Aloha, heading to Honolulu, Hawaii at the end of the month

I'm sure many of you reading have already made Summer plans. If you're reading in Japan, maybe you'll be going back "home" for a visit. Or if you're reading in the US. Maybe you'll travel abroad or hang out stateside some place fun. Awesome camping trip maybe. Or maybe a trip to Hawaii.  What I'm trying to say is, wherever you may be, you probably are starting to think vacation and what not. : ) We think the same stuff here too. : ) As for our family, we as you know try to get ourselves to Honolulu, Hawaii, once a year for a very nice long relaxing vacation. And of course that's what we planned to do this Summer also. Back in February, we reserved our hotel. So this June, Honolulu vacation, is a trip planned long in advance. But we've been keeping it on the down low all this time. Well until now. : )  As many of you know, we used to live in Hawaii, for a few years when Noboru was sent there by the airline my husband works for. In fact as most of you know, Branden was born in Honolulu and spent his baby time there. : ) However, since living in Japan, we still like to go back like I said, once a year and just relax unwind, swim, soak up all that good sun. And just chill for the time we have. Here are some pics from trips before, In Honolulu, Hawaii. This picture is of Noboru and Branden and Noah at the Dole Pineapple Plantation. Noah looks to be about 1 year old by the pic. Maybe 18 months at the most. We carried both our kids in a Baby Bjorn when they were wee babies, but when Noah got a little older, we bought this cool  and sturdy backpack carrier. It looks like a backpack from the back and even had a backpack to carry diapers, spare onesie etc. Noah loved being carried by his dad in this! : )

Baby Noah enjoying his day out at the Dole Pineapple Plantation wearing his navy and red hibiscus sun hat. : )  What a lucky baby, we cruised Noah everywhere with us, same with Branden too, he cruised everywhere with us also. And we still do take them everywhere with us and to enjoy travel as a family! : )

And now they are getting a little older. But right back to Hawaii we went! Awww! : ) At this age, I had them carrying their own backpacks (1 spare change of clothes and their swimsuit and DS games and stuff, light but still a help) to save me from carrying everything myself. I figure it would be good training for when they're older and I'm glad I did that. Because they carry their own stuff now, no problem. : )

At Kailua beach having the time of their lives. Who wouldn't want to grow up getting to go here once a year! Ne~: )

And yes we will spicy garlic shrimp ourselves like crazy when there. : ) I can't wait! : )

Noah needing a "big hug" that's what Noah used to call it when he wanted to be carried at that age. : )  At the Dole Pineapple Plantation.

Between all the family pictures and family movies I make, they will have a ton of memories of our family trips taken. And this year we will be back there to make some more! : )

We will no doubt bring a lunch with us everyday we hang out at the beach. And just chill basically.

Pineapple ice cream. We're ready.

And this was taken March 2012, just last year. For Noah's graduation from yochien trip. Both Branden and Noah were holding a very large size coconut ice cream. OMG! That ice cream is so amazing. Anyway, last week-ish of June that's where we will be. Noboru already requested and was given, 11 or 12 days off. We will fly to Guam for 1 over night and spend a day/night with my dad. And then we will head to Honolulu, via KIX (the flight is a little full to go directly from Narita to Honolulu if you're wondering and it's dead open going via KIX in Osaka to Honolulu, no worries though we know the flights we can get on and that's why we're going this route and when we come back to Japan we can fly directly back to Narita, plus the boys get to see my dad for a day and me too, so that's actually sorta cool the way it works out, plus the seats in first class/business class are very comfortable and the meals are mostly pretty good, heck the flight to Honolulu we get icecream sundae's even and the free on demand movies so the extra flights are fine and comfortable for us). We will be in Honolulu, for 7 full and fun nights. 8 tropical days.  We will be swimming and being at the beach most days. We also will be heading back to Dole. Target too, lol. Bath and Body Works. Sephora. We also will be going to a movie or two. Monster's University for sure. : )   Things we want to eat are Bob's BBQ,  and of course lots of spicy garlic shrimp too.  The Red Lobster, no doubt also. But most importantly to enjoy our down time and have our beach time, which is like something we enjoy a lot as a family.  Anyway that's the family plan for the end of June. : )

Our first potato harvest! 100 potatoes

Last week June 6th right before the boys went to swimming school, via the swimming bus. Noboru had wanted us to pull the first 3 potato plants on the left because he said they looked ready compared to the others. I agreed, I thought so too. And also rain was predicted the next day. So, that's what we did. See how these 3 plants on the left look all wilty and the leaves turned color a bit? That's what it says online that means they are ready.

Finally the big day to see what's under there! Hahaha. : ) See how these 3 are indeed all wilty and ready looking. Hope something's under there! : )

Comparing them to the potato plants to the right, who were all nice bright green and not wilty looking. So yeah it was time for those 3 plants to the left, last Thursday.

Hey kiddos! We wanted them to experience the thrill of the dig!

And dig they did! What fun!

