Three day weekend. Backyard bbq

This weekend we just finished up having, it was a 3 day weekend. Yesterday/Monday the boys didn't have school or Kumon, so that was really nice. Branden and Noah played outside all day with their friends. They played with the "boy next door" and his 4th grade brother and also they played with Genki-kun too. They also played all day Saturday also. But on Saturday they played with 2 boys from Branden's class and they both have names that start with T. So, Saturday Branden and Noah played with 2 fifth grade boys named T. And they also played with the "boy next door" and his little brother Saturday too. The weather has been quite bitterly cold,  but both Branden and Noah wear sweatshirts and stuff and with all that running and play they do, they manage to keep warm.  How was our 3 day weekend? Really nice, very relaxing and restful. I made sure the house was finished and cleaned Friday. I did make last minute trips to the bakery to get bread and what not for the weekend and breakfast stuff. We were weekend ready. hahaha. : ) Every evening we had dinner together and watched TV or movies. But the day time, the boys were outside running and playing, "hide and go seek" football, and also soccer. They were zip zapping all over the block/street this weekend. : ) Anyway yesterday/Monday we decided to BBQ. Because we had nowhere we "had" to be, no running to Kumon or anything. And it was a perfect way to end the 3 day weekend.  We had beef marinating all day, chicken breast and mushrooms. We kept it very simple.

Noboru started the fire around 4:45pm, we know all the kids go home at 5pm. And when the bell rang, we heard kids all saying..."bye." See you" or  "see you tomorrow" you know that type of thing. What are the boys doing way at the back left corner of this picture? Picking up the bark. When they play in the backyard and front yard and zip back and forth all day long they sometimes kick out some bark from the jungle gym area. And so they are putting it back. : )

Ready to eat, it was around 5:30pm-ish right then. And it was by now... feeling pretty freezing cold outside.

We just ate and enjoyed dinner. Dinner clean up was easy since we cooked outside, no stove to wash and wipe down or frying pans to clean. : ) Hahaha, ykwim. And that was it basically. Every one took a turn to shower and bath. And then we watched TV last night and then went to sleep.  So good part of this week so far? It's only a 4 day week now. lol. : )

What else. You know what's good about going to observation day. Okay, well besides the getting to watch your kids. It's the perfect time to see what my kids need to be refilled, switched or need a new replacing. For example Noah told me 2 weeks before that he needed a new white hose (for lack of better word) for his pianica. Well, on observation day, I actually peeked at his pianica and okay, he could use a new hose/replacement part. So, I went to my local drugstore and bought him said  new hose for a couple hundred yen. Also, Branden has been telling me that everyone has been getting new seat covers all this past year. Fair enough. So, when I went to observation day. Hmm, seems he's right. And I noticed Branden's rubber piece that holds onto his seat was all stretched out etc. Frankly I thought Branden could be the only one still using his seat cover since the ichinensei. Everyone else's looked like it's been replaced within the last 5 years. So again, fair enough.  I could see first hand. made a mental note and remembered. I also noticed a lot of his classmates gym bags looked newer. Branden has been using his same one ,since first grade. So for 5 years. Anyway, long story short. I went online and bought this handmade Mario 3D backpack gym bag for Branden.

It said it's bigger then usual size. I thought that's perfect. A little bigger then usual, gym bag is always nice. Nice and roomy for gym clothes.

Much bigger/wider then his last one. So, I washed it and hung it to dry. He's using his new Mario gym bag starting today.

Seat cover. I was hoping to find a cool one. And lucky for me, I did.

Kids in Japan who are in the know, know these mushroom characters. It's apparently an app. You know in the US, we have Angry Birds. Here in Japan, this mushroom character is big/popular. Everyone at our school is gaga for these. A lot of the kids in Branden's class are collecting the straps for these. Meanwhile in Noah's class the kids have these mushroom stickers. @_@  Granted when I saw this character, I thought, "they look like worms" @_@ lol. Alright alright, I'm clearly not in the know. : ) But, the fact is, kids love these here in Japan. Branden plays this game. And even Noah's collecting the stickers right now along with his classmates. @_@  And like it or not, right or wrong. Kids do want to follow the same trends as their classmates. So, I saw this and I showed Branden, since we were looking for a seat cover anyway. I said Branden, you can have a Pokemon seat cover, I named off a few other characters that were being sold. And then I said or they also have 1 of those wormy weird mushroom character seat covers. Branden said, "let em see" so I showed him the pic online. He wanted it so badly. So, that's what Branden ended up with. He took this seat cover last Friday. Branden said his classmates flipped, (they loved it), when they saw his seat cover. And I thought, awww I tried my best kiddo. So that made me happy, I could find this for him. : )

