Before and After pics. An update on the jalapeno plants and the backyard grass situation...

This post is going to be about the jalapeno seedlings and how they're growing. With pics of them at various stages. And also this post will be about the progress of the grass in our backyard. Specifically talking about, the great big area with zero grass immediately, after our playground was disassembled and given to friends with little kids. And progress on that and what it looks like now and again...in the various stages... during the progress to get to where we are at right now. So first things first, let's talk jalapenos first. : ) This was 3 plastic containers from Seria (the 100 yen shop) with many jalapeno seedlings in there.  

Then we had little teeny tiny baby jalapeno plants starting to sprout from the soil. We ended up with 26 teeny tiny jalapeno seedlings. There was absolutely.... no way we were going to grow 26 jalapeno plants, plus the 10 Big John's chilies that are still coming. I mean, we're weekend/recreational veggies growers. We're not professional farmers or anything. @_@ Hahaha. So we kept 8 jalapeno plants. That's still double of what we grew last year. 

When they were finally big enough, we transplanted them to... where they will call home for the whole of summer. Noboru has been reading a few blogs in Japan by Japanese people who grow chili here in Japan. He reads an older Japanese woman's blog and she grows jalapeno plants year round in a 2 liter bottle. Yes that's right, with out any soil or dirt at all. Noboru was inspired by what she said. And by how easy she said it was. So, we cleaned and rinsed 8 mugicha (tea) bottles and put in some nutrients in the water. And planted them. Also, the bottles must be covered because if suns hits the roots... the plants will die? @_@ That's apparently what the old woman said and so she said to cover the bottles and so we have.  Will this work? Will this fail? We'll see. : )

This was a picture of them from last week! They have grown so much huh? So anyways, that's the jalapeno chili update for now. : ) I'll keep you updated. 

And now here is the update on our backyard area where the jungle gym used to be. This picture was taken the same day that they drove off and took the jungle gym away. After they drove off, I'd say about 2 minutes after they left, I went outside right away and snapped this picture for you guys. At this point, it just looked... really sad. Like... something used to be there... but now it's not anymore. Like this... big gaping spot with nothing-ness. 

I did want and need to say though...that they were very nice and did give our family a *really* nice box of cookies. For us giving them the jungle gym. Granted we didn't want anything. Or need anything, but yeah...it was sorta cool they did that! : )

Wrapped so nicely!

I loved this tin of cookies! Judging by the color of my green counter, it's clear I do like green. : ) I just really loved this box of cookies. And the tin was fabulous! Great color, great design. I'm keeping this tin. I have kept this tin. : )

The cookies were delicious. 

Stage one. Remove the black circular edging that kept that area for the playground. Take away all the bark. This is so.....easier said than done! This was hella hard! The 4 of us spent days and days on it. It took us 2 days to remove all the bark. And physical work like this....left all of our bodies sore sore sore and downright physically exhausted. Talk about a work out for all of us! Plus I still had to come inside and make dinner too. Those were definitely...no blogging days. No computer days at all or very limited. A few of those days. It was...wake up... go outside and pull bark and throw it into the bucket. And as you can see, we each had our own bark bucket. Dirt under your finger nails. Blistery hands. We'd wear gloves. Yet, on the other jobs we'd have to take them off. It was not easy peasy! It was work! Plain and simple. Grueling...back breaking work. But we did it! : ) 

We'd work until it got dark. And for me...I'd go inside an hour at lunch time and prep whatever it was...we were having for dinner that night plus make everyone lunch. Go back outside and help for a few hours. Then pop back inside the house and get supper done. Call them all in. We'd all call it a night... as soon as supper was done and dusted. Everyone would take turns showering. I'd go last... not because I'm an angel...but because I had to get the kitchen back to normal...dishes put in the dishwasher, scrub the stove. Wipe the dinner table. Like on those types of nights. I would get online.... at 6:30pm and tell my dad by email or skype..."good night shutting down the computer, love ya"..."I'm exhausted and want to take a load off and watch TV and unwind some" He totally understood. And I still wanted to be polite and say good night to my dad too because we're super close... but again...I was tired. Flat out tired. : )  And that went on...for a almost a week, a good 5 days. Again...it was really hard work. 

