so, as you may remember, our trip home was cut back by one week because of chicken pox.  this was heartbreaking because we didn't leave until christmas eve, and so arrived on christmas eve morning, and the kids (and i) were pretty exhausted and with spending the week sick with chicken pox (which is no fun) then flying, then meeting people two of them have never met before, and the other never remember meeting, well.  part of the magic of christmas is the anticipation, and preparation, beforehand.  we didn't even get to decorate a tree!  *sigh*  anyway, all in all it was a fun trip home for christmas.

there was so much that we did!  we went to seattle three times, which meant three ferry trips.  we went to see the ballet, then we went to the city for shopping (mainly for me!) and then we met my brother and his family for lunch, which my sister joined, too.



we had a lovely christmas at home and opened a lot of presents.  we got to try all sorts of american food and the kids came away with a new appreciation for corn dogs.  we went to the seattle aquarium and spent oh so much time there (and got hiro's omiyage for his class), which the kids really enjoyed.  we spent a lot of time with my family, which was really nice.  the kids were really excited--and excitable--and were very very noisy at times, which was very aggravating for my parents, and for me.  but we were sad to say goodbye when it was time to go.  the kids especially liked my sister.  hopefully we'll be able to meet again soon.

wow, the time really got away from me there! this last week of winter vacation was particularly brutal. i'm not sure why. well, actually, i can name a few reasons, and added up maybe that's why. like tommy's new habit of pestering hiro and sasha. oh, that's annoying, for all of us (except tommy.) or sasha's epic meltdowns (never have they been this bad! and hiro really wasn't that bad at this age. *sigh*), which usually come when she's tired or hungry. or both. let's just say the drive home from the in-laws' house was less than pleasant. then there was hiro's lack of homework drive. i really tried to encourage (without nagging; that's hard!!) him the last week. please please please get as much done on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th, hiro! you have five days left, sweetie. but no, he was still sweating it out this morning, getting the rest of his homework done. and let me just say that the winter homework really wasn't as bad as the summer homework, mainly because there were bigger numbers to work with, and katakana and kanji are thrown into the mix so it really wasn't the same old problems over and over and over and over....and he was good in the beginning. in fact, i thought he was done with his homework right after christmas. i should have checked it better.

and one other factor: having yoshi around all the time. he had about five days off, plus there was the three day weekend to get through. it's all happy families for about three days and then i just need to do my own thing! what with the cold weather and the kids going stir-crazy, we really don't need to mix everything up with another opinion. i'm not saying i don't want my husband around (he worked miracles in the back garden, ya'll!) but he does have his own opinion on things, esp. in regards to the children, that don't exactly work for them (or for me). i just don't want the hassle of an argument when there's no where for anyone to escape to to work it out for themselves! (i hope that makes sense.)

anyway, we have survived it! i have more photos to upload, and hopefully videos, so here's to more blogging to come!

edit: video from mochi tsuki added here.

today is the last day of the holidays known as golden week. the actual holiday today is children's day. we didn't put out the boys' decorations because i really can't be bothered to. it's a big three or four tiered thing and such a pain. and probably a lure for small children with grabby hands. hm. anyway, happy children's day, children! so what did we do today? yoshi and i got new keitais. mine is very pretty! photos soon...

we went on our annual trip to miyazaki. it was the same as always, except this year the weather was perfect so we ate outside a lot, drank outside a lot, played outside a lot and the kids had a blast. i do so enjoy visiting victoria, even if the family camp means a lot of work (not only for me, for all of us) and i am so exhausted. good thing we got home last night and had today to recover!

this morning yoshi learned that his aunt died and he had to go to a funeral this evening. sasha is not feeling well so we'll be going to bed as soon as i wrap this up. sasha also slept this afternoon, but hiro and tommy did not, so i am hoping everyone will go straight to sleep. yay for school tomorrow (i hope sasha is feeling better by then! hiro may not get on the bus without her....)

no pictures from the weekend, was much too busy with yoga, talking, eating, drinking sparkling wine, cross stitch, cooking, cleaning up and occasionally taking care of children. oh, and we fit in a trip to the onsen, too! it's great to be home....