The lady who made the seat cover also gave a free gift. A free face mask. Handmade also. So when/if he gets sick he can wear this. Branden says he can share his face mask with Noah, so if one of them gets sick now, they can now use this one. Hahaha. : )

Anyway that was our weekend in a nutshell. And the little story on the replacing of Branden's seat cover and his gym bag. : )

Lunch date. Yoyo Market. Turkey dinner. Family board game night. The Super Bowl, what a game, what a half time! And American Idol, Hollywood Week

As usual, so much to say and stories to share. But so little time to get online and actually say them. Hahaha. : ) But, I'll try my best right now. Everything on this particular post either happened this week or happened last week. Last Thursday, Noboru and I went on an afternoon lunch date, just the two of us. We went to our favorite Indian restaurants and had a curry set, with salad,, naan and chicken. I had the kabocha curry as usual. ; ) This was so good. This week, when we went on our weekly date, we went and had ramen.

Yoyo Market was mentioned to me in one of the posts down below. I think it was in the Gap post. Anyway, I did look over their website and I liked what I saw and I wanted to give it a shot ordering from them. Especially considering the good review, I got in my comments section about them. What did we think of Yoyo Market?  They totally rock! Would I order from them again in the future? You betcha! I also like their shipping prices much better then Flying Pig. I also love how their website is all in English. I also felt their website was easy to navigate too. 

Noboru's credit card was used so the order came to him, in his name. Which is why the note starts off with "Dear Noboru." But they took the time and wrote him this hand written note. Saying they were very thankful he ordered from them and they hoped he would enjoy the turkey and provolone. This little personal touch, completely won me over. To me that little extra bit of care really got me. In a busy world, when Old Navy and Gap is known to have robots do their packaging for their orders (and if you caught 20/20 last week or two weeks ago, lots of companies in the US do that now). I often wonder in Japan, who packed this? A human? A robot? Or Conveyor belt packaging style. It was nice to get that hand written sentiment in there though. Just a really nice extra touch. : )

My first order, just kept it simple, just ordered 1 turkey. And...

This was shipped and packed separately and even wrapped in paper.

It was cheese. Provolone cheese for leftover turkey sandwiches.  Anyway, 3 cheers for Yoyo Market. And 3 cheers for a turkey dinner and it not needing to be Thanksgiving. : )

What else have we been up to? Well Saturday evening. The night before the big town marathon on Setsubun/Sunday. After shower and bath time both Branden, Noah and myself played our family favorite board game. We played Sorry!

We have floor heating, so the floors downstairs stay at a constant 40 degrees C all winter long. So it feels kind of toasty good and comfortable to sit on the floor and have a good little board game going. Both boys in their jammies/pjs. : )

People always ask me. Doesn't matter if I'm Skyping with a girlfriend of mine from back home in Denver. Or if I'm skyping my friend in Osaka. The question always comes up. "Watching anything good lately?" So here's what I have been watching. I am still enjoying the Oprah Winfrey celebrity interviews. 2 weeks ago, I think it was or a week ago. I caught the Drew Barrymore interview! With her husband and adorable daughter Olive! Love Drew Barrymore btw, she seems so down to earth, she's a free spirit and she seems genuine and that's rare now days. She's also beautiful. Plus, all her movies are awesome.Some of my most favorites are,  Never Been Kissed. The Wedding Singer. Irreconcilable Differences. Poison Ivy, E.T. Just all her movies but those are my favorites. And I can always tell her voice on Family Guy when she voices the character Jillian, Brian's ex-girlfriend. lol.

She seems like such a cool girl. And I'm so glad she's found happiness, she totally deserves it. Fantastic interview.