I spy with my little eye, a white potato under the dirt! : )

The boys had a blast digging for the potatoes! This made me very happy! : )

We decided to throw away the itty bitty super tiny ones. But the medium and bigger ones we kept.

Noboru enjoying the view and the quiet. Branden meanwhile looking for something.

The potatoes from last week were very good size. They were, fit in your hand size, but really great size. Granted the potatoes we pulled today are giants. Hahaha. : )

This pic was taken from last week showing we had a nice size box from the potatoes we pulled from the 3 plants plus the other 5 plants were not even pulled yet. We had 27 potatoes from last week.  Plus these plants were not even pulled yet.

And now today is Monday here. And because rain is expected all this week... except for today where we live and also a typhoon is expected to come, this Thursday. Granted will the typhoon come? Or will it be downgraded to just tropical storm, ykwim. Truth is, we don't know. But we do know 1 thing, rain should be coming and possible typhoon. So because of that, we decided to just go ahead and pull the rest of the potato plants this morning and that's what we did.

Alright plants, your time has come. : ) You have grown nice and look pretty good, but today is the day. Your number is up! ; )

You know what, we were very happy and thrilled with the size of the potatoes from last Thursday. But Noboru and I were actually a little taken back by the size of the potatoes from today. They were all fist size and up. Bigger then your hand size and up. Barely no puny teeny tiny ones from today. Mostly just very good sized ones to monster sized ones. So yeah wow, the difference Thursday to Monday makes. Wow! : ) The size difference from just letting them sit in the ground for the weekend was quite obvious.

Also, to be fair there were many tiny or small ones we did not keep. I count 13 potatoes from this picture alone. And these ones we did not keep. I told Noboru the small ones, I could cut in half and steam and with a little butter and salt and pepper they'd be great but he thought, we had enough already so....

I count 10 here. Again, we did not keep these. And some of the smaller ones with no defects I did keep, but any with defects we didn't keep.

These are proper/decent bake potato size potatoes. Not bad for our first time, I'd say. : )  I'm glad we were patient and didn't prematurely pull them.

And again these ones we did not keep.  I mean, if you count every teeny tiny potato and small and medium and large. Then yes you can fairly say we grew and harvested 100 potatoes. However, we did not keep 100. The super small ones that were just too small. Some had a few deep pit marks. But the amount of good potatoes were kept were 70. 70 good sized potatoes. Not counting the super tiny ones or pitted ones or throw away ones or defected ones. We're talking 70 nice sized ones that we can use. And 30 either too small or too pitted to make anything usable out of. : ) And I'd say 70 usable potatoes are pretty great, considering we only used 3 potatoes to end up with all these.

Don't forget the first batch we pulled from last Thursday. Plus this huge overflowing batch from today. : )

Anyway that was our first time experience with growing potatoes.

Making ume jam from scratch

Yesterday, June 6th, 2013. Was another cooking day for Noah. Ume are in season right now in Japan. And if you're not living in Japan and are curious what they are, they're fruit and I'll link here right now and you can read about them here. Noah and the rest of his class had to show up yesterday, with an apron, a head scarf and a mask. Noah was very excited about making homemade ume jam all week.  On Wednesday his teacher brought a huge crate/box of them. And Noah kept saying, "we are getting ready for jam!" So a very excited 2nd grader. : )  And if you remember from when we decorated Christmas cakes last year, Noah does have the matching chef's hat to go with the apron. But, you know, I know kids do have a tendency to want to wear what their classmates do etc. Ykwim. And so since all of his class wears the head scarves and Branden does in his class also. So, I did give Noah a choice yesterday morning. I asked him, would you like to wear your matching chef hat that goes with your apron or would you like to wear a head scarf. Noah picked the head scarf, yellow head scarf. And that's more then fine. I understand no kid wants to stick out and wear big puffy chef hat while all his classmates are wearing head scarves. : )  I get it..I totally do. So head scarf it was. I packed this all up nicely and they left to school yesterday.

And when I picked both of the boys yesterday up at 3pm after school. A beaming Noah came running down the hill into my car, with this in hand. A small tupperware type plastic container wrapped inside a plastic bag, to make sure no possible spillage happens here. : )

This says Noah. Yes this is Noah's homemade from scratch ume jam that he and his classmates/friends made with their amazingly cool teacher. Everyone got to bring this amount home. We all had it with fresh bakery bread this morning, toasted with a little bit of butter first and then a nice spread of this jam on after. And it's so good! Sweet but with a little bit of tartness in there. : )

These are what ume look like. Anyway, that's what Noah did yesterday at school, he made ume jam from scratch. : ) 

Our weekend. Going to the movies to see Oblivion, stocking up on meat and baby back ribs, hanging with good friends and potato and zucchini update

