Chili update...

Hi you guys! This last week has been pretty awesome. We made scarecrows at the school, of course you know that already. Had a backyard BBQ, you know that too. We went to Tokyo Disneyland on Thursday. We went to TGI Friday's. School is winding down for the kids... their last day is like July 20th or the 21st. We are currently deciding which day we will be going to Ikspiari to go and see Finding Dory in English (we are not going the first week it opens though, too crowded). We're going in July that's for sure! And this coming Wednesday I have a movie date with my girl friends yet again! So...many fun things happening around here. Which is why my blog went a tad quiet for a few days. This weekend has been nice. Quiet and just restful. Tonight, I am making a really good Sunday dinner here at home. We're going to be having American style fried chicken, mashed potatoes, chicken gravy, corn on the cob. A simple classic chicken dinner! Oh, I'm also making Pillsbury crescent rolls. Yum! : ) I could have blogged yesterday but...I instead enjoyed my Saturday Law and Order SVU marathon. Hahaha. However today...I managed to get photos for 3 posts already up. They're not visible to you all yet... but they are already on here. So, I do know, I have 3 posts that can easily go up. So that's 3 days worth so far. This post right now, being one of the 3. The scarecrow pics will go up, but...those will have to be edited because name of school and Father's Club is on there, blah blah blah. Which is a pain in the batooty to fuzz names out. So...I'll get the scarecrow post up...but after the 3 posts...that need no editing or blurring of names out. Phew that was the longest paragraph on the face of the planet. But just want to keep ya'll in the loop here too. So anyways here is a delayed update of the chili's. They are way way bigger now.

And a close up pic of a chili a few weeks back. These are way way longer and bigger now. 

Throwback Thursday...

Today happens to be Throwback Thursday. It also happens to be July 7th, Noah's 11th birthday today! Now, this isn't his actual birthday post. But since today is his actual birthday. I thought we could at least make a TBT dedicated to the birthday boy today! : ) His birthday post of course will be delayed. So forgive me for that. And I picked pictures from a Disney trip we took years ago since this week we will be at Disney too, in celebration for Noah's birthday. My gorgeous little guy riding the boats with his Donald Duck hat. Just chilling with his daddy. I was sitting right next to Noah and had Bran on my other side. : ) 

 They each got to pick their own hat or ears. Bran picked Mickey ears.

Hi sweetie!

Wow, it looks like you are having a lot of fun today!

Yay, we got to meet the fantastic Cruella Deville! She was so sweet, and a real card!

Bernard from The Rescuers!

Following your big brother...following your brother, follow follow. And you still do! : )

The beautiful embroidery we had put on the back of Noah's hat. Says his name...Noah, in beautiful cursive. 

Which ride should we go on next?

 My guys!

Oh Disney Sea, why did you stop selling coconut soft serve ice cream? OMG, you guys, they used to sell the very best coconut ice-cream and now they don't. They stopped selling it a few years back. It was so delicious. I wish they'd bring it back!

Seriously Disney Sea start selling the coconut ice-cream again. Please!

I hope you 2 were having a blast, I know me and daddy sure were.

The snail from Turbo.

I am sure we will have just as much fun this week at one of the Disney's, as we had back when we visited when these pictures were taken. Happy Birthday my little one. Happy Birthday today Noah! And happy Throwback Thursday and also Happy Tanabata today too! 

Recent good eats! Taquito night at our house. And homemade from scratch pizza. Plus what's on our weekly menu for this week...

Happy Tuesday you guys! If you are in the USA are you enjoying the Twilight Zone marathon on TV? It airs every New year's and every American Independence Day. And although, I was out all day today in Inzai bouncing between Joyful Honda and Costco and back home. I have been enjoying the Twilight Zone marathon since coming home, unpacking my weekly groceries and getting dinner started. As you could guess from my latest pics from Costco, I did buy a rotisserie chicken and I did say that it would be for taquito night. And sure enough, I made chicken taquitos, a side of rice and beans. We 4 enjoyed them a lot. I try to make taquitos once a month, because everybody at our house loves them. 

