remember me?

Hi!

I was reading through my blog looking for something I had written about the girls and it was so much fun! I had forgotten some of the cute things the girls had said and a few of the parenting struggles we'd gone through. As I was reading I realized that I should keep up this "recordkeeping" in some shape or form. I was cleaning out our loft and I came across my baby book. My mom wrote a lot about my first year and then after that for birthday or other events she would write little snippets of what I was like at that age. I'm sure my youngest brother would be shocked to learn that "it was heartwarming to see how much Sarah takes care of Joel". I know I was! So even though it may be of no interest to anyone but me and my family I am going to try and continue to write about our lives.

2010 has proved to be a more interesting year than I anticipated in all sorts of ways.

January- recuperating from the holidays
February - a bad throat infection for me, another febrile seizure for Natsuki
March - went to visit my brother and his family in Arizona for Spring Break, got another throat infection
April - school starts (Emi - 4th grade, Misaki - 3rd grade, Sakura - kindergarten), my doctor runs some tests and discovers that I have hyperthyroidism (my dad had this when he was about my age), Natsuki gets chicken pox
May - Golden Week (awesome!), get a reaction to the first medicine for hyperthyroidism, Natsuki figures out how to use the toilet!
June - Chikara tears his Achilles Tendon playing basketball and has to have surgery to repair it, Natsuki has another febrile seizure this time because we all contracted Hand Foot Mouth Disease! She also is completely potty-train, even wearing panties at night. Yeah!
July - I have an allergic reaction to the second medicine for hyperthyroidism, Chikara continues physical therapy for his leg and fortunately is still able to go to work since it is his left leg that was injured, also I had a minor car accident while borrowing my friend's car
August - found out that the DMV will accept my driver's license (long story) so I'm on the way to getting my Japanese driver's license. Just a driving test left to pass! To top it all off, our car starts acting weird and now it overheats if we use the A/C.

So that's the first part of 2010 in a nutshell. Amazingly even in the middle of the craziness God really protected us. For example, we were informed that it would cost around $2000 (after insurance) for Chikara's surgery but it ended up costing only $500. Phew! Also the guy on the bicycle that ran into me when I was completely stopped in my friend's car never made a claim. Double phew! Through everything I find the most exhausting part was just all the thinking and planning and coming up with answers for every possible scenario. Also, usually I'm pretty healthy but with the hyperthyroidism, although not severe, still made me tired and the allergic reactions were a huge distraction. But we made it this far in one piece and the kids have been very helpful. So glad we didn't have to take care of a baby through all of this!

We still have a few hurdles in front of us. We will be going to the my doctor on Tuesday. There are no more types of medicine to treat my hyperthyroidism so the next step is using radioactive iodine to kill off part of my thyroid and if that doesn't work then I'll have to have surgery to remove part of it. We'll see what happens on Tuesday. Also, our car is acting weird so instead of buying a new car in October like we planned we'll have to do it now. I hate making rush decisions so I'm praying that we find the perfect car for us quickly. Lastly, I need to pass the driving test to get a Japanese driver's license within August. We're just too busy from September for me to be going over there all the time. For those of you who don't know, the driving tests in Japan are killer. There is just a certain way they want you to drive the course and if you don't do it exactly right then the tester just sends you back to the beginning without an explanation. Fingers crossed that everything goes well on the 13th.

What else can I say? I have been very thankful for my friends during this time and of course my family supporting us through the phone!

Please enjoy these pictures of  us...

November 2009 - Our First Trip to Disneyland

March 2010 - Most of my family together in Arizona!

August 2010 - The girls in their yukatas for a summer festival

Well, that's it for now.

the last few weeks in pictures

First, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who commented on my last post. After reading all of the comments, I felt very encouraged and also a little relieved that this thing with Misaki can be overcome and it will pass. Maybe one day when she's a mommy and dealing with her little ones, she can come back here to be encouraged, too.

I haven't written much the last few weeks because we've been all over the place. There were a variety of national holidays and school events but from today everyone's schedules go back to normal and stay that way until summer vacation starts. I tried to take pictures along the way but I didn't always succeed so let's see what I've got.

First up, isn't Natsuki turning into a little girl. She had a growth spurt and she's jumping, running and talking up a storm. She's also fighting with her sisters and pulling their hair, etc., but then the next second she's smiling, dancing and singing so we've got quite the rollercoaster of emotions going on over here. I trimmed her hair in the back now that her bald spot has grown out and maybe that's what's contributed to the change in her look.



