Winter clothes shopping is pretty much done now. 2 huge orders from Gap/Old Navy arrived...

In an effort to finish with our Winter clothes shopping. When Old Navy/Gap USA had a huge sale, I placed 2 orders. One was at 45% off and one was at 50% off. This says, Style Delivered.  

Yep this is definitely from the USA, because It says Gap, Old Navy, if you remember Old Navy left Japan last year. And Japan doesn't even have Athletics. So yep...a package from the US for sures. : )

I picked up some sweatshirts and some winter vests. I liked this sweatshirt. Because even though winter can be gray and gloomy weather-wise. This shirt just looks so cheerful and I loved it. 

I love this quilted black vest so much. 

Denim seems to be getting lighter and lighter. I do have a jean jacket...but wanted a lighter color denim jacket and am so happy I ordered this. 

This red plaid quilted vest was so gorgeous. It was an instant immediate love for me. I ordered it immediately. 

Black quilted vest far left, red quilted plaid vest center and my new lighter denim jacket far right. 

And my sweatshirt. I love this sweatshirt so much. 

I liked this sweatshirt and the gold wording.

I also liked this wine colored/ maroon colored sweatshirt with silver wording.

And this just makes me smile. Every single time I see it. So as for me, I am done for my winter clothes shopping. I don't need a single thing. For myself. 

For Noah, loved this long sleeve in yellow with navy arms. Noah needed lots of long sleeves since he wears regular clothes to school.

Loved this maroon colored long sleeve with gray arms. 

Loved this shirt for Noah too. Orange sleeves baseball style shirt with cute message. These were all like $5 US on sale. 

This one I really liked a lot. Evergreen colors arms and bear print and pine tree print on the body of the shirt. So super cute.

Old Navy sweatshirt.

Sweatpants.

This was on a heavily reduced sale and was just $4.99 at Gap. And sold out the next day...so glad I got this for Noah. 

My 2 sweatshirts arrived in another huge order.

Some of Noah's long sleeved tops. 

Love these. Noah is now all set. He has 5 sweatshirts. What...like 7 long sleeve tops now or 8. Two new sweatpants. New jeans. This kid is all set now.  

Noah also got this gray Old Navy top on the right too.

This is even cuter in person.

Cute long sleeve for Noah. Remember Bran is all done winter clothes wise...especially since he wears a school uniform 5 days a week.

And the sweatpants. Knowing that my kids are now taken care of..regarding winter clothes now. Huge peace of mind now. Now we can just relax and enjoy the weather getting colder. 

And sorry I almost forgot... my Hello! sweatshirt. : )

Halloween 2017...

How was every one's Halloween this year? Ours was wonderful. Low key and just absolutely perfect for us and our family. Saturday October 28th, Noah and his classmates went "Trick or Treating" in our housing community. Trick or Treating in Japan hasn't really caught on, "for real" yet. I know in Inzai because of my foreign/American papa friend living there... that they do a huge mass trick or treating all grades and stuff. And that sounds like fun. I also have lots of friends in Japan where they live that... do no trick or treating at all. As for our housing community where we live... they always trick or treat on a Saturday afternoon regardless if it's actually October 31st or October 28th. To me...that's really weird. In America we "trick or treat" only on October 31st regardless which day it falls on. So that to me is unusual. Also another interesting weird thing about how my area trick or treats. Noah's grade kids only trick or treat at their particular grades houses and no other grades. And the grade younger than Noah...the current 5th graders also trick or treat. But they will not stop at 6th grade houses and won't give candy to 6th grade kids. It's so weird. I will gladly give candy out to *any* kid who knocks on my door. Also..you know how in the US...we trick or treat at night and whoever has their porch light on... is whose house you stop at? Nope...not here. They trick or treat in broad daylight and no lights on houses at all. So...it is...what it is.  A few years ago...I tried...explaining how we can...maybe join all kids from our school, so not to leave any one out. And how we should stick to only trick or treating on the 31st. But nope...they are unchanging and unwavering. Regardless the fact that they are wrong. I mean...would they celebrate Obon on a  different date? Or Golden Week in March instead of the month it's actually celebrated? No. Yet...they think they can switch the date of Halloween to a Saturday, because it's more convenient. This just boggles my mind. But, it is what it is. And regardless if I am right. Yes I am. Our housing community will always celebrate Halloween on a Saturday and in broad daylight. LOL. So Noah went trick or treating on Saturday....morning nonetheless. Around 9:30am. Noah was in his Mario costume from last year. And I had treat bags for Noah's grade kids ready. And so when they knocked at our door right after breakfast....we passed out treats and Noah left with them to knock on their classmates doors. Slightly super weird for me...but the important thing is... They loved it. They had a ton of fun. Seeing their happiness made me smile. And I am just glad they had fun. : )Sunday Bran and Noah and I carved our family pumpkin and made him into a proper Jack o lantern!!! We also roasted pumpkin seeds and they came out so delicious, Sunday. So when you live in a foreign country...you just make the best of it. And you celebrate your holidays the best ya can. With an open mind and an accepting heart. : ) As for us, at our house...we watch Halloween movies all month long for October. And we make Halloween night a little family party for us here at home. The day before.. we were in the city and we bought a dozen donuts for Halloween. The kids enjoyed some donuts for Halloween breakfast along with milk and yogurts. 

