only about a few minutes (but it felt like forever). Many were tired. I meanwhile have been working out like a fanatic since January so I was okay. Not the next day mind you... but I'll get to that later. ; )
Anyway..then the kids turn. He started numbering them 1...2...3. 1...2..3. Noah was a #1. The kids started doing "kimi taiso" where one kid bends down on the ground, their knees and arms on the ground and the other 2 kids put their legs on that kids back. And pose. Little did us mothers know that we would also be doing this. So after the kids were done. We all clapped then the gym teacher said...okay mothers whatever # your child was is the # you are! @_@ Gasps heard from a few. I laughed because I was thinking...he's kidding right? Right? No he was not kidding! So, Miu-chan's mom bent down. And Hikaru-kun's mom and I held our bodies on opposite sides of Miu-chan's mom and we held our bodies by only our arm strength and had our legs on Miu-chan's mom. She took both our weight. The kids loved it though they were shouting and clapping for us moms! I admit this was actually sort of fun, just never thought I'd ever be doing this though. Talk about an active morning.
Then, the gym teacher started throwing red circles and blue circles on the floor. He said come here mothers. @_@ Think of American football where 2 teams rush each other. And you sort of get the idea of this next game. Noah is a white hat by the way. So is the Jogo-san's daughter, H is also a white hat. Miu-chan is a white hat. Anyway. He said white hat mom's your color is blue. red hat mom's your color is red. Obviously. When I blow my whistle...you rush to the middle but while scooting by your butt. Yes by butt! @_@ And your object is to flip them all and make them all blue. Red hats you want to also flip them all to make them red. So here we went rushing towards one another ala braveheart! Ahhhhhh! Kids all sitting watching like this @_@ And while scooting on the booty we all flipped all the red ones to blue but they went right behind us and flipped them back! We were losing! 10 each color. He blew his whistle and we scooted all the way back to our start place. And he started counting. I quickly counted in my head and saw we lost. No big deal right? WRONG! Very big deal. : ) This gets even funnier.
He said okay losing team. Stand up please. that was us. And give me 20 leg squats. And please don't give me 20 lazy leg squats. Give me all the way down full 20 leg squats. And keep your arms out like this. We were stunned. So the red hat moms were chuckling and laughing. And the kids all watched and thought it was hilarious. And so there we went. 20 full and complete leg squats. Alright thank goodness that's over with I thought. Wrong! ; )
The gym teacher said...okay kids turn. So there our kids went to play the same game, Noah and his friends went and scooted across the floor...and they flipped the circle colored pieces. And we thought, gym is almost finished so no worries. Phew! Then, the kids lost...our team lost. The gym teacher said..okay mothers your kids lost, so here is what you have to do. 20 butt kicks. Jump high in the air and actually kick your own butt with your feet. And he further added don't give me lazy ones that look like this. And he showed us his example of a lazy one. The red hat mom's were chuckling. We were laughing but some of the mom's were getting rather sore. Gee we never expected this. : ) So there we went, 20 butt kicks. And kick our butts they did! : )
Gym class finished. And the other mothers like the rest of the whole school amount of mothers were all waiting out in the hall waiting for the first "Summer festival" meeting to begin. The kids went downstairs. And we started our meeting.
I just wanted to say.....I love this yochien. I'm so comfortable here. I am in my element here. I know them all, they all know me. Granted the gym class we just did was a bit extreme but the kids enjoyed it. And it was all in good fun. Anyway we started the meeting. I signed up to be in the game team. I knew I was going to sign up for the game team since a long time ago, I like the games the best, have always done the games every year here. The meeting wasn't so long. After the meeting was over, my friend and I went downstairs. And we looked at the photos they're selling from the school picnic day. I bought the class photo and 5 picture singles.
Drove home. Had lunch and it began to sprinkle some rain now, so went outside to bring the dry clothes in.... then swung back to do my afternoon pick ups. I felt fine body wise. It wasn't until the day after when I woke up that I felt super sore. So sore...that I walked really stiff. Sorta like the tin man or like "Robbie the robot" @_@ I have been taking 2 Advil's in the mornings and 2 at night. 1 just wasn't enough and usually 1 Advil is more then enough for like PMS etc, but my sore muscles were so bad I needed 2. I only needed to take the Advil for 2 days, Friday and Saturday was my last sore day.