June 1st, 2013 our family went to the movies to see Oblivion. The first day of the month is 1,000 yen all day long and evening for anyone. So that's *the day* to go if you want to see a movie around here where we live. : )  I had went and purchased the tickets and picked our seats, oh geeze what day did I do that? The day the boys had observation day. That was Wednesday, I think. In America seats are first come first serve. But for the most part, in Japan you get to pick your seat. However, when we went to Narita to see that movie last month. Iron Man 3 with my friends the first show was free seating/meaning no reserving seats. So that was new to me, as far as going to a movie in Japan with no seat reserving. I'm fine either way though. Both ways are normal to me now. : )

Stadium seating. The movies are very clean. The screen rolls back when the movie starts making the screen even bigger. The movie was pretty packed. Well, about 30 people, so packed for Japan. When we went to see Iron Man 3, for Mother's Day in Guam, about 98% full movie theater about 150 people in there. But then again for $5 a lot of people will come. A lot of people did come for the 1,000 yen movie day also too though. 30 is a good amount here. : )

A happy Noah, waiting for the movie to begin.

A smiling happy Branden too. : )  About the movie. It was a good movie, I'd say a 7 out of 10. Would I go out and buy the DVD? No. Would I watch this again in an airplane? Umm, no. But it wasn't bad at all though either. It was enjoyable. Our type of movie. Kept all of our attention. We all talked about it afterwards. It was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday afternoon as a family.

We caught the 12:25pm showing. And after we got out of the movie, it was near 2:30pm Meanwhile, the sale starts at 3pm at the cheap meat store. And the cheap meat store is right across from the movie theater. So we had the plan to go and get some meat after the movie and that's what we did. We got in the car, left the movie theater parking lot and parked across the street, closer to the store. And went inside and grabbed a cart. People were buying and picking meat already, but they have to wait to get the 20% off sticker at 3pm. So, we grabbed our cart and hit the meat aisle. We picked marinated miso pork this is absolutely delicious here. That's what the boys and I had Saturday night for supper. Noboru wanted that pork stir fry thing, he loves from here. Noboru had that Saturday night for dinner. We also picked 2 pork roasts, 1 pack of chicken tenders/chicken tenderloins. 2 packs of chicken breasts, 1 pack of thigh meat, and 3 racks of pork ribs. We love baby backs anyway, but plus 20% off. Heck yeah! So we quickly put the 3 racks of ribs into the basket. We now made a line and waited until 3pm on the nose. At 3pm, those who were in line were given 20% off stickers and then we checked out. And it does make our weekly meat bill much cheaper. It's all fresh meat, delicious meat we'd buy anyways, just 20% off though. So a great deal for us. : )

Potato update yet again. The potato plants are starting to look all wilty this week. As you know they did not look like this last week. However it says online, they are supposed to look like this. So, I am remaining calm. Also the rainy season has supposedly started. So we know we will pull them but we want them to have their proper growing time also. So, we just don't want to pull them prematurely, likewise we don't want to wait too late either though. But we are watching and checking them daily though.

Zucchini are growing by leaps and bounds. : )

I'm thinking we'll have zucchini ready this week some time. : ) Yay. Also at the back of my mind, I am thinking what we should plant in the place/space of the potatoes, after they get pulled.  Anyway that's also on my mind too.

Sunday, I baked a cake. Made chili concarne. You know Texas style chili beans. : )  I also did laundry, both Branden and Noah's gym clothes, red and white hat, just a regular full load.  Meanwhile Sunday the boys played.

If you are a kid,and you live in this housing community, this is the house to be! : ) I'm seriously not pulling your leg. We had a full load of kiddos out there, Sunday! They love hanging here. And it's not because we have a huge playground outside. We don't even let the kids from the neighborhood in the backyard much anymore. They just love being here plain and simple. I'm nice, the kids all know me, they all like me. They all love playing with Branden and Noah. And they're all good kids and good friends. So yeah place to have their kid meetings and hang? Our house. Hahaha. : )  Two girls and the rest all boys. Tons of boys! : )

They had the biggest game of kori oni yesterday. This was like a kori oni marathon yesterday. They were running all over, the safe spot, where you want to touch and be safe! That was our front porch! ha! : )

A-chan in the pink in this pic. She is the Jinbei boy's sister, 5th grade sister. She is so pretty. She's so nice. She always chats with me. Always. She also likes to play tennis, her and her brother playing with Branden and Noah during the week also, but Sunday they didn't play tennis.  Since it was their kori oni marathon day.: ) For those of you not in Japan, kori oni is sorta like tag. There is 1 person who is "it" and there is a base to be safe. So sorta like tag. : )

And today, Monday, it was traffic safety and the day to greet the kids walking to school. So the bright side is now I'm done for the year with that. Hahaha. : )  Phew. : ) Anyway that's what we we were up to around here this weekend. : )

Anything else to add? Branden and all the 6th graders are cleaning the school pool today. Also, Branden is making dessert sandwiches this Wednesday. So he needs to bring chocolate sauce and bread, the thin sliced bread with no crusts. I bought the chocolate sauce already and will buy the bread tomorrow. : )  Alrighty, that's all for now. : )