what an icky day. i'm so rundown tired. *sigh* and we had such a lovely time yesterday. we drove to oita to visit friends, meet friends and finally meet friends for the first time. we arrived after noon and left at around six. there was lovely conversation, delicious food and the kids had a blast. so much so, hiro didn't want to get in the car and go home! rachel's older two daughters were such gracious playmates, making forts and teaching him how to play 'candyland', running around and having so much fun, i'm sure he was wishing *he* had an older sister! lol

the drive home was hard at first. in spite of hiro's howls, sasha went right to sleep (tommy slept on the way there, but sasha was hurting for a nap!). we got hiro and tommy some onigiri and that helped, but we stopped at around 7:30 at an udon/tempura restaurant, which was delicious! eating out with three rambunctious children in japan is something quite...it's hard to describe how others react, how there's almost no nasty looks and the staff practically scoop up children and give them cuddles! we do try to keep the kids at an acceptable level of noise, and i try to finish eating at about the same time they do so they don't go running off, but with three, sometimes we really have our hands full!

all the kids fell asleep on the way home, and we managed to transfer hiro and sasha to bed without any fuss, but i had to take tommy to my bed to get him to sleep. he and i are such light sleepers that we wake each other all night long. then, yoshi's alarm (WTF??) woke sasha at five, and she wanted me to put tommy in his bed! i got sick of her whining and put her back downstairs, where she wailed. yoshi brought her back upstairs, and tommy was awake by then and well....i made yoshi take tommy and let sasha stay with me, but five a.m. is faaaaar too early for me on a sunday.

it's been a rather shitty day, and i'm pretty sure aunt flo is around the corner so all i want is for today to end!! *sigh*