The commercials for this interview ran all week. It got me interested. Oprah interviewed, Whitney Houston's mother and her brother. Whitney Houston was warm funny and when I caught her Oprah interview years before she seemed open. Her mother was very different. I remember even during the funeral on TV they mentioned that Whitney's mother was tough. Etc. So anyway I watched the interview. She did seem tough. I forget now what was said between Oprah and her. I believe they were talking about toxicology, what types of drugs were found in Whitney's body. And Oprah said like 4 and she said 3. And Oprah said it was because of drugs that she died and the mother corrected Oprah and said she died of a heart attack. And it was like an awkward 30 seconds there for a bit. @_@ Ahem. And I could tell Oprah bit her tongue on that one. Another time, the mom, said, "Whitney was too nice. Now, I'm not so nice, if you come at me, I'll say something, I won't go for it" I'm paraphrasing but that was the gist of it. Don't get me wrong she wasn't rude during the inetrview. But she was just really different then you'd expect. Then Whitney's brother came out, that's him in this pic. She had 2 brothers and this was her closest. They were often mistaken for twins? I never heard that before the interview. Anyway that's what they said during the interview. The biggest shocker for me, was Oprah asked Whitney's brother point blank. "Did Bobby Brown get her hooked on drugs or was she doing this with you before she met Bobby Brown" Oprah also said, "America's assumption is she was America's sweetheart and she married that very bad Bobby Brown who ruined her, is that true?" ..silence and then.......Her brother said, she was doing drugs before Bobby Brown. @_@ My face was like...what???? That totally took me by surprise completely. A very very interesting interview. Oh and the mom of Whitney said she and Whitney's daughter Bobbi Christina are not very close, when she calls her granddaughter she often can't get her on the phone and she heard Bobbi Christina wasn't too happy the grandma wrote the book. She was on the interview promoting her book btw. Anyway interesting interview.

Apples were 50 yen each. I thought that was a fair deal, for where we live. So I baked an apple crisp, of course. : )

Oh goodness, it was so good.

Did anyone catch the Super Bowl? How about the half time? Beyonce rocked it! She was freaking amazing!

It was like a mini concert, so many of her hits! And then...

A mini Destiny's Child reunion on stage! Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland. Kelly Rowland is amazing on her own also. She of course has sung hits like the song Dilemma with Nelly a few years back. And she remade that song with Michael Buble, "How Deep is Your Love", anyway was pleasantly surprised by the half time. Beyonce did amazing and happy to see Destiny's Child back, even if it's just for the super bowl.

In the actual football part of the Super Bowl, it came on for us Monday morning Japan time. I had just thrown in my turkey into the oven. And enjoyed the football game. There was a power outage during the actual football game in the stadium. Before the blackout, during the football game, the Ravens were beating the 49ers quite badly. But after the power outage, it's like the 49ers got their power back too. lol. Because they came back fighting! It was an extremely good game and close game after the black out was over.

This player was so happy he made a confetti angel on the field. Sort of like a snow angel. Hahaha.

Pulling the turkey out of the oven Monday evening.

It was not a fancy Thanksgiving dinner. Not that our Thanksgivings are really over the top anyways, but... It was a simple turkey dinner. We had the plastic dinner mats out. Regular plates. Just a regular dinner.

Our dinner from this Monday. Again even paper cups that wink at you! Yep, we put no airs on here! lol. ; ) But gosh was dinner good. Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy, green beans and black olives.

Lunch this past Tuesday afternoon. We have been eating turkey all this week. We're done with it now of course. But yep, that's what we've been doing this week. Finishing up and enjoying the turkey.

Tuesdays lunch done and bread cut and I went on the couch and I enjoyed my lunch while watching Dr. Phil. (talk show) lol.

It's Hollywood Week on American Idol now. If you're in Japan and worried about spoilers stop reading now. : ) Anyway this kiddo was in a group they said which was the youngest bunch, so these kids went on together.

4 teens, trying their best, they sang the Billy Joel song. "The Longest Time"

They did a pretty good job. I don't show videos too often on here. but it's worth a watch down below of them singing. And it's not too long of a video either. And somebody from the group of young teens did not make it. But to be fair, I am not saying who was cut. : )

Anyway, that's what we've been doing the past 2 weeks at our place.  I'm so happy today is Friday. Yes!!!! The weekend is here. And we have nothing to do this weekend. No community clean up, no marathon to run. Ahhh weekends are bliss, aren't they. : ) Have a lovely weekend all of you.