When Noboru got home that night. And I told him how us white hat mothers were essentially punished if we lost. He thought that was the most hilarious thing he's ever heard. Him picturing me, the Jogo-san and H's mom etc all getting tortured like that. He found that to be the funniest thing he ever heard. Noah told Branden all about it too. And so, I walked so stuff all Friday and Saturday. Now I am fine of course and back to normal. Noboru said...maybe before you didn't work that muscle group so much. But you certainly worked it now! @_@ Ha ha ha. By now...Wednesday of the following week. I feel actually really great. So great in fact I should do those leg squats weekly. Just once a week. But yeah my thighs and butt feel great now. Last Friday and Saturday no way but now...I feel really good. I think during the Summer months if the gym teacher isn't busy he should be a personal trainer. He'd be perfect for that. : )
PS, sorry no pics were allowed at Noah's observation day. Clearly I would have had no chance to take one while I scooted around on my butt in gym class or doing leg squats. But it would have been nice to take pics of the snails or something. : ) Sorry.
Last Saturday morning. Wow, it rained buckets. It seriously poured rain from 5am to nearly 11am in our parts. I even wondered to myself....would the rain keep going all day and night long? Or would it do as the forecast said and stop. It indeed did stop. We were relieved. But honestly we'd bbq rain, or shine or even snow. ; ) Anyway, here's Branden's sweet potato plant. From the sweet potatoes they grew at school, he was allowed to bring this home. We let Mr. sweet potato sit in a plastic tumbler of water and finally we planted the little fella. : )
Noboru and the boys planted him.
Meanwhile the bbq was on. The music played lightly. 80's stuff for us that day. We Chaka Khan-ed (Ain't Nobody and I feel for you.....We also Atomic dog-ed..bow wow wow yippy yo yippy yayed! ; ) Or however that song goes. : ) And also listened to some Heart...Magic Man... and.... All I Want To Do. And a few from Prince and Pump up the Volume From MARRS, lol. Just a mix of different stuff and eras probably too. : )
Branden and Noah swung on the swings. While the backyard smelled of a definite bbq going on.
Nothing fancy. Just a basic no frills but yummy bbq dinner. Ribs, roasted/grilled potato and roasted corn.
Noboru really isn't a drinker at all. But every once in a while he likes to have one. Meanwhile there's Noah getting down on that rib.
Branden too.
They each ate one slab. I had one. Noboru ate one and a half. We had leftovers. And the boys had ribs the next day for lunch.
We like to talk during our meals. Noah and Noboru told us about the "dad's observation day" that happened that morning. They apparently did a weather game since it was raining outside. Noah was on the cloudy team. ; ) Which is what's on his head....a pic of some clouds. We were all stuffed. The guys showered. I showered after. And there we were all relaxing on the couch. I said...I'm really having a sweet tooth right now. Which I rarely ever do. Noboru said...you know so am I. So he said...everyone hop in the car and let's go to the Mini Stop. So, us all in our comfy clothes we all hopped in the little red car. I had nearly/almost dry hair. A black tee and black polka dot comfy shorts and black flip flops on (nearly Summer evening type weather, even the rain that morning was warm). Most people at that time of night were wearing something similiar anyway. Meaning no fashion shows going on, in the middle of the inaka at night around where we live. : )
So the boys picked icecream from the freezer section. Noah picked those Pino mini ones again, Branden picked a kakigori. And so Noboru and I were standing in the dessert section with another man and wife couple also wearing comfy kicking back at home type clothes : ) I whispered to Noboru, we must have all been thinking the same thing tonight. : ) They were first...so they picked theirs. Noboru picked some strawberry type dessert custard thing with crepe in the cup, looked good. I meanwhile went for the chocolate dessert cup. We drove home and made quick coffees. We sat back in the living room, eating our desserts. Us sipping our coffee. And just basically chilling out and relaxing all Saturday night. We watched a dvd. The Green Hornet. The boys loved it. Noboru and I both thought it was okay/good. One part in particular, when the Green Hornet woke up wearing a diaper and Kato said he was out cold for 11 days (not just 10-30 minutes like the Green Hornet thought)....that part just cracked me up. : ) Anyway that was what we did last Saturday.