silver week isn't going to happen every year, as far as i can tell. only when the first day of fall (sept. 23 here in japan) is on the wednesday after respect for the aged day. i think. i'm not sure how the whole holiday thing works here, but hey, yoshi got five days off (in a row!) (well, that is until last friday when there was some 'trouble' and yoshi got roped into working on the 22nd and 23rd. *sigh*)

anyway, months ago i called my friend victoria and asked if we could come during 'silver' week. i called 'early' because i knew she'd be going to england, then come home in time for obon and with my faulty memory i might forget to call and make sure she wasn't busy otherwise. she WAS very busy, but she graciously let us come and visit, and even extend our stay by one night. thankfully she has the room for us *and* we know how to stay out of the way...

saturday we started out an hour later than planned and had to stop for lunch (at joyfull. 'joyfull' it wasn't.) when we finally got to victoria's, i was ready for a nap! victoria was doing make-up (english) lessons for september, so the kids just played and yoshi supervised. i was in charge of dinner, and we had chili (meat and vegetarian--two separate pots, obviously) with rice, and a chicken ramen salad (made by victoria, not me, though i definitely helped chop veggies. although i think courtney did more than i!) dinner was lovely and after my children were in bed, courtney and i knitted while the three of us chatted. it was a lovely evening.

i am trying to remember sunday but i think i had too much sparkling wine that evening to properly remember! i think that day there was a celebration for the autumnal equinox, so i took the kids (and victoria's daughter) out to play in playgrounds, because yoshi wanted to attend. we came back for bentos, then went out for a bath at the local onsen (the five of us plus victoria's three children. yoshi got to drive jiichan's new car....) we got back in time to meet S and her husband and guests. they also brought whole chickens for roasting in dutch ovens (stuffed with garlic and roasted over potatoes, yum yum!) i had brought three bottles of sparkling wine and celebrated my birthday perhaps a bit too much! i didn't sleep well that night, and when i had finally dozed off, a little mukade ran across my arm and creeped me right the hell out! i didn't sleep after that.

we asked to stay monday night because yoshi feared that the traffic would be really bad. our plan was to leave very early on tuesday (which we did! very little traffic this morning!) the temple was having a wedding celebration on tuedsay, and with the celebration they had on sunday, they were thrown for a loop when an elderly neighbor died early sunday morning! it never ends, hey! i have great respect for victoria, she certainly has plenty to do. i am always happy to visit with her and certainly hope i never add to her stress! we have a great time laughing and talking, when she's not busy with everything else! anyway, luckily there was room for us to stay (it wasn't certain for a few hours sunday morning...) and they kindly let us stay one more night. we probably won't be able to go again until golden week, so i am glad we were able to go this past weekend.

when we got home, there were notices in the post box for a package (for me!) from my mom. i got a gorgeous cardigan and FIVE skeins of noro yarn! i am in heaven! thanks mom!!!

surprisingly, i have very few photos from this past weekend. i had too much fun!!

a few weeks ago yoshi called me from work (where he was having a stressful time) and asked if i wanted to go to the yufuin youth hostel during the holiday weekend in july. of course i said yes (but, since i'm an asshole, i forgot that kuri had mentioned the pinglet's birthday party would be that weekend...thankfully she's a kind and gracious friend and happily told us to enjoy our weekend. i'm sure she didn't want three more rambunctious children at the pinglet's party!), and we've been looking forward to it for quite some time! this is (i think) the third time we've visited the youth hostel so it's not like we have any touristy things to do around there, so i was really hoping to have an opportunity to meet a couple of bloggy friends!

yoshi had a drinking party on friday night, so the plan was to leave on saturday. the navigation tells us it takes between four-and-a-half and six hours to get to the youth hostel from our house, but it usually only takes about four (for some reason an hour disappears from the arrival time somewhere around usa). of course, we left our house at ten, had to go back for the bottles of sparkling wine and actually left at 10:30 and arrived at about 5:30. well, you know, stop for lunch, stop for changing diapers, stop at usa shrine (but change your mind because you don't want to pay for parking, especially since two thirds of the children are sleeping), stop for potty breaks and stop for drinks. phew! it's quite a trip just to get there (and a beautiful drive, although half of it is through cities) so the plan is to just get there.