I find 1 rotisserie chicken plenty for a family of 4 to make taquitos PLUS, there is a tad leftover roasted chicken after wards and so, since I had leftover corn tortillas too (bought from Kaldi if you're in Japan) I just fixed myself lunch the next day too. So it made 4 dinners plus my 1 lunch the next day, pictured here. So 1 rotisserie chicken sure gets a lot of usage. Budget friendly if you can get 4 dinners plus 1 lunch from it. : ) 

Just random pics of the buns one of the nights when we were having cheeseburger night at home. Slightly buttered bun. Like how they do at restaurants. : )  I tell ya...If I'm goign to make burgers...we're going to take a stroll through FLAVOR TOWN first. Even the bun better be flavorful. : )

Give it a nice little toasting. Trust me, just doing that 1 little extra step, makes your burgers or chicken sandwiches so good. I just started doing this to our burgers/chicken sandwiches about 2 months ago and we're all hooked here doing that. : ) 

Last Friday night was of course homemade from scratch pizza night at our house plus a family movie with some popped on the stove popcorn and some treats. I make my dough in the mornings as soon as I send the boys to school. I make it all by hand. It's an old family recipe. You could also tell by the jars of jalapenos we bought from Costco, we would be adding those as well. We had mushrooms, bellpeppers, onions jalapenos, pepperoni and real 100% mozzarella cheese! My dough had been resting all day long. I waited for the boys to get home. As soon as they were home, I quickly rolled out the crust. Heated the oven to 450 F. Because we want that crust crispy and light.   

Dinner from last Friday night. We had 1 large pepperoni pizza and 1 small slightly thicker crust pizza. But as you could see by this pic, my crusts are most definitely on point, it even looks crispy in these pictures. Now that's a good looking pizza. : ) We closed all the blinds, we filled us all some sodas with ice and we enjoyed the end of the week with homemade from scratch pizza. 

We also finished up the last of our salad. We had salad and pizza, sodas. Sent the kids upstairs to get showered and situated while I put the dishes in the dishwasher and hand washed the pizza pans and then popped up the popcorn real quick. And we got ready for movie night.

Do you ever freeze food for your family? For example, when you make homemade lasagna...do you instead make 2 and freeze one and bake one. That sort of thing? The Pioneer Woman from the cooking channel got me hooked doing this since this January. I make a couple different meals for my freezer about twice a month. One night, that we had Mexican food for dinner. I had leftover beans. I knew we had no plan to use them the next day. And I'm certainly not going to throw them out. So, I re-purposed them instead. I made beans and cheese burritos and froze them. Creamy homemade from scratch beans, tons of shredded cheese and some blended salsa in there and I wrapped them up and wrapped in plastic wrap, that way the burritos wouldn't stick to one another in the freezer bag. 

I made 2 without salsa which is why you see 2 that say w/o. And 2 with. 

I dated them. I always date stuff I freeze. Branden spotted them first. And then told Noah. They did not even last a week. @_@  I have 6 frozen burritos in my freezer right now, I froze them over the weekend. @_@ Hahaha. : ) Oh and for what it's worth, in Japan guess how much Costco Japan sells 6 frozen bean and cheese burritos? Like 2000- 2500 yen...for 6. Which is so shocking to me. Next time I'm at Costco, I'll snap a pic. With a 99cent pack of beans, I can probably get 20 burritos from that. I totally understand folks buying them, if they don't know how to make their own though. That's understandable. : ) 

Since the weather has been warm I have been buying these pineapple popsicles. These taste so good, you know we buy these every single summer and that's only because these are so good. There is only 1 store near me that sells them. They have been selling these for 10 years and I buy them every year. I have never seen them at my closest Besia or Cainz or shops in Inzai. It's weird. I don't see these more often, but these are definitely worth buying if you should ever find them. Like fresh real pineapple. So good. : ) 

This is sort of funny. I really like the cookies called Coconut Sable. The packaging looks pretty similar to this, since they are from the same company and all that. However, about a month ago, I saw these. It said triple nuts. Same price as the others... about 99 yen. I think the picture and whole...triple the nuts got to me. I bought them for the kids. I tried one. These taste and look exactly like the Coconut Sable cookies exactly. Like...if you were blind taste tested...you would not be able to tell the difference between the coconut ones and the triple the nuts ones. LOL. So in case..you should see these. Just a heads up. Don't get all excited like I did. They look and taste no different. Hahaha. But still good though. : )