Last week...Tuesday morning, as soon as we sent both Branden and Noah to school. Noboru and I headed to the morning movie that started at 10am. We had planned ourselves a little date, a movie date and lunch date to follow. : ) Our choice was either Black Swan or The newest Pirates movie. Since we saw Black Swan in the airplane on our way to California. We decided to go to see the newest Pirates installment.... Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.
There were about 50 or so people at the morning movies all seeing different things. However, I think besides Noboru and I, and about...let's see 3 ladies who sat in front of us. And about 5 people who sat 2 rows behind us. So the movie we were actually seeing was pretty dead. There was the Japanese dubbed version in the theater right next to the one we were in. And the English version with Japanese subtitles, that's the one we chose. The movie would be in 3-D.
We got a combo, a medium popcorn and a large drink. Isn't that a very smallish size medium? : ) It's about an American size small. : ) But we had breakfast at home (waffles) and we would be eating lunch right after the movie, so this was more then enough. The movie was pretty good. No Emmy award winning performance or anything granted, but we enjoyed our morning at the movies well enough and we laughed a few times so we were satisfied. : )
We went to have ramen afterwards. I had the tantanmen. Noboru had a different type of ramen. And we shared the deep fried gyoza, omg! It was so delicious. All in all, we enjoyed our date and we had so much fun together. And we even saw a new movie coming out from a movie poster hanging in the movies on the wall and we both want to see it as soon as it comes out. Anyway that was our date from last Tuesday. ; )
The one thing our family loves the most during the Summer months. Is all the backyard BBQ's we have and plus the slip and slide fun and of course also when we bring out the kids pool (no slip and slide or pool for us this weekend, but bbq for sure). All of those things make us really enjoy being at home in the Summer time and just kicking back in the backyard. Since it's June, we decided to buy some ribs for June and bbq those. We'll buy some at the end of July. I usually order 1 rack/slab each, so order 2, since each order comes with 2 slabs inside anyway. However Noboru said he wanted more ribs, so we ordered a quantity of 3, which brought us 6 slabs total. We were going to BBQ Tuesday but something came up, so we decided to make it for Saturday (tomorrow)
We also bought 2kg of lean ground beef. That way for the month of June, if we want meatballs, chargrilled cheeseburgers or even hamburg. Whatever, we'll have it. I bought potatoes for roasting and corn on the cob for tomorrow. Noah has a "father's observation day" tomorrow. Noboru is going to that with Noah tomorrow morning. And when they both come home around 11:30am. We'll probably laze around some and around 3pm tomorrow start our BBQ. I'm so glad today is Friday. I love and look forward to the weekends so much. : )
And also just wanted to say, thanks dad. Thanks for sending me Mrs. Butterworths. Her syrup is just the best. We love it. And now thanks to you we'll be enjoying the rest of those waffles without worrying if we'll run out of syrup. : ) I laughed when I saw the package...it said..."extremely urgent" on the USPS you chose. I guess we were having a syrup emergency here? Ha ha ha. Anyway thank you dad, you rock! : )
I haven't shared pics of the kids at swim school in forever it seems. I'll be sure to take some of Branden at swim school next chance I get (his swimming honestly blows me away). But for now, here's Noah's. Noah swims on a day, his 2 best friends swim. H and R. H swims in a different lane since he's a level 13 or 14. : ( But not to worry they play at swim club before swim school, they play in the holding area, do their exercise warm ups together. And then play for a few minutes in the locker room while we get them dressed. Noah swims in the same lane as R-kun though and S-chan. Here's Noah smiling at R-kun.
Noah's swimming is seriously really good.
A happy smiling Noah! : )
And a few more laps. The kids get good exercise, they are learning some crazy good swim skills! Plus they have fun with their friends outside of yochien/elementary school. : )
Sunday both Branden and Noah went fishing with their dad. Noboru has been looking forward to fishing with the boys all week. And the boys as well. This pic is of them holding poles and tackle boxes. Noboru was in the shed getting something else out before they left. They went from 9am, as soon as they ate the breakfast I made for them. And didn't come back until 5pm. The time Noboru and I agreed upon, we had to have a matching time, because I needed to know when to make sure dinner was ready. Noboru let them go to 7-11 and pick their own lunch.. sandwiches and bag of chips and drink. And they were excited. : ) Noah caught 2 shrimp and 1 fish. Branden caught 3 fish, they catch and release.