Finally by the 3rd day we started to see some progress. It was bark free. The dirt was all over turned. 

To get to this point. Wow! This may not look like much...but if you saw what it looked like before. And see what it looks like right in this pic. You can see...a whole heck of a lot of work went into it. 

And now we needed to make it a flat level surface. We tried with this heavy bag first. This is about 20 pounds, this bag of stuff right here. However it wasn't heavy enough. We needed something heavier. 

About this heavy! And thanks Noah for helping us out. Noah was a real champ. But he had to hold on real tight and not fall off. Meanwhile Noboru was flattening out the dirt while Noah helped adding his weight to the make shift flattening device. Sod was going to go down the next day. So we did all this flattening out. And then I went in the house... made dinner and the next day, while Noboru was at work. The kids and I went out there and laid the sod down. 

And another day of yard work. Oh the joy! LOL! : ) But again...if you work hard at something. You'll reap the rewards. I'm a firm believer in that. So back to the yard. From 10am, to 4pm, I was out in the backyard that day. I did go inside for an hour at lunch, to make lunch for the kids and myself, the kids went inside for lunch and to rest an hour too. And I did go inside at 4pm to make dinner. Otherwise we'd all starve to death hahaha. : ) But, yeah it was a full... full day for me. And full day for the kids because they were out there with their dad after he came home. The boys were outside until 5:50pm. Almost 6pm. And Noboru, he was at work all morning and afternoon and when he got home... he had about 3 hours of yard work. So we all kicked butt. There are are no slackers at our house. We all live here...we all help out! Those are the rules. That's just the way we roll. 

Laying the sod down. The pieces have to fit. They have to lay right. 

When Noboru came home we had it already laid out like this. That's when I called it a day for being outside and went inside to get dinner done. The kids kept going and going and going.

And then Noboru and the kids covered the new sod with nutrients. Looks weird I know, but he does this once a year and it works. It make the grass healthier. And really take off. 

Go Noah go! He is such a good helpful kid. This is hard work. If you do yard work at all. You know! Your body aches after wards. If you work at it... for a full day. Noboru gave each of the boys 400 yen each day, that they helped in the backyard. Though they would have done it anyways for free. But by the time we finished. The kids each had about 2,000 yen each. About $20 US. Just a little spending money. : ) Which is always nice to have. : ) 

Nutrients all over the sod and all over the grass we already have. And as soon as it pushes through all that. It will be stronger! Look below. : ) 

I took this picture yesterday morning. So, this is what it currently looks like. The grass (what we already had) and the sod (new grass) pushed through all those nutrients just fine! And now it's way greener. And while I still see a faint circular outline of where the jungle gym area used to be...I can see that... as soon as we mow the grass in a month, it will blend in 100%. And by mid summer you will barely be able to see where the jungle gym used to be. : ) 

And these are what the jalapenos looked like, as of yesterday morning. They are now living outside. However they went into shock by being put outside. And so...Noboru has transplanted them to soil. Will the jalapeno plants survive? Honestly I don't know. Their first half day outside they were dying. Like legit dying their leaves changed color their leaves flopped down. I'll keep ya posted on the jalapenos and how they're doing with... being transplanted from a watery home to soil. So anyways, little update on the jalapenos and the backyard grass situation. : )  Happy Friday everyone! I have a lunch date with 2 of my favorite girl friends today at 11am. We'll be going to our favorite Indian restaurant and spend our afternoon catching up and basically have an awesome afternoon! : )  So that's what I'll be doing today. : ) Have a great weekend. : ) You all already know me and the fam-bam are going to the movie theater tomorrow. Anyway, talk to you all later. : )

Throwback Thursday! Family movie night...