The first holiday that came up was just one Tuesday in the middle of the week at the end of April. I had decided to still teach my English classes that day so the night before, after dinner, we went out for ice cream and a walk. It was almost too cold so we took refuge in a Starbucks. The girls were on a sugar high from their ice cream and hyper since it was past their bedtime so on the whole, I'm not sure that going out was the best idea but we wanted to start off Golden Week with a little something special so in the end, I was glad we went out. Here's the girls hogging up all the comfy chairs at Starbucks.



The first weekend in May was the second half of our Golden Week vacation. My pastor's wife had asked if I would sing a solo with her gospel choir for the Takatsuki Jazz Street Festival so that was what we spent Saturday doing. This next picture is mostly for my mom.



Yes, that's me in the middle singing. The festival is really cool. They have over 40 different sites, some in parks, some in bars or restaurants, some at shopping centers and open-air shopping centers and then different jazz or gospel groups sign up to participate and are assigned an area and a time. Basically for two days you can just walk around this 1 square mile and listen to jazz or gospel all day long. We wish we could have taken more time but it wasn't really fair to the kids. I took this picture of Emi while we were having some ice cream (it was hot that day) and listening to a band. They played some Eric Clapton and some James Taylor so it's hard to say if they were trying to be jazz or rock. Anyways, I love this picture of her.



The next day was church and then in the afternoon we got together with one group of friends and then in the evening we got together with another group of friends. Needless to say we were exhausted by the time Sunday was over. We had planned to go to Kobe on Monday but the weather looked less than promising and everyone was so tired that I knew it would end up being not fun at all so we decided to take a relaxing day at home. This doesn't usually work because it's rare that all of us are tired enough on the same day but this day was perfect. Everyone slept until 9:30am (totally unheard of!) and then we all took a 3 hour nap and then everyone was back in bed again by 9pm. Even with all of that extra sleep, Natsuki fell asleep waiting for lunch (again, totally unheard of).




Tuesday was a family day spent with Chikara's parents going to visit Chikara's grandparents. We decided to meet early and have lunch and doing something fun before going to grandma and grandpa's house. My FIL knew of a lake that was on the way so after lunch at a restaurant (at which Natsuki screamed through the entire lunch because she wasn't allowed to hold her own drink - sigh...) so we stopped there. They had paddle boats so Emi and Misaki went out with my in-laws.



We waited at shore and I was less than thrilled to see Emi trying to climb out onto the front of the boat. There were no lifejackets and I didn't know how fast my in-laws would react so I was totally prepared to jump in and swim after them if something had happened. Sakura was totally OK with not going on the boat but I think Natsuki would've liked to go.



After that we headed to grandma and grandpa's house. Amazingly they were ready to go within 10 minutes of our arrival and we headed out to the one and only restaurant in our town that grandma will deign to go to. I've mentioned before some of her OCD tendancies and while we were getting our shoes back on I managed to take a picture of the entrance of their house and the hallway leading to the living room.





Do you see the newspaper taped down on the floor? Under the newspaper there is tissue so it's a little padded. The bottom picture where the blue slippers are is the entrance to the bathroom. I really wanted to get a picture of that but I didn't have the guts. Also, do you see the tissue stuffed into the slippers in both pictures? It's always like this. Although this trip was the first time that grandma praised grandpa for doing a good job with cleaning and laundry so he must be getting used to all of this.

Here's a picture of all of us (except me, the picture-taker) after we ate dinner.



I know that grandpa turned 80 this year so grandma must turn 80 later this year or next year. It seems, despite all of their complaints, that they are in good health. They polished off an a la cart dinner before I was even halfway through mine and they carried on conversations while giving orders to everyone. Fortunately Natsuki didn't scream through this meal. Well, actually she did but they were screams of joy and she thoroughly entertained both of them. I was worried that she might be too loud for them but all of the rest of us were tired so she really carried the entertainment all by herself!

We got home not too late but Emi and Misaki had school the next morning so we got everyone right into bed. I had been looking forward to Wednesday morning all week because Chikara had promised to clean the balcony for me. In an effort to prepare for cockroach season in the summer, I had really wanted to scrub the floor and walls of the main balcony of our house where I put out our laundry. Last year we had two cockroaches come in the house and we can only guess that they came from this balcony. All of the garbage has been moved down to the garage but just in case there were any leftover eggs or bits of garbage that would attract them, I had asked Chikara if he wouldn't mind cleaning it for me. He hates cockroaches just as much as I do so he was more than willing to tackle this project. This picture probably doesn't look like much so it's mostly for my mom who was here in February and can probably appreciate the difference.



Thank you Chikara!

