Ahhh, sorry I didn't have time to post about the Summer festival before we left to Hawaii, but better late then never, right? Ha ha ha. : ) : ) These are what both Branden and Noah looked like for the festival. I really love both of their jinbei's a lot, cute! : )
I was busy working the festival for half of it, so Noboru took the picture up above and this pic and the few down below. I think he did an okay job with taking the pictures. : ) The parents of the little girl closest to B asked to take a pic with both the boys. Their dad was taking pictures of the 4 of them together. So that's why Noboru also took this picture as well. : ) The little girl is the little sister of Branden's friend. Both B and her brother are the same age and are good buddies and went to yochien together and swim together as well. Their mom and dad are both REALLY nice people. Good people. So, anyway those 2 were really pretty girls, ne. Can't believe they're blue badges already.
The kids were in the "game" room and getting to pick out their bag to hold their treats in. The lady helping Noah with the really pretty long black hair is my good friend Mayuko-san. : )
The boy's got a lot of help from my friends and also Noboru was right there too taking pics and helping. I was meanwhile on the other side of the room, working the ball throwing game with Jogo-san and Rieko-san. Passing out prizes to all the kids and Jogo-san and I were to cheer the kids on as well and pass out the prizes. If the kids got 2 balls in the box, they got a certain prize and if they only got 1 ball they got a different prize and if they got no balls at all, they still got a prize. Which was pretty nice. But we had to watch and keep track in our heads and then pass out the prizes accordingly. How did I like it? I honestly LOVED it. It didn't even seem like work at all. I saw so many kids. Kids that have long passed graduated this yochien but that I knew from when B used to go there. It was really cool actually. And of course all the new kids, Noah's classmates, I knew too. When our hour and a half was up. We didn't even know it. We were so busy clapping and saying...."Gambatte, come on you can do it! Just one more ball" And then ahhh, better luck next time" (In Japanese of course) and then passing out a treat. And if they got all balls we'd hoot and holler and clap. We laughed so many times during this game it was funny. How did we know our time was up? The next group, our replacement ladies came in with their aprons and we looked at each other and said...."is it time already?" Ha ha ha. And don't get me wrong we both were happy to be able to spend the remainder of the festival with our own families, so we were happy..... it's just time went by so fast. It was fun though. : )
I was glad to see Noah did the fishing game outside. This happened while I was inside working. Noboru took this. : ) That's one of the sensei's helping with this game. : )
And happy that Branden tried this game as well. : ) Look at that big bag of stuff Branden had won during the festival. Both the kids had a lot of fun. : )
This was the activity room. This was what the other group did. It was really fun. The kids all got to create with either stickers, markers or crayons their own little charm or tag. They were also heated up and covered in plastic. Branden made one with his name and a bunch of Pokemon stickers. Noah stuck stickers on at random, but he likes it. And then they were laminated. I thought that was pretty cool of the other group to come up with that. All the kids enjoyed it a lot. I enjoyed watching the kids create their own little laminated charms.
I was so very thankful that I worked the first half, because I got to enjoy watching the kids dance for the second half. All those colorful yukatas and jinbeis. One reason I love the Natsumatsuri so much. To view all the cool and colorful outfits. : )
After the kids were in their nice little neat rows by badge/class. They started forming a circle. The sensei held Noah's hand and started stretching out the red badge class to help form that circle, meanwhile the pink badges were also forming the same circle and same with the blue badges.
When I snapped this picture of Noah, I didn't really realize at the time. But when I got home and went through the pictures, I realized the little girl in that gorgeous red yukata happened to be Noriko-san's daughter. I really like this picture because it has both of our younger kids in this picture. And she's a very good friend of mine so it made me happy. And that yukata she wore was stunning, a very beautiful color, she looked absolutely beautiful. : )
And now the kids are starting to dance. You can see all the kids including Noah has their one hand up and bent. : )
Jazz hands, no I'm just kidding! Ha ha ha. : )
And in this pic, I see Itsuki-chan wearing that beautiful blue hibiscus yukata. Ahh, I really do enjoy Summer festival to get to see all the Summer outfits. *happy sigh* : )
And of course we had to get a pic of these two good buddies. Noah and Chi-chan!!!