Today's Throwback Thursday moment came from April 2011! A picture I quickly snapped before our family of 4 was about to get started with our family movie night at home! Our family has always had family movie night. We have it once a week, no matter what! It's something we all look forward to. It's either a movie playing on cable that we know is coming on and we have the time and date written down, so we're ready for it. Or it's a DVD. Either way. It's the 1 thing we do once a week. It doesn't cost a whole lot of money. We always have popcorn here at the house either kernels or microwave... we always have both on hand and so we always pop some popcorn, we always have some treats to go along with the movie. Sometimes candy or chocolates. Sometimes chips and guacamole and salsa. But we always make it special. And we always make it fun! And we don't do it twice a week, because then it would get boring and be over kill, we always do it just... once a week. So it's something we'll always look forward to. : ) We had movie night, last week. And we honestly already have the movie already picked out for this weekends movie night too. Our movie night this week will be Friday (tomorrow evening after supper and showers). Since we have a family plan for this coming Saturday (we're going to the movies, all 4 of us this coming Saturday)  : ) 

Golden Week Fun...

Here are some things we did over the Golden Week holiday for us here in Japan. Noboru and I took the kids bowling one evening! We had such fun, we played 3 games/rounds of bowling! Noboru is actually a pretty good bowler.  

Go Bran!

Branden is actually pretty tall and still growing. He was last measured in height at the start of the new school year at the beginning of April. And as of the start of April Branden measured in at 173cm tall. Which, for us Americans, is 5 feet 8 inches tall. And I frankly think he's grown taller since the beginning of April. And the fact he's barely 14 years old and still growing like a weed! 

That's a strike Noah! : )

What a happy kid!

A bit blurry, sorry about that...but smiles for days! : )

Noah drinking some water. During one of our matches.

Listening to some bowling pointers/advice from his big brother...

Noah's shocked face after hearing from Bran, that he thinks Noah's aim is a bit off. Noah said...OMG are you serious? @_@ But as he's older, he listened and then said thanks. We were there for ages. About 2 and a half hours. After we were done we went to Narita City for a fun rare treat. Some Golden Week grub! Very yumm. : )

I had a foot long veggies and cheese sandwich from Subway. And a small order of onion rings (from Burger King)

Branden had 1 Whopper with cheese combo and 1 extra side Whopper. Again, he's a growing boy. He's a teen growing and getting taller by the day, so he needs food and lots of it! If you have boys...just wait until they become teens. Your grocery bill with sky rocket! Hahaha. But it's all good. No worries. We want him to eat a lot and grow and grow! : ) 

Noah had a Whopper junior with cheese combo with fries and drink and they had 10 nuggets on sale for 200 yen. So Noah ate 5 of the nuggets and Noboru had the other 5. They agreed to split those nuggets, lol. And Noboru had a Whopper with cheese combo and like I just said, 5 nuggets. Not a fancy shmancy dinner... but that's A-okay we're not fancy shmancy people! Ha! : ) We enjoyed our dinner in the food court in Narita City and we people watched! We talked about bowling. We basically enjoyed our night! It was awesome. It was fun! : )

Crapola picture but that's my sun visor in the car. Noboru drove us to Kashiwa one day during Golden Week. We went to the mall there. Lalaport (it's a chain mall in Chiba prefecture, there's a few of these) We went there to buy Branden's backpack for his Kyoto trip, we also wanted to hit up the Crocs store for a new pair of Crocs for Noah. Which we did. So now both boys have new Crocs for Spring/Summer 2016. I'll be posting in better detail about this Lalaport trip on another post. But again a fun way to spend the entire day during GW (Golden Week) by going to a "new to us" mall. We've been to the other locations but never this one before. We walked around found a nice backpack and Noah found a nice pair of Crocs. And we enjoyed the ride back home. The weather was beautiful that day. Just a nice day.  

We went to yakiniku during Golden Week too. What a big wide smile from Noah. he's all smiling at his brother deep in conversation. Noboru is happy and munching. Bran is grilling. And I'm about to sit my butt down, as soon as I snap this pic. : ) 

Just a fun night out with the family!

Laughter, good food...good times.

We ate and stuffed ourselves silly. It was so delicious.