From Thursday (last week now) everything went back to almost normal. Chikara had to go to work and the girls were in school but they were coming home an hour early each day because of parent/teacher conferences. There are two of these each year and the one in May is when the teacher comes and visits our house and the second one is in the fall (right?) and the parent goes to the school. Both Emi and Misaki's teachers were coming on Friday and I wasn't sure if they would just want to talk in the entrance of our house, which is what has happened in past years, or if these teachers would want to come upstairs. I couldn't decided how much to clean so in the end I took some extra time and cleaned up everything which is good because both teachers asked to come upstairs. Chikara was shocked but I knew from reading the blogs of other expat moms that this happens, too.

Both of the girl's teachers had really good things to say about my girls. I had been worried about Misaki and if she was paying attention or not but the teacher said that she was doing really good. Misaki's teacher also said that she was surprised at how good Misaki's writing had gotten in just a short time. I explained that after the first two days of homework, I noticed that Misaki wasn't writing *on* the lines but *around* them so I told her that probably the teacher wanted her to follow the lines to learn how to write her characters correctly so by the third day she had started doing it properly. Emi's teacher was totally fascinated by me, of course. I had actually been relieved to meet Misaki's teacher because she was very focused on Misaki but Emi's teacher was all, how did you meet you husband and where did you get married, etc. She also asked if we could possibly translate a song from English to Japanese for her to teach to the class. She was really sweet though and I don't think Emi cares if her teacher is focused on her or not so it seems like both of the girls are going to get on in their classes very well.

I had actually had a dream the night before they came that Misaki's teacher had showed up at 5am in the morning (instead of her 3:30pm scheduled time) and basically talked badly about everything I was doing. In the dream she was shocked that all the kids weren't up and dressed and I was trying to say that 5am is way too early, etc. When I woke up, I was in a bit of a panic and it took me a few minutes to orient myself. I was very relieved to meet both of the teachers and find out that they were very nice ladies. I hate it when my subconscious interferes with my sleep!!!

What else? Oh, we bought an airconditioner for Emi & Misaki's room and Natsuki and Sakura loved the box.



Also, this week Natsuki started playing with dolls. She's pretended to be interested when her sister's had played with their dolls before but this was the first time I saw her get out the dolls and accessories by herself and have imaginary play. It was so precious and she didn't even care that I was taking pictures. She kept saying, "baby, baby" and one time she said, very sternly, "NO". I wonder where she gets that from...





Since we didn't get to go to Kobe last Monday, we decided to go this Monday after the girls got home from school. My friend Abigail had her second baby on May 1st and we hadn't gotten a chance to visit them and since they live in Kobe, too, we decided to just make a day of it. We visited with Abigail first. When Natsuki saw the baby, she thought he was a doll and she wiped her hands on her shirt and held them out to me. She really totally expected me to hand him over. I did let her hold him later (with my help) and I think she was unprepared for the fact that he was real! I wish I could've captured the look on her face at that moment.

They named their son Joel, which is the name of my youngest brother and when I told Emi and Misaki that we were going to go and see him their immediate thought was, "Uncle Joel turned into a BABY!". Uhhhhhhhhh, no. I also told Abigail that my brother likes to be called Joel the Magnificent and it seems like they might just borrow that for their little Joel!

OK, I'm totally losing steam here so I'll write all about our Kobe adventures (including a visit to the new Ikea) later on.

golden week part four: Osaka

I wasn't going to bother posting about this but I have the greatest pictures of Chikara with the girls so here goes...


We got back home late on Thursday (May 3rd) and everyone slept until around 8. We did absolutely nothing on Friday. I bought some milk and orange juice but we just laid around the house. All the girls had naps and so did mommy and daddy. We went out for dinner and rented some videos and then the girls were back in bed by 8.


It was good that we had a lazy day because Saturday we had planned to spend with Chikara's parents. My FIL is a busy guy. He works 5 days a week for a company that installs those Eco-Cute systems and then the other 2 days a week he is a pastor of a small church, but he does get these kind of national holidays off so we wanted to make sure and spend some time with them. We had originally planned to go with them to surprise my MIL's parents (that's a whole other post) but we decided against it at the last minute. My in-laws wanted to go to Kyoto but I had visions of being stuck in traffic and the girls were already sick of being in the car so I recommended we go to Rokko Island in Kobe.


I love Rokko Island. It's a man-made island where many foreigners live. Food Buyer's Club (FBC) has a store there along with a large shopping center that has a Wendy's. But our favorite place to hang out is a system of water ways that the kids can play in. The water is about 5 cm deep and set aside especially for this area (ie. not sewer water!). Right by this area is a Subway Sandwiches so with a turkey sandwich in one hand and a Frosty in the other, I can watch the kids as the play and everyone enjoy a wonderful day.


Here are some pictures of the girls walking around in the water. They got totally wet so we had to go buy more clothes for them...