The town marathon

Thursday last week, after observation day. After school actually while I was standing outside near my car chit chatting with 2 of my good friends. One of them mentioned to me,this is a new mom friend btw, she has a first grader and so do I (Noah). She's originally from Yokohama and she speaks absolutely amazing English. She used to be a translator or some thing along those lines and her family when she was growing up because of her father's job she and her sister and parents moved to England for a few years and went to school there. So yeah it has been a nice year all this time, knowing her. Her son and Noah are very good friends. He used to go to the local hoikuen that's why we never met before last April. So anyway that's the little info/tidbit on her. So she's pretty cool. Anyway she kindly tells me last Thursday, "I know Noah-kun likes to run, will he be participating in the town marathon this coming Sunday?" Like 3 or so days away. At this point I must mention,our town gets a once a month 5 page bulletin and town news. Pictures of new babies born for that month type news etc. I scan it through every single month. However the 1 month I fail to give it a look through, that's the month we'd need the information. Gah!!! That seems to always be the case right, lol. OMG! I said to my friend, "Noah would love that. But, I'm sure I'm too late to enter/register, right?" She said, "I bet you can still enter. Tomorrow's Friday go down to the town ward office tomorrow or call" I told her "thank you so much!!!!! The kids all come down the hill we all wave goodbye. And that's it. I asked Noah, on the way home in the car, would you like to participate, it's your choice. Noah said, "totally, count me in!!!" He was actually more worried if he was too late to enter! Poor kid! Worry wart that he is. : ) I tell Noboru when he gets home and he agrees. He says if he wants to do it, by all means. We should let him. So, Friday rolls around. As soon as the town ward office opens. Noboru calls. "hello this is Mr. such and such, he says. They know exactly who Noboru is right away on the phone, lol. Small town. : ) He says, "sorry to be calling about this so late, but we just found out yesterday, is there anyway we can enroll my first grader in the marathon?" Never mentioning Noah by name. But he did say he was Mr. Our last name. The woman on the phone tells him. "it's past the deadline but not to worry, I know it's okay." and by the way the one who makes the ultimate decision if it's too late or not is our neighbor guy across the street. : ) Okay she says, "let me fill out the form over the phone right now and is there anyway you can swing by to stamp your okay, allowing him to run, sure I can be right over, Noboru says. She continues writing....and then she says... "This is for Noah-kun is that correct?" @_@ Yes, Noboru says. Wow, super small town. lol. She knows his name without even having to say it. lol. He went down and they stamped the paperwork in. When I picked up Noah Friday afternoon he was still so worried. "Can I run on Sunday?", yes sweetheart you can run. : ) So, this pic is from Sunday the actual marathon day. They had these tables set up and you needed to go and sign in.

A bit blurry, but we walked up and Noah was signed in, in no time.

One of the men in charge, main/head guy in charge actually... is standing right in this picture. He's our neighbor.  And father of A-chan who is a 7th grader and she lives across the street, this is her dad. : ) We've known A-chan since she started ichinensei, when we first moved here. And likewise,  he's known Noah since before he was even 1 year old. So he saw Noah and took his hand immediately and put him right up at the top of the line. Good thing for really good neighbors. : ) Yep that's Noah in his orange shorts and his glow in the dark super white skinny chicken legs. : ) As you can see in this picture, some kids wore soccer uniforms. Some wore street clothes but active type sweatpants or whatever. And some showed up with their school gym/PE uniform on. Clothing was whatever you decided.  Noah ran the marathon back in December in shorts so he wanted to wear shorts again.

Both elementary schools and the 1 junior high school. Basically everyone who is a kid/elementary school age that makes up our town were here, even Branden showed up but he wasn't running, but even he was here. : )

You see the steam coming out of that? See how big that pot of soup is? It's half the height of that woman! Enough to feed a town of kids! And btw this was the most genki and active set of lady cooks. When the kids warmed up for taiso/exercise, these ladies were rocking it! They were bending and jumping with the best of them! Healthy ladies!