Glazed donuts...super simple, but delicious.

I put the Halloween candy in the pumpkin heads. Halloween day. So that by the time the kids got home from school, their Halloween candy was waiting. I also made a huge amount of homemade from scratch pizza dough. Enough for 3 pizzas.  

Noboru was off work, yay. He didn't take the day off, he was just off work...his regular day off. That week. And this is a pic of the kids pizza. It's a homemade from scratch pepperoni pizza. You can see how crisp that crust is. The size of this pizza is the same size of a Costco pizza...only tons better. We had pizzas and salads for our fun laid back Halloween dinner.

This was my pizza. I had pepperoni, mushrooms and jalapenos and onions. Noboru had the same as mine, except minus the onions. With a nice salad and some sodas. Halloween dinner was super yum. The kids showered and came downstairs. They noshed on their candy. And we watched half of Hocus Pocus. One channel was having a Hocus Pocus marathon for Halloween, it just played again and again for like 24 hours. Also another channel was having a Chucky/Child's Play marathon too. We watched half of Hocus Pocus and then we changed it to real Ghost Stories on another channel having some Ghostober marathon. That was interesting and a little scarier than Hocus Pocus. LOL.

All in all. Did Noah trick or treat this year? Yep. He had a blast doing it. A bit unorthodox way of trick or treating yes..but he still enjoyed it. Did we carve our Jack o lantern and also roast some pumpkin seeds...double yes!!!! Did we have a delicious special Halloween dinner here at home? Yassss!!! And did the kids get the best part of Halloween? Meaning get a ton of Halloween candy? Most definitely. So all in all...I would call Halloween 2017 a lot of fun and a total success. When you know you and your family will be moving back to the states permanently. You really don't focus on...the small crap that doesn't matter...like .."they're trick or treating wrong or weirdly" you suddenly stop caring or worrying about that completely. You just start focusing on...wanting your child to enjoy this childhood memory he is creating with his friends that he won't be seeing in a years time. So the focus goes back on the TRUE important stuff. Noah trick or treating with his friends. Us as a family carving out our pumpkin. Us as a family having our Halloween dinner and enjoying some Halloween specials on TV. The important things really are...about friends...family. Good food. Making wonderful memories. And just getting to live in the now...and enjoy it. 

Throwback Thursday...

Happy TBT everyone!!! Since it's November...I went to my November pics from years ago to get today's throwback. Noah swinging on the swings on our playground that we used to have for our kids in our backyard when they were little. It was a sunny but cool crisp Fall day. Good thing Noah had on his warm and fuzzy fleece lined jeans and a long sleeve and a sweatshirt.

I loved that the boys could play in the privacy of our fenced in backyard. Get all their energy out. And if they got tired of swinging and riding their tire swing and sliding down their slide or rock climbing wall on the jungle gym. Yet still wanted to be outside in the country fresh air...they could play with their DS games together. Play some Mario Kart. Come in for lunch time and if they felt like playing after lunch then they could for as long as they wanted and if they wanted to come in and bake something with me or watch TV or play upstairs they could do that too. 

Another pic also from November. Branden and I baked a batch of chocolate chip pecan cookies. They wanted you to see the chocolate chips and pecans before we gave it a few quick and final stirs. 

Noah taking a rest...meanwhile his brother was swinging on the swings. I loved that I could always just peek my head out one of the 2 huge patio windows and see what my 2 boys were up to while they played and had fun in the backyard. 

A crisp November morning. My pika pika ichinensei Branden was about to be driven to school by me and I thought...better take a quick pic. It wasn't full on winter mode. But it certainly was...a crisp Fall morning that definitely felt cold.

Family movie night in November. And yep...we still have family movie nights... even now. I just want my kids to know...doesn't matter if we go to the movies. Or we watch a movie at home. The important thing has always been....togetherness...we enjoy a movie together. We have special snacks. And we get all snuggle-y buggle-y and we have pillows and fleece blankets. And it's just our special 2 hours. We take time out for our family. No computer, No phone calls. Just us. And just fun. We need to carve that special time out for our family....and that's just something we have always done. 

Yep that time it was a 3D movie. And boy oh boy did the boys LOVE that. : )  Anyway just a few miscellaneous snippets from a November of years past. How cool! : )


Anyway...anything new to add? Yesterday I went to Noah's observation day at the local elementary school. It was pretty good.

Kua'Aina...

Monday, October 30th. Noboru and I had to run to the U.S. Embassy. We pulled Noah out of school at 10:10am. Because we knew we wouldn't be back in our town by 3:45pm. Considering our appointment wasn't until 3pm. So, Noah had to go with us...but since we let him attend his first and second class, Noah was not marked absent. Also, we knew our appointment wouldn't take over 10-15 minutes and we were right. So, we had asked Branden to meet us at Ikspiari for dinner after he got out of school at 3:45pm. Because clearly eating at home that night was not an option. We were at Ikspiari by 4pm. And we parked our car and were now walking towards the train station to wait for Branny McB to exit the train station.