Since I just did my weekly shopping today. What's on the menu for us this week? It's not in any particular order.(1) Beef stew. (2)That chicken fettucini with broccoli dish I make. (3) American style fried chicken and mashed potatoes and corn on the cob. (4) Chili beans (Texas style chili) (5) Pulled pork sandwiches with coleslaw on top. (6) Tonight's dinner is curry spaghetti for the kids and I and curry rice for Noboru. I made 1 big pot of curry and you can either have it with rice (Noboru's fave way) or with pasta (the kids favorite way) It's not 7 nights, it's 6 nights this week because 1 night we will be at one of the Disney's. Oh that's right...I also bought an 8 pack of thicker sliced pork chops. They weren't on my list... but they were at such a sale, that I jumped on those. I think maybe next week, I can do something with those. I already have a weeks worth of food, plus the pork chops can be for next week. I also bought a box of Gari Gari-kun popsicles, regular ones in the blue box. That's a 7 pack. And 4 choco mint ice-cream cups. Just something to toss in the freezer in case the weather heats up again.

Today was so cold! Maybe because yesterday was too hot though. : ) It was as hot and as humid as a sauna yesterday. Because I spent over 2 hours in the gymnasium at Noah's school yesterday making a scarecrow. The weather was hot but the scarecrow making and chit chatting with my mom friends was a blast! Noboru had fun with his fellow Father's Club dad's too and it was nice interacting with Noah and the other kids in our team (scarecrow making team that is). All of the kids and us parents were near dying of heat stroke or melting, LOL. Despite the weather we all had a blast! : ) But today is so cold in comparison to yesterday. Yesterday was like high 80's F and today is like 69-70 F. Like two totally polar opposite days...weather-wise. : ) 

Backyard BBQ fun!!!

First and foremost, Happy 4th my fellow Americans!!! I hope your American Independence Day is awesome! This is just going to be a super short 2 pic post! As you could tell by the Kingsford charcoal we picked up at Costco last week, we are in full blown BBQ mode now. We had a quiet little backyard BBQ last week. These are the pics from last Wednesday's backyard BBQ, June 29th. 

We BBQ often, weekly in fact so we don't make them a great big ol' huge 5 course meal type affair, if you know what I mean. We make them simple, yet yummy and filling. We had 6 chargrilled cheeseburgers. Yes, I only see 4 in this pic however, Noboru was at the green counter throwing jalapenos and various toppings on his 2 burgers when I snapped this. We had chicken and veggie skewers/kebabs for everyone. We had 6 chargrilled cheeseburgers for the guys in the family. We had corn on the cob, baked potatoes, you can see the kids potatoes on their plates. And we had salads.

I will post how we spent our actual July 4th in a few days. It will be delayed. But that's okay. I know you guys don't mind. : ) What is today's plan? Well the boys are at school. Bran at the local JHS/middle school. Noah is at our local elementary school. And Noboru and I will be going to Noah's school today around 12 noon. Because today is "scarecrow making day" for the one and only 5th grade class! And yes we will be BBQ-ing tonight for the 4th! What will be we having tonight? Pretty much the same stuff you see in this picture. : ) We have 6 lean ground beef burgers from Costco in the fridge defrosting as we speak. And we will be having chicken and veggie skewers too. And not sure which way we'll swing tonight...baked potatoes or rice. I'm sorta feeling like rice right now so maybe we'll have rice. We'll see. I was thinking about buying some 4th of July type of dessert from Costco today. I thought how cool that would be! A red, white and blue treat! Yumm. But clearly...I must have had a brain fart because duh...I can't go to Costco today, I have to be at the elementary school today! Go figure. So, I doubt a red, white and blue treat will be in our future tonight. Which is fine. No worries. It is... what it is. I am looking forward to spending the afternoon with my fabulous 10 year old making a scarecrow. And then coming home and awaiting my 14 year old to come cruising home on his bike, so Noboru can fire up the grill and we can start that BBQ. Noboru is off today too. : )  Anyway, I better go jump in the shower now and get ready for some scarecrow making fun! : ) 

Father's Day...

Did all you American papa's in Japan have a lovely Father's Day this year? Canadian Papa's in Japan too? Etc. : ) I sure hope so! I was wishing all of you a fantastic Father's Day from me over here in Chiba! : ) And I hope all you dad's all over the world had an amazing Father's Day too. And got rightfully spoiled on your special day! How did we spend our Father's Day at our house this year? Well, Noah and Branden decided that since Noah would be in Guam with me earlier that week, Noah had the chance to be able to pick out a really good card for Noboru this year! Noah checked Kmart, he checked 2 grocery stores. He looked high and low. And then he found this one! He loved this card and said this is the one for daddy! 

