Pictures

This one reminds me of photos from the Kula Manu. (BYUH's literary journal)

One of my goals this year is to take more pictures. I'd love to hear which ones you like and why. I'm curious what people find pleasing to the eye. And now I'll prepare my lesson for Relief Society, which is what I should have been doing the last hour.

Disney Sea

Way cooler than Disneyland! There's a castle you can explore, Ariel's undersea caves to get lost in, and tons of benches and trash cans (unlike anywhere else in Tokyo). We had a ton of fun, got really tired, and are glad we can say we went.

I loved the Arabian Coast portion of the park. M is riding a genie on the double decker carousel.

Near the entrance, good ol' Walt can get tulips to bloom in January. You have to love landscaping like this. My next favorite landscaping was in Ariel's grotto where they grew salad lettuce. No kidding. Ben and I were both tempted to make a little side dish right there by the kiddie roller coaster.

And right before we left, notice the smiles/grimaces on Jesse's and the kids' faces. This is what family memories are made of. WE HAD FUN *&^%! RIGHT?

Sumo Practice

My brother Ben and I went to sumo practice earlier this week. It was definitely worth getting up at 6:30. If you're planning a trip to Japan, check out the Quirky Japan Homepage. This is where we found out about sumo practice and the Minkaen. We stayed until 10 am. I'm so looking forward to the next tournament that starts tomorrow!

Hungry?

Today I made sukiyaki for dinner and it turned out great! Perfect winter food. I wish I had taken a picture of it. The kids even liked it! I put cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, salmon, pork, little clams, gyoza, and noodles.

But I can put some pictures up of the matsuri food we saw yesterday.


The gyoza challenge plate with 100 gyoza or you could choose the GIANT gyoza. It makes me nauseous just looking at it. I had to put M in the picture for perspective. If you eat the whole thing, it's free.

Red Bags

Spendy bag #1 Spendy bag #2


We live on such a ritzy street, that sometimes I just can't help myself and covet the wares in the stores. We have two luxury handbag stores and I was taken aback by a red bag in the window. I realized how much I didn't need a red handbag priced at 345000 yen ($3000 US), but how much I wanted one. Yikes. You must look at these though. Wouldn't it be FUN to have such a cool bag?

So I looked at Target.com and was impressed with their red bag offerings. For my stateside friends, do take a look. What a fun way to put some pop in your day. The el cheapos are below and cost from $13-$40 US. Not too bad.

Little G is Three

I've taken the year off for birthdays. Last year M had a birthday party with 30+ people. This year I didn't even wrap G's presents. On the day of her birthday she was sick and spent most of the day sleeping on my lap. I think that was a present for me.

But now that she's better she wants to know why daddy got a cake and she didn't. I guess I'll bake her a little cake. It's not every day you turn 3. She woke up in the middle of the night and said "is it still my birthday? I'm still three, right?" And then promptly fell back asleep.

Little G is sunshine in the morning. She adores her older sister. She's not Cute, she's not Pretty, she's not Smart... She's Ginuf (of course she's the other three, but if you ask her, that's what she'll say). I luff you little G.

Oshogatsu

Happy New Year! As we were leaving the house on Jan 1, Jesse told me that we were supposed to send New Year's cards to everyone. The Post office holds them until Jan 1st and then delivers them on New Year's Day. So who got cards? Miss M got 3 from her schoolmates and 1 from the school itself. The rest of us... ZERO!

We spent the day with Yuki's family. Including her super cool grandma and grandma's super cool Rodeo Boy. I bet your grandma doesn't have one! She bought it because she thought it looked fun. Yuki and Ben got a cake for Jesse, which I appreciated since I got him Nothing (except a coupon for an apple pie).

The food was amazing. Beautiful. And I got full on crab claws and sashimi. Can you say you've ever done that? We spent this morning cleaning our house, a New Year's tradition in many parts of the world. What that meant was that I mopped the floor for the first time in months. It was surprisingly clean. How did you you spend the first day of the 2008?