We go to this yakiniku restaurant. This is our favorite yakiniku place. It's a bit far-ish from our home. It's a chain. But we love this place, there's closer places but we like this place. We all enjoyed some hot tea and fruit for dessert after our yakiniku. And then we went home. Showered and just relaxed and kicked it here at home... watching good TV. Again, just another fun evening during our Golden Week 2016. Sometimes it's just the simple things, you know. : ) 

Taking the kids for some Baskin Robbins over Golden Week since they were having that fantastic 30% off deal. Just relaxing hanging out, enjoying some ice cream. It was nice. Branden had rocky road and a scoop of cinnamon and brown sugar (this tastes like a cinnamon roll fwiw) Noah had a scoop of rocky road and a scoop of pineapple cheesecake, and I had a scoop of cinnamon and a scoop of pineapple cheesecake. Both were fantastic, but I'm still thinking about that cinnamon one! It was so good. : ) And basically that's some of the things we did, over Golden Week. We also did yard work and stuff too. But again, I want to make a separate post for that. : )  If you're in Japan, I hope you had a nice Golden Week too. : )

Throwback Thursday...

This weeks TBT, captures beautifully just a simple regular ordinary, evening at our home over the weekend, from April 2009.  What do we see in this picture? Well we see a view of rural Japan. We see, rice fields in the background. We see a family. A BBQ grill. A tricycle (the coolest tricycle btw) and a Thomas bike with training wheels on it. : ) We see a daddy with 2 sons on each of his sides watching as he starts the BBQ, for that nights supper. Just a simple but awesome way to spend the weekend. : )

"I'm gonna getcha!!!" Noboru would chase them all around the yard! "Watch out Noah, daddy's coming to get you", hahaha! : )

Noah would laugh and laugh! He loved this game! : )

Yellow and orange, yep, have been Noah's favorite colors forever! Two happy little boys. Just hanging out, while a mommy and daddy sit back there and play with them, talk and just relax. 

We love you both so much!!!

You can see a bit of Noah in this pic, as he was scoot scoot scootin' around on his tricycle and just basically having fun riding around the backyard. While Noboru and Bran played catch with the Anpanman ball. 

I see the ball mid air, catch the ball Bran! : ) And then it was time to eat and enjoy our BBQ. 

Goodness we made so much food, we had enough for leftovers for lunch for the next day. Many baked potatoes. The flavor of roasted on a charcoal grill potatoes though are bomb.... and lots of meat still. But, we were all stuffed. And now just enjoying our dessert for that night. Everyone had a Garigari-kun (popsicle) We still have backyard family BBQ's til this very day. Anyway, that was one evening captured at our house. : )

Anything new to add? Well Branden is back from his 3 day Kyoto trip! He had an amazing time! I'll blog about that when I get some time. I still have to post about Golden Week too. And a few bits and pieces posts to add as usual, to get you all caught up. But honestly though? The weather here has been so awesome and beautiful. All 4 of us are doing so well... we're all just really enjoying our time right now.  Branden is *loving* school! Noah is totally loving school, he cooked this week in Home EC. I have been doing a lot of spring cleaning (as usual lol) but also like with Noah's room. I decluttered the kitchen and I still have to declutter one more last area in the kitchen, which will be under the sink. After I am done with that. I will move to Bran's room. And the final room will be Noboru's and my bedroom. So basically just an organizing overhaul happening around here (nothing new on that front, you guys know I do this often). I've been to Costco twice since I last mentioned Costco. Bought the kids some swimming towels there last week. And a case of those little peach cups. I'll post about all that another time. I'd like to get this post up real quick. Because I have a lunch date with Noboru today.  I got an email from Amazon.com and the 3 DVD's are on there way to Japan, so yay for that. Can't wait to see Deadpool. Also, I have a lunch date with 2 really good girl friends of mine next week. I have to also go to Noah's school for that yk... once a year practice/mock emergency drill. And also a fun thing... we have a going to the movies family plan, coming up soon too. Alright, that's enough for now. I need to go and throw on my distressed boyfriend jeans, throw on a fitted black tee and throw on a pair of flip flops, I'm thinking, my black Havaianas with the clear rhinestones on them. Just super casual low key as always. I think we're going to run to 1 DIY and Cainz before lunch, so I better hurry. Have a great day ya'll. : )