They had the card signed by both of them and it was sitting on the kitchen table that Sunday when Noboru came downstairs. I also made banana pancakes for breakfast, we had yogurts and a bunch of mixed sliced fresh fruit. And for dinner I made a special dinner here at home, that I know he really likes. : ) As always...it was just spent really low key here at home.

My dad on the other hand. I made sure to buy him the big pack of the limited edition choco mint Kit Kats. A pack of soft cream/icecream Pocky. And a box of Coconut Pocky. My dad loves coconut as do I. So, I knew he would enjoy these little snacks and Noah and I brought these to Guam with us to give to grandpa. 

I also took my dad out to dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant on Guam, Vitale's for a Father's Day dinner even though it was a few days early. Because he's my dad. Because I absolutely adore my dad. I speak to my dad every single day. We are so close. He's truly one of my best friends. I hope my dad is around forever and ever because I would be absolutely crushed without my dad. I think he is like one of the best dad's in the world. I love you dad!!! : )

So anyways, those are the low key ways me and my family spent Father's Day this year. : ) 

My 2 most recent trips to Costco...

As usual, just regular life going on here at our house. Here are some pics from 2 recent trips to Costco! My all time favorite sunscreens are Japanese ones over American ones. Sorry. They just offer tons better protection with the whole SPF PA++++ ratings here. Most sunscreens in the USA are either no + or maybe just 1 +. My favorite brand for 14 years plus have been Shiseido Anessa. But it's pricey. Well worth it yes, but still pricey. So, I do dabble with other brands. Last year I bought and tried Allie by Kanebo. Didn't protect me at all. Granted didn't get burned like I usually do however I did get darker and that's not a good thing considering the price I paid. This year though, I decided to buy this one from Biore. It was on sale at Costco, the sale went away July 1st, I think but ran a full week or two maybe 3. This is actually a cult favorite among Americans into Asian beauty and who comment on the AB boards. I read the blogs, I know. As in 1 woman whose blog I read she lives in California she buys like 3 or 4 of these Biore tubes not this 2 pack. She buys from a seller off Amazon.com and she uses them sparingly since they are hard to find in the US. She loveslovesloves this one. As do tons of her followers. With summer here now, and being I do live in Japan and can access this any ol' time I want and given it was even cheaper for me at Costco in Japan. I was thinking why not. I'll try it. I am still testing it out right now, but I can tell you this much. I like it so far. But I'm not like in *deep love* with it either though, it's not holy grail for me. Let me try it another week and then I will give you my honest thoughts. However I want to try it for a good bit of time before making a quick decision. But 1480 yen for 160grams of product 80 grams per tube. Not a bad deal. I'll keep you updated. Moving along...

This was my cart pic from that day. Oh the date. The date I purchased this stuff was June 20th. You can see, torillas chips for nachos, hamburger buns for chicken sandwiches, tortillas, shredded cheese, that big honkin' bottle of Yoshida's Original Gourmet sauce, Laundry detergent, and some powder for my dishwasher...

A rotisserie chicken because I had that movie to see Money Monster the next day with my friends. And the Biore sunscreen the huge 2 tube pack. 

And my Costco Inzai, just got a brand new shipment of Crocs. The day I was there June 20th. They had a whole bunch of new different styles that they didn't have the last time. And I was really excited. And knowing how quickly they sell out. And if you see a shoe you like you...you better snatch it up ASAP or next time it may just be long gone. So knowing all that. When I saw these, I was like. I love these. They sort of reminded me of my Mary Jane shoes I used to wear when I was a little girl. But updated and with holes for summer. They are relaxed fit. I bought mine in a Women's US size 9. I love these!

Hi super cute shoes for summer! Hi sunscreen. You better protect me this summer sunscreen and please don't be a total dud like that Allie by Kanebo one was last year! : ) I still have a brand new one of Anessa though unopened... that I will use when we go on vacation this summer though. But this Biore one better be just enough for the day to day. : )

7 days later. My Costco cart pic from June 27th. Lean ground beef was on sale last week, so I purchased a pack of lean ground beef which was perfect for our BBQ the other night. Buns for the burgers. A rotisserie chicken that I turned into taquitos. OMG are those good. Handmade pasta and behind that is Mozzarella shredded cheese. We had homemade pizza night from scratch last Friday night. And tonight I am making chicken parmesan on top of that delicious handmade pasta. Also you see a huge mixed salad...