we arrived before dinner (which is at seven) and they set up the men's bath (yay, onsen!!) for a family bath and so we had the chance to freshen up before dinner. very good in the summer season where just sitting makes me feel grubby! dinner the first night was a bit of a disappointment, the chicken was under-seasoned and the soup was too salty! a surprise because the food there is usually excellent! after dinner there was a group walk but the kids were exhausted so i tried to get them to sleep. the family is not used to tommy sleeping with everyone so after a few frustrating minutes ("i don't WANT tommy sleeping HERE!!!") yoshi took tommy on the walk and i got hiro and sasha asleep. when yoshi got back he was having some kind of allergic reaction and wanted to take a bath so i got the lovely task of trying to get tommy to sleep. wasn't happening. tommy was nearly asleep, too, when yoshi got back! argh! i think tommy didn't go to sleep before midnight...in fact, i think it was after one!

and then...everyone was awake before six! this does NOT happen at home, oh what torture! yoshi and i were quite tired on sunday. after breakfast i could tell yoshi was being overwhelmed so i took the kids for a short drive around town (and if you've been to yufuin, then you know that's a short drive!) there are only lawson conbinis in yufuin, too. LOL anyway, we got back to the youth hostel at nine, picked up yoshi and were on our way to play with gaijin wife and her family! the owner of the youth hostel told us it would take about four hours to get there, and navigation (a bit wishy washy if you ask me) predicted between two-and-a-half and three hours (and a bit) but it only took us about two hours, through the mountains.

you may have already seen pics on GW's blog but i have a few of my own and i'm sure you won't object to me sharing. hee hee i would also like to take a moment to say that it's times like these that i wish i had photoshop or something so i can make cute little smiley faces or anime characters to cover nakkid kid bits....LOL


happy water babies


hiro and shou had a great time 'shooting' babies in the pool....


and GW may have done a good job making sasha look sweet and innocent, but what the hell sasha?!


DON'T PUT THE BROOM IN THE POOL!! (btw, cute smile on shou up there!!)

GW puts out quite a lunch, it was so yummy! the kids scarfed most of it down (except maybe sasha? and marina was only just awake and didn't eat right away, so of course tommy came by later and ate half of her plate!!). the guys got on alright i think, yoshi had a great time chatting in japanese (for a change! ha!) and of course i enjoyed speaking english in full sentences and at normal speed (and on topics not involving 'do you have to go potty?' questions--GW probably would have given me a slap upside the head if i asked her that! LOL)

after a few hours it was time for us to head back to the youth hostel. dinner was much better on sunday night, though the kids hardly ate any. then we took baths separately (me and sasha only, woo hoo!) and got the kids to sleep fairly early. tommy had slept during the morning drive, and on the way back to the YH, hiro had slept on the way to GW's house, and sasha also fell asleep on the way back to the YH, but luckily they all slept early, and well, on sunday night. after hiro and sasha had fallen asleep (yoshi had taken tommy for a walk) i went downstairs with my knitting. the owner of the YH brought out the wine (and i should definitely apologize to GW because one of the bottles was meant to come to your house on sunday, but airheaded me forgot!!) and opened them up, told everyone it was for my ten year anniversary in japan, and was nearly about to compai when he said, 'i don't know where her husband is...oh! just in time, there he is!' and so we all got to toast together. after a few (small, i swear!) glasses of wine i took tommy up to bed, where he fell asleep quickly and slept until seven, as did hiro and sasha!

our drive home was pretty uneventful, though we did drive to hiraodai in kitakyushu city to look at a cave (recommended by the owner of the YH), but the walk up to the cave was too wet and muddy for small children, so we took them to a nearby park and had fun splashing around and playing on roller slides. finally we got home, unloaded, took a bath and kids should be asleep in bed (fingers crossed) and i need to go to bed, too!

as an aside, the son (and maybe daughter) of the owners of the youth hostel, who is about six months older than tommy, had chicken pox. when we first arrived they told us about it, apologizing that their kids couldn't play with ours, but this morning as we were about to leave, the boy was downstairs with a pokemon toy, which he handed over to tommy. sasha gave it back to the boy, but then he handed right over to tommy who put it in his mouth! i think i might be on chicken pox watch out, and won't be able to spend time with anyone for a while! *sob*

early tuesday morning, tommy woke up to be fed. then yoshi's alarm went off. after nursing, tommy was awake, so i asked yoshi to take him. at six, the bell was rung at the temple, and yoshi went off for the service. i went back to sleep!