What did I do with my free time Sunday? Well, I spent 1 hour and no more in Branden's room. I flipped up his mattress and vacuumed under his bed which this is what's under his bed...nothing. I vacuumed it super good, the whole entire room. I vacuum all the rooms during the week anyway, but it was nice to get a more thorough vacuuming by flipping that heavy mattress. I had both Branden and Noah's comforters air drying outside. And had stripped both Branden and Noah's sheets and pillow cases and washed them and dried them in the dryer. Cleaned all Branden's windows and dusted every single blind in Branden's windows. The front side of the blinds and back side of the blinds. @_@ Then the dryer beeped and I made both the boys beds in their rooms. And not to leave Noah out, I cleaned his room from top to bottom the day before. I tell ya, not a spider or a cobweb to be found in their rooms. I also threw out 2 big bags full of Noah's toys, the day before but it's not that type of trash day for a while... so I'll have to hold onto those until June 14th or so (but they're all bagged and packed). Just the old junky Mc D's type toys or broken toys. All the good ones stayed. And he still has 2 full to the brim amount of toy boxes. So, an hour of cleaning Branden's room and fresh bedding for them both. After that hour. I went downstairs. Blogged for about 35 minutes. Got that up and posted. And then, I decided if I should watch TV or exercise. I went on Spark. Had a few emails on there from my Spark friends. And I decided to do a little exercise. Because frankly slimming down is really awesome! I like how it feels. And it's not like it takes me forever to do it. So, I got on my treadmill turned on my ipod and I had no idea how long I'd be on, but I really liked the music picked for me from the shuffle and so I stayed on for 30 minutes. Go figure. And then I did 100 stomach crunches (which now take me no time at all). And didn't really feel like doing more. So, 1 hour cleaning the boys rooms, 35 minutes blogging and 45 minutes working out (30 minutes treadmill the rest for the crunches) and the rest of my day free....I had pork in the crock pot for the curry I'd be making... so dinner was pretty much easy. And I sat basically from 1-5pm, on the couch....totally enjoying myself watching TV with a comfy pillow and blanket just relaxing. I did what I had to do beforehand. So, no guilt at all. I knew the boys were off having fun with Noboru. And I just enjoyed myself. Yes around 4:30pm, I transferred the things from the crock pot to the stove into a pan. And added the veggies they boiled, then turned soft and then I added the roux, turned off the stove and waited for them to come home. When they came home, the 3 of them jumped in the shower, thank goodness for a big shower and bathing area. They got clean, came down stairs in their comfy clothes. Put their fishing clothes in the laundry basket. And we had dinner. They told me all of their fishing stories. How some older fisherman approached Noboru and said..."excuse what language are they speaking?" Meaning Branden and Noah. He said, English, their mother is American. He said, wow it sounds so amazing, apparently he had heard the boys flip languages all day long and he was just gobsmacked by it all that he had to come talk to Noboru about it. @_@ The boys speak to each other in English always. Then they speak to other fishermen in Japanese then flip back and speak to each other. This doesn't raise an eyebrow in our family at all.... but it apparently did for this "grandpa type" fisherman. And all 6 or so fisherman were standing near the same area and the areas quite quiet, so they could hear them.
Everything in this title was all done on 1 single day! All done on June 1st. I woke up, got breakfast made for both Branden and Noah. Branden needs a thermos now from now until undokai in August. So, I didn't forget Branden's thermos either, phew! Noah and I dropped off Branden. Drove home. By now it was like 7:38am. We came in. Noah watched cartoons while I made obento. Also got out ice and filled thermos #2 and packed his obento into Noah's school backpack and laid it in the genkan and stood his Pokemon thermos next to it, so I didn't forget. Had Noah get his socks on, white under shirt and brush his teeth meanwhile I switched shirts and combed my hair. ; ) Then we went into Noah's room and I got his uniform on. Around 8:30am we left the house. Drove to the city sort of near us. I parked the car and dropped off Noah good morning-ed and smiled at his sensei and left. Drove all the way back home. Hung out the laundry. And then ran upstairs put my make up on. Did my hair. And now switched to something presentable to wear. Nothing fancy of course just something a little better then a jogging suit. ; ) At 9:45am I left the house and headed to the elementary school.