Some of the stuff the boys brought back. Not counting the laminated tags and other things. But the 2 bags with treats and the armor (made of cardboard, shhh : ) And the sword made of newspaper and part of a pet bottle, tin foil and tape (shhhhh, ha ha ha : ) But the kids loved them. : )
We watched our last 2 DVD rentals for July before heading off to Hawaii as well. Ponyo and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The kids LOVED LOVED LOVED Ponyo. So much so, we will go and buy the DVD probably. And I really liked Benjamin Button, so much so that I caught myself thinking about that movie the next day.
In this pic, you can see his white swimming cap and green goggles and he was swimming near that girl on the left hand side of this picture. : )
Now with floating thingy on their backs and using the kick board, but they are working on their breathing in the water techniques. She is teaching them the # of counts to keep their heads down and when to raise their head and for how long.
Getting more instruction from the coach. : )
And face down again.
And he is also learning how to swim on his back at the moment as well. So, I guess the update is, he's currently working on swimming underwater, swimming on his back and working on his breathing techniques. He's doing really really well. And mid July of last year is when he started swimming at this swimming school, so he's been swimming for nearly a full year so far and he's really gotten a lot out of it. I have really enjoyed watching our little guy swim this last year and I will enjoy watching him swim for many years to come. Good job baby! : )
Have been slowly getting ourselves ready for Hawaii in bits off and on these past few weeks. And last week, while at the grocery store, I picked up a cheap box of hair dye. I have used this brand a bunch of times and I really like this brand a lot.
It came out to a nice coppery medium brown color. It says orange on the box but it doesn't look orange it looks like a really natural copper color. Anyway I colored my hair one night last week after the boys had gone to sleep. : )
Two of our July movies came via the mail. I picked House Bunny. And Noboru picked the other dvd. House Bunny was really cute. I am so glad I rented this. It was so funny. Anna Faris is hilarious in this.
And sure enough B enjoyed his last field trip/ensoku of the semester. Did he catch anything? Yup, he caught 2 crawfish. But he gave 1 to the girl he likes. Awww, I am very proud of him for giving her one. Good boy, good boy! : ) He brought home this crawfish and he named her. When he got in my car that day, he got in with the bucket and he said, "mom this is Lisa" Why did you name her Lisa, I just had to ask. And he said, because that's a really pretty name. I shook my head and said, you're right, it is a nice name. So, we all went home that day, Branden, Noah and Lisa the crawfish, lol! @_@ He gave her fresh water, lots of fresh water from the hose and she spent 2 nights at our house before we released her. Branden has never been bummed about releasing things back before, but he did have a hard time of letting go of Lisa the crawfish last week. If we weren't getting ready to leave on vacation, I might have let Lisa stay a little longer but sadly she had to go back to a nice little stream and I'm sure she's happier being around her fellow crawfish anyway. Ha ha ha. : )
I made some killer huli huli stir fry last week. It came out so good. And I made some stir fry veggie on the side. : )
The boys have been playing with their bubbles in the backyard. we have like 2 big almost 2 liter bottle sizes of bubbles, but they don't last long, so we seem to always be buying bubbles @_@, ha ha ha. Aww well, good thing they're an affordable thing to play with. So we don't really mind so much. : ) In this pic, Noah was waving that bubble wand thingy. : )
And in this pic, Branden was blowing bubbles out of an elephant shaped bubble blower, ha ha ha.
One of the reasons, I love summer is partly because of the truly wicked fruit we have available to us in Japan. Japan truly has some of the most amazing and sweet fruit around. I buy fruit every single week year round, but in summer, buying the fruit just makes me so happy. I look forward to what I will get from week to week. Last Friday for example, I got these for the family to munch on. 2 huge white peaches, they were so sweet and so good. Would you believe my husband really doesn't care for fruit so much? Yup, it's true. However the kids and I LOVE it. So, anyhoo, just more for us then, ha ha ha. Noah and I shared one peach and it was so big, we didn't mind. And B had the other peach. We had them one night last weekend after our supper. 