These pictures are the ones that I had to post. Chikara and the three older girls would go and take leaves off some bushes and drop them off one side of the bridge and then run to the other side of the bridge to see who's leaf would make it through first. Can you see Sakura's pants hanging down?




Yes, he's a good daddy.

Because it was Golden Week, there was a lot of fun stuff for kids set up around the island. Most of it was free so the girls got to play a lot and the rest of us sat around and watched them. I was amazed at how much energy they had even after such a busy week. I felt a little old!

We got home around 9 and the girls went to bed. Natsuki didn't sleep as well this night because she's teething! Right now she's got two little nubs on her lower gum. Everyday I pray for those teeth to break through so I can get some sleep. She likes to wake up around 4am which is when I am totally unconscious. But I'm getting off track...

Sunday we went to church and as soon as the service was finished, 3 other families plus us went to one of our friend's house and had a BBQ. We'd been planning this get-together for about a month but the weather worked against us and it rained so we BBQ'd inside the house on hot plates. It was still very delicious, kind of like cooking yakiniku in a restaurant. All of our friends had kids so again it was a family-friendly get together. Natsuki took a nap in a totally empty room on a blanket. I thought for sure she wouldn't sleep but I guess she's as tired as I am because of all the waking up in the middle of the night.

We were home by 7pm. As a family we moved slowly through our bedtime routine and everyone was glad to finally be in bed. The end of a busy week and the end of a fabulous week.

This week we met with Emi & Misaki's teachers but I'll write more about that later.

golden week part three: Nagoya

So now we're on the road to Nagoya. We didn't arrive even close to the time we wanted to but at least we did arrive. I had been trying to get the girls to sleep in the car since they usually have a nap in the afternoon but the more I tried, the more they resisted so they all ended up falling asleep about 20 minutes before we arrived. Classic! It was 4:30 when we arrived and they were all cranky from being woken up.

Our friends were waiting for us, Yuu & Sayaka, Yoshimi & Midori and their two children and Yoshimi's older brother Mitsuru. Chikara has been friend with these guys since he was very little and Yuu and Yoshimi went to the same college as him so I've known them for awhile too. Yoshimi & Midori have a 2-year-old daughter named Yumi and a 5-month-old son named Yuma. Last time we met, both of us were pregnant and we commented on how nice it was NOT to be pregnant!!


Yoshimi & Mitsuru's parents were also there and it seems like they helped prepare the dinner and snacks. All of us (9 adults, 6 kids) fellowshipped for a bit and then ate dinner. By this point in the week, my girls were so mellowed out. They ate everything I placed before them without complaint and when they were done eating, they just sat in their chair until I said they could go play. Everyone kept commenting on how well behaved they were and I felt bad taking compliments because really they were just too tired to misbehave! Has to be a first for them. We stick to our schedule pretty good when we're at home so usually they get enough sleep to misbehave just like all children do!


After dinner, Yoshimi's parents took all the kids upstairs to watch a video so that left all of us to hang out and fellowship. Yuu had brought his Japanese version of Settlers of Cataan so we opened that up and taught those who hadn't played before the rules and played through one game. If you haven't played Settlers before it takes at least one game to figure it out but as we played we all talked and joked around and everyone behaved just as they always do and therefore we had a wonderful time.




The first few years we lived in Japan, we didn't really get together with Chikara's childhood friends very much. We were all busy and I was having babies so it was hard to make the time. I think Kenji was the one we saw the most and that was probably once every 6 months. I always wondered why but I think God was preparing me and my Japanese so that I could become friends on my own with the wives of Chikara's friends. It's just in the last two years that we've been able to meet every so often and my Japanese has been good enough to hold my own and enjoy the time we spend together instead of being stuck to Chikara's side so he can translate for me.


Around 10:30pm, we realized that we should be going since we still had to make it to Yokkaichi. We brought all the kids down and took a picture together. Again, we had such a great time and the time went so quick that we really didn't want to leave. We all hugged and made our good-byes. Yoshimi's daughter Yumi asked Emi & Misaki, "haggu wa?" (where's my hug) so even our girls got in on the hugging. Thank you to the Takahashi family for your hospitality!


Back in the car again! The girls were all asleep within five minutes. We made it to Yokkaichi in about an hour. Our friends, Andrew & Yuri, helped us get everything in the house. Yuri's dad was also visiting to help build a deck for them. They just finished building a new house right before Christmas and haven't finished the landscaping so her dad came up for Golden Week to help out. He is also the father of four daughters so each time we've met him, he's been so sweet with the girls.


Emi, Misaki & Sakura were out as soon as we put them in their beds. Natsuki was stubborn for about 10 minutes and then she conked out, too. As soon as I was sure she was asleep, I relaxed and I was out within minutes. It was very dark in the room (which I like) so we slept soundly until morning.