While I'm a Miracle Whip girl and really don't care for anything else, nothing personal at all, it's just what I was raised with. The kids too. Noboru is a straight up hardcore fan of Kewpie. Which is fine, it's what he grew up with and same for me, Miracle Whip is what I grew up with. He still stays him and I still stay me. : ) No worries. : ) What else, oh yes 2 big jars of jalapenos in this cart pic and a 3 pack of organic pasta sauce. And...

4 brand new pillows. Gel memory foam something or other. These are highly rated in the US. I checked online. These days... we rarely make a purchase without checking reviews first. They have been selling these for the whole month. The price is legit...so super cheap. It's like 998 yen for a 2 pack. So a few yen under 500 yen a pillow. And 500 yen a pillow is quite the deal. So we bought 2 packs, so 4 pillows total. 1 brand new one for Noah, 1 brand new one for Branny McB and 1 new one for Noboru and 1 for me. I have since thrown our old pillows in the trash and we are now using these. These pillows are big and so comfortable. And that price was what got me. They have other pillows for sale at Costco in Japan too... feather pillows for near 3000 yen for a 2 pack. That's a bit pricey for me. But 2 for 998 yen. Right on! Cheap prices and super good quality. If you offer me that. I will jump on it. 

2 two packs.

Yep it's that time of year again. BBQ season! Which is why we needed the charcoal. I love Summer. My favorite season of all. Hitting the beach. Hitting the pools. No waking up early as soon as the kids go on break from school (end of July, like July 21st or something like that) to take the kids to school. Sleeping in. Going to movies (we're going to see Finding Dory as soon as it's released for us in Japan July 16th or around then). Going on vacation. BBQ's galore. I love summer. Hands down Summer is my jam! Happy Saturday everyone!  : )

What's my plan for today? Nothing. Just kicking back here at home relaxing, my house is clean and so my day is for relaxing. Law and Order SVU has a marathon every Saturday, for like 10-12 hours straight. I usually watch Law and Order SVU on Saturdays off and on all day (not when I'm in the kitchen obviously prepping dinner or fixing lunch that sort of thing but, ykwim, I hope). And in the evening, I usually watch Dateline or 20/20 depending which one has the better program for the night. LOL. : ) I do have a load of shorts in the dryer as I type. And I will be frying up the parmesan cutlets before whacking them into the oven later. For our chicken parm later tonight. And if you're in Japan wondering ...but it's summer aren't you melting using your oven? Honest answer no, my house isn't hot in the summer at all...seriously at all... and I don't have to deal with the dreaded mold in a central air conditioned house either. Like at all. Sorry. Not rubbing it in. Gomen ne~...but yeah...seriously speaking thank goodness for cold as ice central air conditioning all summer long and the solar panels to make it free for us to use 24/7 and yes our solar panels are paid off, no payments here for those! So doesn't get hot in our house at all. And we do run our ceiling fans in the house too, they are in all the bedrooms upstairs and 1 in the dining area and 2 in our living room. So we get tons of nice cool breezy air from the central air and the ceiling fans. Anyways...Bran's in the kitchen studying his brains out right now. Noah's off riding bikes with his bestie Naoki. Bran has 1 last test before going on summer break. He has a test this coming Monday and then he won't have a test until after summer break. So after Monday..his brain can rest. : )

Noah's birthday ice-cream cake will arrive here tomorrow morning from Nagano (2 layered- 1 layer is Nutella chocolate and 1 layer is banana, yumm). And as you know, we said we are taking Noah to one of the Disney's as his birthday present from us. I can't say Disney Sea or Disneyland until afterwards. But for surely 7 days from now we will have already gone. We did choose a weekday, like I have been saying since my blog first started in 2005, going on a weekday is always best (less crowded). We also chose a day that best fit, Noboru's days off for this week. Plus best matched our schedule (clearly we couldn't pick Monday for example since Bran's test is this Monday).So sometime this week our family will most definitely be at one of the Disney's spending an entire morning to evening/ when it closes there. And at Kua 'Aina. So 1 day from this coming week if my blog is quiet you'll know why... it's because we are at one of the Disney's. : ) We'll be celebrating Noah's birthday Disney style. Can't believe Noah will be 11 this coming week, can you! : )