Also last Friday while the boys were at school and after I did my grocery shopping and fruit buying, lol, I ran to Mister Donut and bought 14 donuts for the family. Thought it would be a great way to enjoy it being a Friday and a nice way to start the weekend. : )
Branden brought back more veggies from his school plants last week. Tomatoes and 1 of the smallest bell peppers I've ever seen. Of course I said how lovely his fruit all looked. Awww. And when I made a salad last weekend, I made sure to add all of his tomatoes and sliced up that tiny bell pepper too and added it as well. : )
Last weekend, I took these pics. I was in the house and this pic didn't come out so good. But it's of the boys. It's a candid one and I really like it, even if the quality of the picture isn't so good. The boys were running around the yard shooting each other with water guns. Which is a good way to keep cool for 2 boys. Anway they were taking a break and were chatting but then Noah started singing. What was he singing? He was singing a song in Japanese, a song he learned at his yochien. His favorite Japanese kids song right now is Kaeru no uta. And he was doing the hand movements he learned at the school for it during their break when I snapped this picture. How many times does he sing Kaeru no uta? Umm, about 20 times a day at least. B learned that song at yochien when he used to go there too. So it's been a chain reaction and I've heard that song so much that I now know that song by heart. Ha ha ha. @_@
They're so close, they're really close good brothers. Which is a good thing because we plan to send the both of them to uni in Honolulu when they've finished high school (I've mentioned this a few times before). They can look out for one another. And being fluent in English and Japanese will be to their advantage, especially being in Hawaii.
Yup, the day we let Lisa go. : (
We did find B a pair of 21cm sandals for his jinbei. Remember the summer festival for the yochien is coming up on July 20th. This coming Monday.
The boys on yet another day that they had just played with water guns again. They were literally soaking wet. Look at Noah's shorts, they're 80 % soaked! And the whole back of Noah's shirt is wet as well. And look at B's shirt it's dripping wet too. Anyway the bell for lunch rang in the community at noon, so I made the boys some ham and cheese sandwiches. They also had some mini grapes. And some of those encased Popsicle in the tubes. And then next thing you know they were back at the water guns! : )
A break for lunch! : )
And the fruit I picked up for this week. Big grapes, and some more tiny grapes for the kids, and a great big cantaloupe. This week was the last week of school for both the boys.
Now for some mundane stuff......: ) : ) I made a pretty good egg salad this week. I enjoyed sandwiches for 2 days this week for my lunch. And the kids enjoyed a sandwich when they got home from school too. : )
Also, in part of getting our family ready for our trip to Honolulu, I have been stocking up on sunscreen as well. Five bottles so far and will probably go and get 2 more bottles the day before we leave. Just to make sure. Love Japanese sunscreen, it's so strong and good. : )
Now for some progress on B's swimming. : ) This is what he is doing at elementary school though. Kids in Japan learn to swim at elementary school. This is the cool part of going to school in Japan. Each kid is given a swim card. He had one for when he was in ichinensei. And this is the one he got at ninensei. : )
At our elementary school there are levels from starting as a tadpole, then a regular frog, turtle and a few other things, the highest rank/level for our school is dolphin. Branden was a dolphin for ichinensei and he's a dolphin at ninensei as well. Also according to the Yuka sensei, B's the top 2nd grader at our school regarding the swimming, the Yuka sensei told us this, the other week when we ran into her at the local conbini. Anyway the last day of swimming they tested him at the elementary school. He passed all 13 levels. And B said he was the only one, who could do the butterfly and his classmates were really surprised by all the stuff he could do in the water. He was so proud you guys! : ) And I congratulated him on a job well done of course. Noboru said, he wished they would have tested him more, because he thinks he could have gotten a few more stickers @_@ but, oh well. (such a guy comment the hubster made btw) We were pretty proud nonetheless. : )
