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.