Branden isn't into running. Which is fine, he'd prefer be under the sea or in the water and race, lol. While Noah loves it. However Branden showed up and he cheered his brother on so much! We all did. Branden also chit chatted with a good set of his friends.

The school marathon back in December was pretty fair. It was the first graders running by themselves, then 2nd graders ran alone also, they're still young granted, but not as young and as tiny as the 1st graders. Followed by 3rd and 4th running together, which is fine they start evening out around this age, size wise. And of course the 5th and 6th also ran together because again they sort of even out size wise around then too. I like that way, more fair and level playing field. Especially for the ichinensei's. However for the race that took place this past Sunday, February 3rd Setsubun day. All first graders and second grade runners ran together, all lumped together. Noboru and I could honestly hear the day of the race a few fellow ichinensei mom's said in whispers, "they shouldn't have put the 2 grades together. It isn't fair really. The difference between an ichinesei and ninensei is too great. It's clear a ninensei will win." We listened to the conversation, I mean they were standing right next to us and they knew we had an ichinensei too, but we didn't join the conversation. Then Noboru tells me in English, did you hear that? I said, yes and I agree too. he said me too. But we also both agreed, nothing you can really do about it. It is what it is. No sense in getting all riled up about something you can't really control. So, at the very least. Ichinensei try your hardest. And run a good race. Good luck to everyone. Try your best and most importantly have fun. The extremely tall boy on the right of Noah in this picture, wearing the soccer outfit is a friend of Noah's because they swim for the same swim club and he's a 2nd grader but he's really nice.

The majority of the 2nd graders about 98% of them were polite no pushing or shoving. It's just a small handful that were really pushing. Do you remember my post down below on observation day from just a few days ago? Noah and Kaito playing with the older folks from our town. Anyway, if you see this pic, Poor Kaito in the blue shirt and pants is really getting held back by both kids on each side of him. You can see their hands on his shirt and this picture is mild compared to when the cap gun went off, poor Kaito was left in the dust as they literally pushed K back before they took off running. @_@  Not very sportsman like if you ask me. Yeah and again only a few of the ninensei were behaved like that. And again 98% of them were sweethearts. Much bigger then the ichinensei granted, but still sweethearts and polite kids. When they shot that cap gun in the air, it's sad to say a small handful of the 2nd graders pushed the ichinensei out of their way, like pushed them back and ran, it was sort of surreal really watching that, you're like, what? Did I just see this? And Kaito and a few of the ichinensei got a delayed start of it because of a few pusher back folks. You know as a mother I want/hope and try to be really zen about things. you want to breath in and breath out so to speak. Be calm, not get your feathers too badly ruffled over trivial things like this. And you know for the most part, I really don't sweat the small stuff. But sometimes like when I saw the hands on Kaito by the bigger kids and it was even worse after I snapped this picture. And the smaller younger ones get pushed out of the way. You start to think, "hey that's not cool, not cool at all!!!!" I'm assuming quite a few ichinensei parents weren't too thrilled on Sunday, Noboru was not so thrilled either by the few who did that either. To be honest, it's not very sportsmanship like to do that, to try and push or manhandle your competitor, even if he's just a little fella. Next year when Noah runs this, if he wants to. He'll be the bigger grade of the 2 running and I already told him. Don't treat the ichinensei next year unfairly like how many of the ichinensei were treated this year. And he has promised me, he won't. It just wasn't really a cool thing to do.Sort of turned me off seeing the handful of kids behave like this. And again most didn't behave like this. One has to wonder though, are you trying to run a fair and fun race or are you trying to win at all costs type of race. Kwim. Noah didn't get pushed out of the way at all, because he's really superly active at school. Every break he gets he's outside playing soccer with all the grades kids, 6th, 2nd, 3rd etc and first graders too. Plus he swims and so he knows a lot of the older kids from swimming also. Plus he's constantly in the neighborhood playing with all the kids who live in our community. But the few quieter or smaller kids got stampeded and that really was unfair and very upsetting seeing that. : (  It wasn't even my child but yeah it was upsetting seeing it.