a while later, i thought that yoshi brought tommy back and started to change his diaper. it wasn't yoshi, though, it was victoria! ha! horrible person that i am, i just let her get on with changing the baby. she couldn't find any clothes though (it was a huge blow-out!!) so when i realized it was her i got up and got some clothes (unfortunately i had run out, so he had to wear sunday's clothes again. good thing they weren't dirty!)

after breakfast, there was a lot of cleaning up to do. one other family was there with us, and they left just before lunch. victoria's husband and sons had kendo practice, sasha was extremely sleepy but wouldn't sleep, so she and yoshi went for a drive, and hiro played with victoria's daughter. finally we had a bit of time to relax! then it was time to prepare lunch, eat lunch and then get all our stuff together (which nearly always ends up from one end of the compound to the other!) and we left in the early afternoon. luckily, the traffic wasn't too bad, so we got to munakata at around 7 in the evening. a fun weekend!

pictures:

at a resting place on the way to miyazaki


hiro posing


after a blessing


sitting in the garden on tuesday


tommy with victoria's eldest

monday morning we woke up early enough. it was a rough night, one girl got sick twice in the night. i'm not sure why, maybe running around a lot the night before, maybe eating too much, but it was hard on her mom! i woke up starving, i had nursed tommy several times during the night, plus i had run around up and down stairs and in between buildings the day before. victoria shares a house with her parents-in-law, they live on the ground floor, and victoria and her husband and kids live on the second. there's a metal flight of stairs outside the house which gets slippery when wet. it rained really hard on sunday night.

so, in the morning there was a yoga session after breakfast, which i joined. yoshi was in charge of watching hiro and sasha. afterward those of us who participated in yoga had some tea, and i nursed tommy. suddenly, another mom came running in to tell me that sasha had fallen down the outside stairs, and her nose was bleeding. i asked if sasha was dead, and if yoshi was with her. no she wasn't, and yes he was. i felt like there wasn't anything i could do at that moment and finished nursing tommy. then i found yoshi and sasha in victoria's living room, sasha sniffling and yoshi with blood on his jacket. she really was ok, just a bit bruised and bloody. i checked her out, gave her cuddles, then i had her walk a bit. she seemed ok, but yoshi thought we should take her to the hospital.

since it was a holiday, we had to wait a long time in the hospital. the doctor on duty thought she was fine, but wanted to do a cat scan to be sure. it was noisy and scary for sasha, but yoshi and i could be there for her and it only took a few seconds. sasha was perfectly fine.

four families left that afternoon, not at the same time, and our smaller group enjoyed an onsen trip and more yakiniku and chicken for dinner. i also made a delicious guacamole, there was so much yummy food! i forgot to mention yesterday that i brought a huge bag of marshmallows, a box of graham crackers and two huge bars of chocolate. on sunday night i was busy putting my children to bed when everyone made s'mores, which were apparently a big hit. on monday night we roasted marshmallows, always a yummy treat.

we soon went to bed with the knowledge that there was to be a service at six in the morning, and we would be sending the husbands.

sunday morning we woke up bright and early, even hiro got up at 5:30. we managed to get all together and on the road by 6:20 in the morning. the traffic wasn't too bad, but hiro and sasha hated spending so much time in the car, so we had to stop a few times. we arrived at victoria's house at 11:30, just in time for lunch. her husband was preparing fried rice. we always seem to arrive just as food is being served!

this is the fourth year we've gone to takachiho, you can read past posts here: 2005, 2006 and 2007. the 2005 post isn't so interesting, but do check it out and see how my blogging has changed!

when we got to victoria's place, she was out shopping, so we took in the food we had brought (i'm the one who lives closest to costco, so i usually do the costco run) and then enjoyed spending time with the other families who had arrived on saturday. later in the day, three other families showed up which brought the final number to seven families!! there were thirteen kids, tommy was the youngest and fourteen adults--and two dogs! sunday night was the largest number for dinner, victoria's in-laws showed up, as well as one brother-in-law and his family. that night was yakiniku, as well as a couple of chickens roasted in dutch ovens (with potatoes) and everything was so delicious! i confess, i had a few cups of sangria as well as a few cups of white wine! after the kids finally, FINALLY went to sleep, the foreign wives stayed up and enjoyed a lovely chat, it's great to be able to speak english so naturally!

i'll have to blog tomorrow about monday, the big stair event! don't worry, sasha is perfectly fine, but what a story! or not, i guess we'll see tomorrow.