Valentine's Day

Sorry, as usual I am about 4 posts behind. hahaha. : ) Anyway, I did want to talk about Valentine's just a teeny tiny bit. Noboru asked me in January what I would like for Valentine's day. I told him, I'd like 1 book, 1 DVD and maybe a small box of chocolates or maybe a camera case. He said, get the chocolates *and* the camera case, I'll get you those no problem. He said just throw what you want into the Amazon cart and he'll take care of the rest. Bless this man! Such an awesome husband! So totally thoughtful always. And no, I don't mind in the least picking out what I'd like for Valentine's day. It saves my husband having to rack his brain. And plus he's not a psychic. I know some households might want the element of surprise and that's fine, if that's how you do it, but that's not how we roll here at our house. So, I don't mind throwing what I'd like in the cart at all. Not at all. I often do the same in return because that way no disappointments for V-day, birthdays or the like. I also kept what I would pick to about 5,000 yen to 6,000 yen most. The book and DVD, came from Amazon.com. They were both what I had been wanting and they were both affordable. The chocolates, we both threw into the cart while we were shopping together one afternoon. He said, "oh I know you love these.", I said, "I do, I do." And they were only about 450 yen. So, again, something I really liked and loved without it costing an arm and a leg. And the book and DVD got here fairly fast. And we did order those in January. So, smart to order ahead of time. I was not disappointed come Valentine's day. : )

I found my camera case from Amazon.jp

My old camera case was orange cost only about 800 yen and I liked it a lot but I used it to death. And I really mean pieces of the orange color material had ripped off and it looked horrible. So I needed a new one. I fell in love with this one. It's so cool. It's in a lovely caramel/camel color and it was only 1,600 yen. About $17 US. The comments on amazon.jp said it looks so much pricier then it really is. And I agree. It really is gorgeous in real life. I did show Noboru online and asked him what he thought. He said, he loved it so much if he had a camera he'd pick this case too! : ) So, I know I made the right choice. Also, it must be a gray day when I took this picture because it's lighter and prettier then this color. It is the color of the pic down below.

A close up. The strap is nice and long and has 3 adjustments. I was actually worried the strap would be too short and like strangle me type short. But it is actually really long and can be shortened. I am so happy with the length of this strap. I used this Friday on my trip to Guam. I had a flight attendant and the waitress at Denny's mention how cute my camera case was. So 2 compliments on the case and I have only used it since last Friday. And again it was nice and affordable. And I love it. And I also like that I can walk hands free and still carry my camera with me. Okay, okay, I'll cool it about my camera case already! : ) But, I do like it. I like it a lot. Probably one of the coolest things to have received for Valentine's day.

And inside my chocolate box was this heart. Don't laugh at me or anything, but I am so lucky to be married to my best friend in the whole world.

Branden brought home these Valentine' day treats from 2 girls from elementary school. The one on the left is from M-chan (best 5th grade swimmer girl) and the one on the right are from A-chan, the prettiest girl and most popular girl in the 5th grade class. @_@ Hahaha.

They both went very detailed this year. with heart dangle as part of their tie and the whole shebang. Oh dear, now I better start to think about White Day. Hahaha. : )

A-chan went all out with her homemade choco lollipops. And chocolate dipped heart marshmallow. And she only gave treats to 2 boys. Branden being 1 of the 2.

They also brought home a V-day surprise from yet another at Kumon. Gah! yeah, I better start thinking, White day. @_@

I bought Branden and Noah these. One Piece V-day chocolates. I had bought these end of January as soon as they started displaying V-day stuff is when I jumped on these.

Again nothing hugely expensive or fancy. I just spent 120 yen each however they loved getting these from me. And they had pirate loot inside to boot! : ) I will never forget my 2 boys on Valentine' day. Even if it's something small like how I did on Setsubun by buying those oni cream pans. : )

And no, I didn't forget Noboru. I bought him a special box of chocolates. And I also made him a pan of brownies.  He loved the brownies and he loved the chocolates. : ) Plus we're going to our special Valentine's family get away this coming week, all 4 of us. And we'll be soaking in that chocolate bath. And the other baths too. And get to stay the night at the hotel and just enjoy ourselves as a family. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed Valentine's day with your loved ones. : )

Heading to Guam this weekend

Branden, Noah and myself will be flying to Guam this coming Friday. We’re just staying the weekend. My dad’s picking us up and we’ll be staying in my dad’s spare bedroom at his condo. His spare bedroom is pretty huge. Easily about 12 tsubo sized bedroom, plus with it’s own private bathroom/shower in there as well. And there’s 2 full/double sized beds in there, so my dad has a nice guest room. Just trying to give you a visual/idea. : )

 It’s just a relax and rest and unwind type of trip. Eat lots of yummy things (Yogurtland, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut or whatever) and we’re going to the movies too. We have already picked a movie.

And I admit, it'll be nice to get out of this cold weather, even if it's just for a little while. : )  Noboru can't go with us to Guam this time, but we're going back there in March to see "Oz The Great and Powerful" And plus we're going some where next week as a family here in Japan. So he's okay. Anyway, that’s just the latest of what’s happening in our neck of the woods. : )

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.