One extra pic of the Summer uniform boy! ; )
I asked Branden what class do you want me to visit the most? He said science. So that is the class I showed up for. How many volts are in a AA battery? These kids know! This thing Branden is holding. And I said thing because it has wheels where it came be a car but it also has a helicopter type pieces. So it can truly be what each kid wants to make it.
Here the teacher was asking about positive sides and negative sides of the battery which would make the light shine brighter. It was actualy pretty interesting. Kouiki-kun's mom was back there. Boy next door's mom was back there too but she also has 1 more younger son so she was going back and forth between both son's classes which looked hard. : ( And a few other mom's too. You could come any time of day this particular observation day. Some observation days are free where you can show up anytime and sometimes we also have some observation days where you...show up at such and such time, more time specific. ; ) These kids are getting so smart! By the way....see the girl in the pink shirt to the left of this picture striped pink shirt with pink sleeves? She wrote Branden a very interesting "love" type letter a few weeks back. It sort of surprised Noboru a little when he read it. He just said..she's very mature. Ha ha ha. Anyway maybe more on that later. Anyway...I stayed for the entire hour. I then went home. Walked all the way down the hill to my car which was parked at the Plaza and then went home. By this time, I barely had time to vacuum. Prep for dinner. And had some corn potage soup with a cracker for my lunch and went and did my afternoon pick ups. Picked up Noah and then came home. Branden had a huge fire drill that day. Not just a regular small fire drill the kids do at school. Nope. This one was conducted after school and the school asked all the parents to do a mock "after a fire' pick up and to have the kids walk all the way home. Noboru was now home. And he said he'd take over from here. And he'd do the fire drill part at the school. Which was fine by me, because frankly I'd been feeling like I was on the gogogo all day long And if he was willing to go to the elementary and do the fire drill and walk all the way home, more power to him. I was pretty thankful for that. : ) Besides I was at home watching Noah and I also was cooking dinner so it wasn't like I was taking a snooze at home or anything. : )
Noboru took these. They always come out by class.
So many mothers and yes a few fathers.
All the kids from the school. There's Branden and his bright turquoise shirt to the left sitting down near his teacher. And the girl with the pink shirt sitting right next to him.
More parents. When Noboru and Branden finally made it home, he said....49 minutes. It took them 49 minutes to get home. Which is amazing because it is a 5 minute drive but yes in the country side it does take forever to pass all those rice fields on foot I guess. I gave them each a drink since I knew they were thirsty. Branden did homework and we ate dinner. Phew what a day but we made it. And since it was on Wednesday we knew we just passed the hump. So the weekend was all the more closer. Wait until you find out what happened to me at the yochien the following day though. I was so sore and walking around like a stiff "Robbie the robot" up until yesterday because of it!!!! : ) All us white hat mother's were punished. I'll just leave you with that to think about...until I can get that posted. : )
With knowing Noah's uniform would need changing June 1st. I went through his Summer uniform things in his closet last week. He had 4 short sleeve dress shirts all in great shape and ready for wear (2 came from Branden), 1 pair of Summer shorts (another pair were thrown away by me last year because they were outgrown plus some of the seaming came undone but since they were outgrown, they were just tossed instead). And also Noah's smock was outgrown so that needed changing as well. Also the hat, he was using Branden's straw hat but it pretty much bit the dust last year, so that also needed to be replaced. So from the uniform shop I picked up 1 straw hat, 1 short sleeve dress shirt (now he has 5 short sleeves total, which is more then enough), 1 smock and 1 pair of gray Summer uniform shorts. That's all. This Monday, I washed this very small load of new items and considering it was raining outside I dried them up in the dryer before Noboru and I left the house to go to Hanamasa. Of course we sent both Branden and Noah to school already that morning. So the Summer uniform stuff cleaned and ready for June 1st. Done. Phew. : )
Their prices of whole chickens is always so fair. We bought the 2 pack, that way we'd have leftovers. I think I'll bake this on this coming Sunday evening or this coming Monday. The reason, I would like to use some of that roasted chicken for a wrap for Noah's obento.