July 16th, after sending both boys to school, I met up with my 3 girlfriends/fellow mom friends, in the yochien parking lot and we all left to go to Coco's to go and have breakfast. We all had the french toast sets with drink bar. It was just the four of us. Noriko-san, Mayuko-san and Jogo-san and I. We enjoyed our breakfast and then we headed off to the first showing of the day of the new Harry Potter movie, the Half Blood Prince. Noriko-san had bought all our tickets a week in advance, she got them last week and then we each paid her for our own ticket. She chose us the best seats! At the movies, we 4 bought some popcorn and drinks. Noriko-san and Jogo-san each bought caramel corn and Mayuko-san and I each bought salted popcorn. And we each got our own drinks. We went into the theater and grabbed our seats. The new Harry Potter movie was great! (possible spoiler alert ahead) I really loved it a whole lot. I won't give any major details about it, but will only say... somebody died! : ( : ( Very very sad!!!! I'm sure those of you who have read the books, know who I am talking about. : ( I didn't read the book, so I was *completely* taken by surprise!!!! After the movie, we 4 went and picked up our yochien aged kids, we each have older kids in shogako too, all four of us. I have B who's a 2nd grader, Noriko and Jogo-san and Mayuko-san all have 3rd grade daughter's. : ) Hmm just thought of something here. Out of the 4 of us. Noriko-san (2dd's), Mayuko-san (3 dear daughters) and Jogo-san (2dd's) they all have daughters. : ) I am the only one with 2 boys, ha ha ha. Wow, I didn't even realize that until now. How funny. : ) Anyway....
Last, last, last day of school! July 17th. Oh thank goodness. I swear summer break is as much for us parents as it is for us adults. Not having to wake up at an ungodly hour during the summer. I am so happy, I just can't believe it. I swear if I could do a back flip, I'd do one! : ) The last day of school, was a half day for both of the boys. B got out at 11am. Noah got out at 11:20am. Thank goodness Noboru was home and able to pick up Noah, while I went and got B. Branden played all day yesterday, Friday his last day of school, I swear the whole neighborhood was full of kids playing all afternoon long. Branden played with Genki and Saya-chan and Nozomi-chan. Don't tell anyone but, Branden has the biggest case of puppy love for Saya-chan. He actually made her a necklace out of beads and string and she wears it. Awwww. : ) : ) Meanwhile, Noah did bubbles in the backyard while I watched. We also kept an eye on our pizza dough that was rising in the kitchen all day long. : ) At 5pm when B came home, the boys and I made homemade pizza. A truly perfect way to ring in the last day of school. Noboru got off work at 8:30pn. So he had some pizza when he got home.
My dinner from last night. Homemade pizza, some fresh fruit (the sliced fruit was for everybody) and a soda with ice. : ) It feels so good now to be on summer break!!! Now if we can just finish up with the summer festival then I will be 100% on summer break. I only feel like 90% on summer break right now, lol, because I have 2 more summer festival tasks to do, but as soon as those are done, I'll be over the moon. Seriously though, to surivive doing PTA for both schools, do what's required for both schools. Get all the half days right and not to mention all the ensoku lists packed and done. To get it all done and to have actually survived it all. And still be smiling??? I'm pretty proud of myself. Thank goodness for summer break!!! : )
We bought this near new booster seat for Noah on yahoo auction this week for 500 yen. We have 2 car seats for both boys in the Mazda MPV already, the great big ones. And we have 1 big car seat in my tiny red car and B just uses a seat belt, now that he's 7 and a half when he's in the smaller car. Anyway, in Guam we have a car seat at my dad's place too, so we always are okay there. But we worried about the laws in Hawaii. Noboru checked last Sunday online and found that for Hawaii, B won't need any car seat or booster, but Noah will. Noah needed something. And not really wanting to lug our giant car seat, type car seat with us. The hubby got an idea of buying a nice used one online. Oh and renting one at the car dealership is 8 bucks a day. So by the time the vacation is over you could have essentially bought one for the price paid. So used online sounded right for us and we found this one for 500 yen. As luck would have it, we won the auction. And it was shipped here straight away. I washed the cover anyway, but it was indeed clean, no stains or spots. Anyway like I said, we're really just trying to get ourselves ready for vacation. 
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