Branden came out quickly. And we went to Kua'Aina for dinner October 30th.

Yay, and it wasn't very crowded when we first got there, but it was super crowded by the time we left. 

We're already signed up for Kua'Aina on all our phones so we each got 3 chicken strips for free so we got 12 strips for free basically. Which is so nice. We each ate our 3 strips, while we waited for our meals.

I always pick the chicken teriyaki sandwich and onion rings. Guava juice. 

Everyone else picked cheeseburgers and fries. Except Noah... he picked onion rings, Noah likes onions rings just like me. We all ate. We were all stuffed. And we went and picked up a dozen glazed donuts from Krispy Kreme on the way out. And we would enjoy those for Halloween the next day. With 4 people in the family... that means everyone gets 3 donuts. Branden had all his 3 for breakfast Halloween morning with a tall glass of milk. Before school. Noah had 1 before school with a small glass of milk. I had 1 with a hot coffee after the kids went to school. And Noboru ate his throughout the day. 1 in the morning, 1 after lunch and 1 right before he picked up Noah from school. : ) 

Branden's Birthday...

We always go out to dinner when it's someone in our family's birthday. Branden's birthday is October 26th and it fell on a Thursday this year. Noboru had to work that day. So we decided it would be best for us to go out for an early birthday dinner celebration on Monday October 23rd instead. We asked Branden what he'd like to eat, which restaurant he'd like to go to... since it's his birthday. Would he like to go to a Steakhouse? Yakiniku? Cappricciosa? The Outback Steakhouse? His choice 100%. He picked Jolly Pasta. It was a fantastic choice. The quality of food there is quite high. It's no Saizeriya. Granted Saizeriya is perfect for a quick meal on the cheap on a regular day, and we go there for regular times (not birthdays) But Jolly Pasta's quality is perfect for a birthday and the fact you can get an all you can drink... drink bar too, if you order that. It's awesome. Also another super cool thing is. Our nearest Jolly Pasta is in Chiba City. Chiba City is quite far from where we live in rural Chiba nearly 1 second away from Ibaraki. It takes us a full hour to drive there. And 1 full hour to drive back to the countryside. But...lucky for us...Ibaraki has finally got it's 2nd Jolly Pasta in Ibaraki prefecture and it's actually a quick drive for us...with all rural country roads with no/zero stop lights. So it's a fast 30 minute drive there for us, from our house. So half closer for us. It's brand new, just opened at the end of September. September 27th or something. So we now have a closer to us Jolly Pasta. As a family who lives way out in the middle of nowhere...it's amazing that we finally have a closer to us Jolly Pasta in Ibaraki. So that's where we were Monday October 23rd. It was a day of no school/canceled school because of the typhoon. And so we zipped there around 4pm. Arrived near 4:30pm.

They have delicious pasta and pizza combos. We each picked a pasta and pizza combo each. 

Our family loves that chili oil they have at Jolly Pasta. Branden was using it in this pic. On our way out, we bought one of the chili oils. Yum. We have been using it at home ever since. Dinner was fantastic. We had such a good time there. Dinner was delicious. 

Noboru had a hot coffee at the restaurant before we left and the kids and I each had a hot cocoa to drink before we left and drove home. 

We had cake and ice-cream to celebrate on Monday after we got back from dinner. And cake all week long even on Branden's actual birthday. 

A bit blurry, but Bran blowing out his birthday candles. We all enjoyed some cake and ice-cream. 

Birthday money for the birthday teen. 20,000 yen from us. $200 from the best greatest grandpa in the universe. 5,000 yen from grandma Mitsuko. 

Just some of what grandpa had to say. How lovely. Branden saves all of grandpa's birthday cards and so does Noah too. So do I. : )

We also bought Branden a brand new Ultra Light down winter coat from Uniqlo. It's not a school coat. It's for weekends. It's in navy blue. And as for his birthday money...Branden is saving his money until he figures out what he should buy. Branden has a laptop, just got it this year. He also has a super nice tablet and a nice cellphone too. He has clothes. Honestly...he really doesn't need or want for anything really. But we still wanted to celebrate him. And so...whenever he decides what he wants to use with his birthday money...he'll let us know. But for now. He's saving it. Smart kid...smart kid. : )

Also now that Bran is in high school. And his birthday fell on a Thursday/school day. Some of his closest friends bought him these things on his birthday, while at school. Just small little acts of kindness which I thought were so cool! High school in Japan is so fun! They sang him Happy Birthday. The class announced it. He basically felt special all day long. He was truly beaming and smiling ear to ear, by the time he came home from school that day. And for his actual birthday dinner. I made a great big pot of pork green chili and a pot of beans. And we had bowls of pork green chili and beans and tortillas for his simple but homemade from scratch birthday dinner. It was so delicious. And we had birthday cake and ice-cream for dessert. And that's about it. : ) Happy Birthday Branden. I can barely believe you're 16 years old kiddo! We love you!!!