After we left Hanamasa. Noboru suggested we go and have some lunch at the Ohsho. I agreed. However they don't open until 11:30am. So we had 30 minutes to kill. So, we went to Joyful Honda's gardening department area to look around. I love looking around the gardening department so much.
As we were parking the car. And it was still raining by the way. Noboru said "oh how cruel" I said...what??? @_@ He said, "leaving the dogs for sale outside like that." Clearly with him also parking the car he missed the fact they were not real, they were in fact statues or ceramic dogs. ; ) I said...."honey they're not real dogs, look!!!" After getting out of the car and having a closer look. He was quite embarrassed. : ) It did make us both laugh though as we entered the store. So funny!
We went to the Ohsho and had lunch. I had a fried rice, gyoza and egg drop soup. Noboru had a gyoza combo with salad and karaage and stuff.
On our way home from the restaurant Noboru wanted to go into a fishing goods store. OMG, I find fishing so boring. But I know he loves it. It's his one hobby he really really enjoys. And Noboru likes taking Branden and Noah. It's also a very cheap hobby. Doesn't take too much room in the shed. So, I have no reason to complain in the least, so I won't. : ) He is meanwhile like a kid in a candy store in there. He could stay in there forever! How I feel about being in a Target is probably how he feels about being at a fishing good store. He said do you want to come in with me. I said..sure. : ) I tried really hard to stay interested. And Noboru was quite happy. He bought Branden and Noah each a fishing pole. A shrimping pole which is a little different then a fishing pole. They are very cheap, I think Noah's was 499 yen and Branden's was 599 since he needed a longer size since he's taller then Noah. He is planning to take the boys "shrimping" this Sunday, weather permitting.
Whole chickens. Can't wait to roast these. Pork chops. And a nice big pork roast. That I'll either turn into niku jaga or curry. I have ingredients at home for both ways anyway, so I'll see how I feel when it comes time to making it. : )
Tortillas and broccoli.
Rice.
Rice from Hokkaido. After we unloaded the groceries, I prepped dinner ingredients for Monday's dinner. And then went around and did my afternoon pick up of the boys. Kumon run and swimming club. And then a big yahoo after everything was done/finished for the day. I love the evenings after everything is done for the day, we all just enjoyed a meal, the dishes just went into the dishwasher. And every one's showered and homework is done. And we can all just sit and relax together. Anyway that was Monday of this week. ; )
Last Saturday for all the kids who go to the elementary school there was another kodomo kai. It's for kids just in our town. These are pretty common in Japan. Siblings are allowed, but when we asked Noah if he'd like to go a month ago, he passed. Oh well, he'll go next year when he's an ichinensei. This is like a kids club where there are games and prizes and food and drinks. It's really fun for the kids. According to the paper it was from 8:30am to noon. I dropped off Branden at 8:20am. He had his cell so he could call me anytime. And although they had the coupon that allowed them to play the games and get a hot dog and stuff, we gave Branden 500 yen just in case. He only spent an extra 200 yen and brought us back the 300 yen change. At 11:45am, Noah and I went to the plaza to pick him up. We figured more then likely the parking lot would be packed with all the parents picking up their kiddos. Which yes the parking lot was packed to the gills. I was in the process of turning my car around and Branden just happened to see my car from inside the building. I said, it's okay I know I got here a little early. By now it was like 11:50am. He said no a lot of kids are going home now and I'm ready too. Okay. : ) So he hopped in my car got strapped in and we went home and had lunch. It was a rainy weekend last weekend. With a typhoon even supposed to go our way that Sunday (the day after). But it must have lost it's steam because we didn't really get any more (or less) then we got on Saturday.
Branden brought all these treats home from the kodomo kai. And in the paper cup was popcorn. Our town has a big popcorn popper and every kodomo kai they always get really delicious popcorn. : )
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