I had planned for this day to be one of our "down" days. I really wanted to fellowship with Yuri, since it had been awhile since I'd seen her, and hear about her house and their life. After breakfast, Chikara decided he wanted to help Andrew and his father-in-law build the deck so he got ready and went outside. Yuri's two daughters, Emily & Ailie, are about the same age as Emi & Misaki so they paired up and played really well for the entire day. Sakura tagged along but when they went outside, I kept her inside because I didn't want her to disturb the building of the deck. She was totally content to be inside since Emily & Ailie have an abundance of girlie toys. She especially enjoy dressing up as a princess as you can see from the picture.


Natsuki was amazing. I wasn't sure if she'd fall asleep for her naps since it was an unfamiliar place and there were a lot of unfamiliar noises but both times I put her down for a nap, she didn't make a peep and was out (I checked many times!). This gave me the break I needed and I went through our suitcases and organized them a bit since I hadn't really done that even once during the whole trip.


Yuri and I talked for the majority of the time. She showed me lots of magazines that they looked through when building their house. The information she shared with me was invaluable and I had been looking through the Internet at the stuff she showed me ever since I got back. We are really hoping to build a house in the near future so I'm gathering information and advice so I can be prepared once we get to that point.


The girls had such a lovely day. They played inside and outside. They "assisted" the guys with the building the deck, played in the dirt, colored pictures, played with the toys, etc. They kept going all day and I almost felt bad when it was finally time for us to go and they had to leave their friends. Yuri had prepared yakiniku to say thank you to the guys. After the dinner, Chikara hopped into the shower and once he was ready, we packed up all the stuff into the car, said good-bye again, fastened the girls into their seatbelts and, once again, we were in our car and driving away.


We were home around 11, and without much ceremony, we put all the girls to bed, brought our stuff into the house and dropped into bed ourselves. It was such a lovely moment when we were finally laying down (even though the futon is still uncomfortable). We both said thank you to each other for making the vacation such a wonderful time and promptly fell asleep.


We has such a fabulous vacation and I wish that I had the right words to say thank you to all of our friends who welcomed us, fed us and encouraged us in different ways. I hope that all of you could tell how much we were blessed by your hospitality. Thank You!


Here are some pictures of the girls riding in the car.







We did a couple more things in Osaka for Golden Week so I'll write about those tomorrow but this is end of our tour of Japan! Thanks for reading to the end.

golden week part two: Ikea and Lalaport

The next day, Tuesday, the weather was supposed to be cloudy with some rain so we decided to go to Ikea. I had really been looking forward to this day. Again, there wasn't much traffic and we were there within 40 minutes. I had found out before that they have a free play area for kids who are between 100-135cm and potty-trained so I asked Emi & Misaki if they wanted to go in. Misaki was all ready to go but at the end Emi decided she didn't want to go. She's a bit of a chicken sometimes (reminds me of me!) so we decided to have lunch first and see how she felt after. We had some yummy Ikea food (not hotdogs though!) and then after that Emi decided she would try it. They played in there for an hour while we walked around and looked at all the stuff.
I mentioned it before but I was really hoping to buy a bed. I didn't think Ikea would deliver it to Osaka but I was even willing to pay to have it delivered by another service if I found one I liked. Those of you who have been to the Ikea in Funabashi know that the second floor starts with living room ideas and then works around to bedrooms eventually. When we got to the bedroom showroom I looked around but I didn't see anything I really liked or could even settle for. I want to buy a bedroom set that is in dark wood but they didn't really have anything like that. Chikara thought everything was great which started getting on my nerves when we went to the mattress department.

I will stop here to give you a little background of the beds we've slept on since we got married. When we started shopping for our first bed almost 10 years ago, I really wanted Chikara to be comfortable so we went to our local Futon Factory. They made their own bedframes there and had a lot of choices for the thickness and size of futons. We settled on a fabulous pine bed frame and a medium thickness of futon mattress in a queen size. I wasn't sure how I would like it but it turned out to be the most comfortable bed I'd ever slept on. Plus it turns out that Chikara moves around a lot at night so it was better that we had a futon than a spring mattress because then his constant motion didn't wake me up. For our first anniversary we went to the stay at The Empress Hotel in Victoria, British Columbia. It was the first time since we'd been married that we'd slept on a spring mattress and I didn't get much sleep. At all. Especially after this incident I was glad that we'd bought a futon.