First place, second place and 3rd place went to a ninensei/ second grader, of course. And that's okay.  : )  I am happy that first place went to my very good friends son. He's a sweetheart of a boy. He was one of the 98%.  Meaning he's wonderful to the ichinensei, he wasn't one of the kids pushing at all. So he won fair and square and won a clean race. And he's as fast as lightning, my friends son. So, I think he totally deserved to win. Anyway, I know you can see a few of the soccer giants in front of Noah in this picture. They're 2nd graders clearly, hahaha that super tall one is the one again that Noah swims with every week, so they're good friends. : ) And I must say out of all kids Noah came in 6th place, which isn't so bad really considering how many kids there were and considering the top 1-5 were all ninensei kids. And look at Noah in the orange. And he has a big crowd of 2nd garders and 1st graders behind him! But he's actually honestly so fast he's in front of that pack of kids. So, yeah I was pretty proud, considering he could do so well despite running with an older grade of kids.  : )  He didn't medal. Because he didn't come in 1,2 or 3 out of both grades combined. However he was the fastest ichinensei from both schools. And that's still something to be proud of. They should have given medals to the top 3 ichinensei also that would have at least been fair also. Like how our school gave top 3 for each grade. And also btw (by the way) Noah wearing orange when everyone basically wore blue or black or school gym uniform worked for us best when looking for him as they all run around the field. Meant we could see Noah so clearly as he ran around the rice field. It made it very easily to spot which one was Noah.

Noah is running so fast in this picture. Oh and you remember the December shogakko marathon. How Noah received a bronze medal for coming in 3rd place. Well, the 2 boys who won the gold and silver. Noah ran actually faster then them this past Sunday. That also surprised us this past Sunday. ; ) So, he's getting a little faster, you guys, lol. : ) And Noah is really good friends with the boys who won the gold and silver back in December at the school marathon. Probably because they're all jocks, and they all have the same common interests. They told Noah in playful teasing on Monday of this week a day after the town marathon. "You're so fast, but we will try and beat you at the undokai and marathon next year", Noah said, "okay that sounds good, you guys are equally good too though, so I will try my best to beat you two, too" So the top jocks and sporty boys from hoikuen turn out to be Noah's best set of friends, could be again they all have the same things in common though, like running, soccer and sports, every break and chance they get at school and after lunch. Type thing, who knows. Anyway, just wanted to say  I am so proud of you Noah.  : )  All in all our family enjoyed watching the marathon. Noah had a blast running in it. And on Monday the Yuka-sensei according to Noah told the whole class how fast he ran the day before. A lot of the older kids heard about it too and high fived him all day Monday of this week, lol.  Anyway, go skinny chicken legs go!!!! Hahaha. : )

Oniwa~ soto! Fukuwa~ uchi! Setsubun 2013

February 3rd/yesterday was Setsubun! I've been blogging about that every year for years, so my older posts are on here explaining what it is so I won't go into detail about it today. Here's one from Setsubun 2009  Also, I thought that because Noah was now in elementary school, there'd be no more celebrating Setsubun, school wise like how they did in elementary school. Ykwim. Sure we could celebrate at home but I'm talking about celebrating at the school. Ykwim. So, imagine how pleasantly surprised I was when all the first graders came running down the hill Friday after school. All wearing these oni masks! Us mom's that were waiting were all pleasantly surprised. I thought, how cool! Anyway these 2 pics here were taken yesterday February 3rd. I didn't get around to posting it yesterday because Noah ran a marathon yesterday hahaha. Post coming for that one soon. : ) So these pics were from actual Setsubun day after the marathon. : )

Noah, Setsubun 2013. I know you're 7 years young kiddo. But you are going to be my baby forever. And I think for most of us mom's especially for our last kids, you'll get/understand what I mean.

My closest bakery (not in our town) always sells these cream pans. And makes oni ones around Setsubun/ I went and bought these Friday afternoon to surprise both Branden and Noah with them. I didn't know about the masks they'd be bringing home of course. But, I thought, you know Setsubun is coming and I think I should buy them something special, even if it's just a 100 yen cream pan. At least they'll know I was thinking about them. They did love them! : )

Some Setsubun pics from the past. that always give me a smile when I see them. Noah age 3. February 2009.

Setsubun 2011.

And this one was just taken 12 months ago! This was taken February 2012!

And this is Branden's 2008 Setsubun pic!