Beautiful weather and our new family additions

For most of Christmas break, we had some beautiful weather. The kids were out almost every day climbing the tree in front or on the playground next to our housing unit. Everyone is still wishing for a bit of snow to make it feel like winter! Gale will be seeing snow while he's TDY up at Misawa AB next week.

When we moved, we had to leave Bailey, our labrador, behind for a variety of reasons. Luckily, thru Skype, we are able to see Bailey at Nana and Poppy's house. Gotta love video phone calls! In Japan, many of the big box stores have pet stores inside. The pets are really expensive, but didn't stop the kids constantly asking for a new pet, specifically a cat. Gale and I weren't really sure about getting any pets while over here, especially since we had to leave Bailey behind.

But, this past week, we found 2 cats in need of a home. Milo's owner was no longer able to keep him, and she would be bringing him to the boarding facility to give him up shortly. He is a very sweet kitten, about 8 months old, likes to crawl under our covers on the bed to nap, and loves to play with the kids. He kind of has a squeaky meow most of the time, but can be quite vocal and loud! He likes to follow me around as well! I have forgotten what it is like to have a cat underfoot all the time.

MILO

Sully's family had short PCS orders and could not bring him with them. He's a sweet cat and likes to talk a lot. Sully enjoys jumping on higher pieces of furniture, including my counters, much to my dismay. Guess I'll have a lot of training to do! He enjoys playing a lot with the kids and looking outside the windows and doors. So far his favorite napping places are in Kira's room, which she thinks is great!

SULLY

The kids are overjoyed at finally having pets again. They play with the cats whenever they get the chance, and the 2 cats seem to really enjoying playing together. So now we have 2 more family members! =)

Culture Group and our Christmas card photo

I have been fortunate to join a spouses' group here, and one of the things you can do is join a Culture Group, where you interact with several local Japanese ladies. Above is the Christmas party that we had for them. It was fun to see their reaction to the traditional Christmas meal of ham/turkey, stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls, and cranberry sauce. Some of the members have had it before, but the new members were very curious as to what everything was. Now trying to communicate what everything was, especially stuffing, a bit tricky. Luckily, several members of my group speak English relatively well! And, they ate a lot more than I expected! I also thought it was amusing to see that I was taller than most of the Japanese women there!

I look forward to January's culture exchange. All the groups will be meeting together to celebrate the new year at a Japanese restaurant. New Year's is a huge holiday here in Japan. Most everything closes down for a few days as the Japanese ring in the new year. I'm also looking forward to the sake factory tour that my group is planning for us!

So, after many previous attempts at taking a family photo for the Christmas card, we gave up on the idea. We decided to put the kids in kimonos, and I'm hoping we put them in the kimonos correctly, though the kids just wore their regular clothes under them! Tim's was way too big, as we couldn't find his size and wasn't sure where else to go to find more. I'll have to ask one of the Japanese ladies to take me to a store.

Our Christmas photo...taken in our "backyard"

By then, the boys had had enough and their friend had arrived to play the Wii with them. Kira, on the other hand, decided she wanted more photos taken. And, since I didn't get her 3 year photos taken, I decided to continue shooting some more photos.

She had a blast wearing that kimono! I love her in pigtails, but she just won't sit still for them, or if I can get her to have pigtails, they don't last long! She usually pulls out 1 pigtail and leaves the other within the hour! Oh well, I guess I'm just gonna have to keep trying!

Continued!

A view from the shrine steps

Ryan's reaction to his fortune

One of the things to do is to get your fortune. You donate 100 yen, at least that's what it is at this shrine, and here you shake the cylinder till a stick falls out. On the stick, there is a number that corresponds to the drawer where your fortune is. It can be good, regular, or bad. Ryan and Tim got bad ones! So with the bad ones, you tie the fortune to the ropes (behind Ryan) and hope the wind blows your bad fortune away! Good or regular ones you can take home! It was fun for the 3 kids to get their fortunes. We had fun, but were exhausted after a long day walking around. While the train ride there was pretty good, the train ride home was a bit crazy. We were packed in like sardines for the entire hour and a half way home. We all had to stand the whole way home, which made for grumpy kids. We are looking forward to exploring more of Tokyo, though the kids keeping bugging us to go to TokyoDisney or DisneySea! I think that may be a spring trip!

The kids were bummed that Aunt Connie had to go home, but maybe one of the Japanese clients' cases will bring her back to Japan!

Happy 3rd Birthday Kira and Connie comes to visit

Happy 3rd Birthday Kira! Her "theme" was the Disney Princesses, so of course she had to dress up as "Sleepy Rudy" (aka Sleeping Beauty). Her brothers and Dad decorated her birthday cake, and Ah Po and Ah Gong were there to celebrate it with her as well.


About a week after the grandparents left, Aunt Connie was able to come and visit us for a little over a week! She braved the train to Tokyo alone, but was able to meet up with a relative in Tokyo, and saw some of the Tokyo sights before the rain came.

We then braved the train ride to Tokyo soon after, and got ourselves lost trying to get to Hama Rikyu Gardens to catch the water boat to Asakusa. But the kids were good sports about us wandering around trying to find the correct path there! After the water bus "tour" of Tokyo, we headed to Asakusa to see the Kaminarimon Gate, the covered shopping arcades, the Asakusa shrine.

The photos below show how crowded it is to walk to the shrine! It was crazy!

The Five Story Pagado at sunset...very pretty

Hmmmm, I seem to have delete photos...and got rid of the font change. Guess I'll have to continue on another post! =P

My parents, on the way back from a long trip to see family in Taiwan and a tour through China, stopped to visit us for about a week. The kids were very glad to see their grandparents! We also had the chance to see my mom's relatives, who live in the suburbs of Tokyo! Unfortunately, due to regulations, we couldn't get them on to the base. So we headed to a nearby outlet mall and Costco to check out the area and enjoy a meal with them.

We ventured out of our comfort zone that consisted of a few miles around the base to go explore Mt. Mitake and the shrine there. We had went on a pretty steep cable car ride (Ah Po and Kira on the cable car, above) to get the beginning of the easier trails around the mountain.


Besides the trip to the shrine, we were also able to do a short, but kind of steep, trail to a small waterfall. The kids loved that we got them individual camelbaks so that they could keep hydrated on their hike!

The kids thoroughly enjoyed the hike and are clamoring to go on more hikes! The kids really enjoyed the short, but sweet, visit with their grandparents, and can't wait till they come back again to visit!