When we moved to Japan we were planning to live with Chikara's parents for a bit while he looked for a job and we didn't know how long it would take for us to get into our own place so we decided to leave our bed in the States in my sister's apartment. At the time, I didn't think much about it because I was going to Japan, the land of futons, right?! Chikara's parents had bought a double futon for us and we have used it for the last 5-1/2 years and it has served us well. I haven't had any complaints until my last pregnancy and it has just become too uncomfortable. Even now I'd rather sleep on the couch than in our bed and I don't think that's too good for our marriage!!

So now you know what we're looking for and I really want to buy something that's gonna last us for awhile so I am on the hunt for the "perfect bed". In other words, I'm being picky, but with this type of stuff, Chikara's not picky at all (since he can fall asleep *anywhere*) so every bedframe he saw and every mattress he tried out was, to him, perfect. Finally, I just gave up, much to the frustration of Chikara and probably the amazement of our friends. Sorry, I just can't decide in that kind of environment.

So no bed, but I did find cutting boards, a cheese slicer, a new whisk, bed sheets for the girls, kid's cups, a round mirror to hang on the wall, hooks for coats for the entrace of our house, cute storage boxes, cheap pillow covers, and some other miscellaneous stuff. Also, they had salted licorice, which is probably going to gross a lot of you out, but my dad gave it to us when we were kids and I really like it now. Probably reminds me of hanging out with my dad, who I miss a lot.

Our friends watched the kids for us while they ate ice cream so we could run through one more time to make sure I didn't miss anything and I found a collapsable laundry basket that I can take with me as I go around the house picking up dirty laundry. I'm always trying to carry everything in my hands and I inevitably end up dropping socks along the way. After the wonderfulness of Ikea, I didn't think I could take anymore shopping, but just across the street is Lalaport. And here I have to say sorry to Lily because I didn't know there was more than one Lalaport and were in the one in Tokyo, not Yokohama (thanks for the info, Gina!). They have an awesome playland that is 500yen ($5) for each kid and they can play as long as they want on the weekdays. The pictures say it all.

For dinner we ate at Wendy's because I didn't want to take my cranky, tired kids to a real restaurant. As soon as we arrived Emi started crying for some reason so I knew I had made the right decision. We had cheeseburgers, chili-cheese fries and Frostys. It was awesome. When I was pregnant with Emi, whenever I had 99 cents in the car I would drive through Wendy's and buy a small Frosty. That was an awesome time! After Wendy's, we got some Starbucks and wandered around for a little bit but soon it was obvious that we should take all of our kids home and put them in bed. Again Natsuki slept very well (hallelujah!). Once all the kids were settled down, Chikara and Kenji promptly fell asleep on the couch and the floor, so Sachiko and I talked until about 1 in the morning. We had such a great time gabbing without interuptions! But finally we were tired too so we woke up our husbands and went to bed.

The next morning we woke up, got ourselves ready and packed up our things because it was time to leave. I have to say that we really didn't to go. Kenji & Sachiko, thank you so much for your hospitality. You guys handled having six other people in your house very graciously and we appreciated that so much. Thanks for treating us to such a wonderful weekend.

One our way out of Tokyo, we experienced the only real stop-and-go traffic of the whole week. I just kept throwing food at the girls to keep them calm but after an hour we were on our way to Nagoya. On the way we were really hoping to see Mt. Fuji. Neither of us have seen it before but it was a little bit cloudy so we weren't sure if it was going to possible. From the freeway we got a great view of it in between the clouds. It was so beautiful. There was the ocean on one side and the mountain on the other with the sun shining down on us. At the Fujigawa rest stop you can see the mountain from a different angle but unfortunately the clouds were blocking it this time. I took a picture anyways and if you look really carefully at the left side of the pictures above the hill that's in front, you can see the where the bottom of the mountain sloping up. It was a little disappointing but at least we did see it from the freeway even if we were flying by.

At the rest stop they also had a blown-up play area that kids can go inside of and jump (what are those things called?). It was set up for Golden Week and it was free. Also, and this is very amazing, there is a Starbucks at that rest area. Chikara and I got a coffee and the kids got to jump and release some of their energy and Natsuki was released from her car seat. After about 15 minutes we were back on the road.

to be continued...

golden week part one

I will give you a rough view of the schedule we had planned for Golden Week and then fill in the details and add pictures after. Our plan was to leave Saturday night after Chikara came back from work and drive through the evening to Chiba so we wouldn't hit any traffic and the girls could sleep in the car so they wouldn't be asking "are we there yet?" a million times. We would stay with our friends, Kenji & Sachiko and their 1-year-old son Tsuguki, until Wednesday morning and then drive down to Nagoya to visit other friends for the afternoon/evening and then continue onto Yokkaichi that evening and stay overnight with another family (who just built a house), relax Thursday at their house and then go home Thursday evening. We were trying to hit as little holiday traffic as possible but still travel around and visit as many of our friends as we could. Then Friday we would relax at home, Saturday would be spent with Chikara's parents and a BBQ with friends on Sunday after church. I was a little nervous about putting the kids through such a busy week but we couldn't miss such a great chance to visit with friends.

I spent the few days before the Saturday we left trying to catch up on laundry. Fortunately the weather cooperated but on Saturday morning there was still one more load to do. I woke up early Saturday morning with a long list of things to do and a huge headache. I think it was a migraine and it just pounded me all day. The "do or die" pressure helped push me along so I washed the load and hung it out to dry, made breakfast, took a short nap on the couch while the girls watched a video, got the suitcases down from the loft and gave the girls a bath all before noon. While I was making lunch, the girls were on the couch watching another video and suddenly Emi yelled at Sakura. I turned around to find that Sakura had found a pen and proceeded to draw all over HERSELF! I took a picture, washed off as much as I could and gave her a time out. Monkey!

By two o'clock, all the girls were in bed for a nap and I packed as much as I could and then laid down for another nap since my head was still killing me. Around four, we all woke up and I called Chikara to see how he was doing. He was doing one more thing and then he would be able to come home. Besides the headache and Sakura drawing on herself, everything seemed to be going smoothly so I started tackling the last of the packing while trying to keep the girls reigned in. Around 6, I still hadn't heard from Chikara so I called him and he was still working on the same "last" thing.

He finally came home after 7 and had a few more things to do for our trip so I washed the dishes, finished putting everything together and around 9 we finally left the house. We got about 2 minutes away from the house and I realized that I had forgotten all of our blankets and pillows. We went back, got them, closed a window I had left open and then were really on our way. We stopped by a friend's house and I gave her all of my perishables, filled up with gas, got some snacks at the convenience store and hopped on the freeway. By this time it was almost 10 and I was exhausted and cranky but we were on our way so I resolved to calm down and enjoy the trip. We drove without stopping to Chiba and arrived around 3am. The girls had slept most of the way and we didn't hit any traffic at all.

When we arrived at our friend's house, the older three girls went back to sleep right away but Natsuki refused to go to sleep so I had to walk with her for about an hour before she gave in. The next morning, after breakfast, we all got ready and went to Hope Church. Many of our friends from college go to that church so it felt like a mini-reunion. The service was awesome. I burst into tears during the worship service which hasn't happened to me for awhile. Emi was sweet and got me some tissue. It was very refreshing for me somehow and really reminded me of the church we used to go to in Portland. The girls behaved really well during the service even though they were tired for which I was very grateful.

After the service, all the church members bought lunch at a convenience store and ate together at the church. The people at the church were so outgoing and at first I was a little taken back and it made me realize how much I've gotten to used to how reserved Japanese people are. After a lovely lunch, we went back to our friends house for a little break but soon we were back in the car and off again. Another couple from college, Katsumi & Angela, had arranged babysitting so we could all go out for dinner together and catch up. Honestly I can't remember the last time someone other than family has watched our kids here in Japan. I thought for sure I'd get a call as soon as we left but the girls were fine. So Chikara & I, Kenji & Sachiko, and Katsumi & Angela all went out to Asakuma for dinner. They had reserved a private dining room and it was so awesome to be able to have the freedom to talk away without worrying about disturbing other diners. I had an awesome steak dinner. We talked for hours until finally I did get the call that Natsuki had been crying for the last hour. We went back to Katsumi's house and my older three girls were all lined up on the couch watching a video. They didn't even blink when I said hi to them, they were that tired!

We went home and once all the kids were in bed, we started playing Phase 10. We were just getting into the game when I heard Emi & Natsuki crying. I went in to discover that Emi had thrown up and woken up Natsuki in the process. I went into mom mode and cleaned everything up and put Emi back to bed but Natsuki would not go back down so easily so we stopped the game and all went to bed. Natsuki did go to sleep by herself after about 20 minutes but she woke up around 6 so I nursed her and put her back in bed where she slept until around 8:30. Not too bad but my goal was to get her to sleep through the night in the room with her sisters.

On Monday the weather was fabulous so we made plans to go to the park but my head started to hurt again and Natsuki was worn out from the night so Sachiko and I talked the guys into taking Emi, Misaki and Sakura to the park so we could take a break. Natsuki and Tsuguki took a nap and eventually Sachiko and I did to. That nap totally took all the tiredness away so after a relaxing afternoon we got in the car and went to Odaiba to do some sightseeing and have some dinner.

Behind the Odaiba shopping center is the Rainbow Bridge. I have to confess that although I have heard about the Rainbow Bridge, I thought it was in another city. Imagine my surprise! It was very beautiful, as you can see. There is also a miniature Statue of Liberty and that was surprising too. We walked down to the beach and I tried my best to keep the girls out of the water since we were going to dinner after. It was all very beautiful.





















































Soon we all started to get pretty hungry so our friends took us to the Red Lobster for dinner. I have to admit I'm not a huge fan of seafood but the food they ordered was delicious. Chikara had Kenji order a pasta dish with a gorgonzola cheese sauce for me which was heavenly. The girls were surprisingly adventurous during that meal and I was also very happy that nobody spilled anything!

We went back outside to see the Rainbow Bridge at night with all the lights on. Apparently once every hour there are lights in the color of the rainbow that will shine on the bridge and although we could see the bridge even during dinner, we never saw the lights. Emi kept asking me why it was called the Rainbow Bridge if there wasn't a rainbow. She was pretty disappointed since she loves rainbows. It was still very beautiful. If you look to the right of the closest tall part of the bridge you can see Tokyo Tower all lit up in red.

We went back home and put the girls right down to sleep. Even Natsuki went down pretty easily and she slept until 7:30 the next morning which also meant that I slept until 7:30 and that felt great. Again, after all the kids were in bed, we played some games with our friends and this time no one woke up to disturb us. Sachiko won the game but we think it was because of her pregnancy luck!

To be continued...

it was an awesome vacation

Our vacation has come to an end, but it was so wonderful while it lasted! The kids were troopers. We really messed with their schedules and they had to sleep in unfamiliar places, but they had awesome attitudes and it made the trip so much easier. It was great to see our friends from college. Almost everyone has kids now so we met in family-friendly places and just hung out and fellowshipped together. We did lots of sightseeing and shopping so it's going to take me a few days to blog about it all.

Before I do that, I wanted to share some pictures of me! Some of you asked about it before so here you go. I just got my hair cut so here is before and after pictures.



One of the things on my to-do-list for this year is to get my teeth fixed. They have become more crooked with each passing year and I need to do something about them. I'm only 32 so I've got at least 20 years or more before my teeth can look like this and I can get away with it! It's one of my pet peeves that Japanese people (in general) don't take care of their teeth very well. 4 kids out of the 14 kids in my English class have totally black teeth. I don't get it. My excuse is that I've had four kids in the last 6 years but that's over so I need to get back to taking care of myself! I even shaved my legs yesterday...

Hopefully I won't procrastinate too long with writing about our trip!

golden week

Last week Chikara and I sat down with our calendars and planners and set out a plan for the next year and a bit. I always feel antsy if I don't know when I'm going back to Canada to see my parents. Like if I don't decided right away, I might not get to go! It's silly, I know...

But in planning out the next year we also made our very first Golden Week vacation plans. This is the sixth Golden Week vacation since we moved to Japan but we were always having babies or Chikara didn't have enough days off (once only 2 days off - stupid company). After last year's Golden Week, where we all sat on our butts the whole week, I decided that we need to do something more interesting. Because my husband's job deals with the car auctions in Japan he gets 3 whole weeks off every year and Golden Week is one of them. Woo-hoo!

I hadn't really thought out what we would do, the plan really fell into our laps. We had been planning to go to Tokyo and visit our friends (and Disneyland) in August for Oubonyasumi (sp?) but their second baby is due then (congratulations Kenji & Sachiko!) so we have decided to go and visit them for Golden Week instead. I don't know exactly where they live but they are two train stations over from Disneyland if anybody knows about that area. I don't think we'll go to Disneyland this time because Natsuki's too small and I can imagine that we wouldn't get to do too much because of her needs and wants so I guess we'll have to plan another trip next year sometime.

I'm proud of us for making plans to take a vacation that doesn't involve family. We always go to either Canada/US or Miyazaki (Kyushu) where my father-in-law's family live. Although while we were talking about it we did decide that we'll go back home in August 2008 and take the girls camping. Natsuki will be 2 then so I think the timing will be good. Plus I am looking forward to escaping the stinking hot Japanese summer!

ADDED LATER:

We will be driving to Tokyo. With a family of six and four carseats there is no way we can get around Tokyo without renting a car. Plus I am planning on going to Ikea and I want to bring some stuff back with me!

Also I forgot to write about what Golden Week is. During the first week of May there are three national holidays so many people take this opportunity to take a vacation. Japanese companies don't give many days off in a row. I think the maximum my husband ever had was 4 days in a row and that was a miracle because of the way the holidays worked out but then they made him work the following Sunday to "make up for it". But the company he works for now has 3 whole weeks off every year - New Years, Golden Week and another week in August - so I KNOW that this is the best company in Japan. The owner is from New Zealand so that's probably why...