Friday, December 31, 2010

Last day of 2010

Yesterday we had the priveledge of joining our dear friend Emiko and her family for a morning of mochi making and boar eating. :-) Jeremy and I tried "inoshishi" for the first time - pretty good, and not tough at all like I tough it would be. Aeris had an eventful morning too, a piece of my steak flew out and hit her in the back of head! How many kids can say they had wild boar meat attack them?


And we woke up to snow this morning, more than we have seen yet this year. It even started sticking a bit, but melted before noon.
The view left and right from our hall window:


I also wanted to post some goals for the new year. I neglected this last year as I, like most people, rarely accomplish any of their new year "resolutions"... but I'm determined to make these happen and will keep you updated on my progress! Here's to 2011!

1. Cook a well balanced meal at least once a day. I stink at cooking. I love it, it's one of my favorite things, but little things keep me from it: having a tiny kitchen, not having good equipment, not having access to or being able to afford certain goods, and just being plain old lazy.
2. Keep an organized, (mostly) dust-free house. Again, I stink at housekeeping, even though having a messy home is incredibly distracting and annoying to me. Clutter is one of my worst nightmares.
3. Take a daily walk (weather permitting). It's healthy and fun!
4. Read at least six novels. I'm not much of a reader, though I do enjoy reading and should more often.
5. Make new, long-lasting friendships. I'm a little concerned about gaining a new circle of friends in the new area we'll be living in later this year. I know it's tough making close friends later in life.
6. Lose the baby weight. I haven't even attempted it yet, but will as soon as we're home! I miss going to the gym. I don't have the motivation to work out at home.

2010 was a very interesting year though... Japanese lessons at the beginning of the year, premature labor scares, the general awesomeness of pregnancy, stopping work, changing schedules, the birth of Aeris, grandparents visiting, new teachers, adjusting as a family of three, vacations, and making plans to come back home. If I had any goals for this past year, it would have been to learn Japanese (fail), eat healthy (fail) exercise (fail), and have a healthy baby (success). Ha!

Monday, December 27, 2010

Our Christmas vacation 2010

Blogger is definitely getting on my nerves... so much so I am seriously considering switching to a different blog site. Before, it would crash periodically when I tried to upload pictures, then it would crash if I uploaded more than 1 or 2 at a time, now it won't even let me upload one. I'm tired of seeing "not responding". Blogger, you stink. So here are pictures from this year's Christmas vacation to Kyushu via TinyPic.com.

On December 21st Aeris and I went to work with Jeremy so we could all leave a bit early to catch the bus to Shin-Yamaguchi to take the shinkansen to Hakata that night in order to be ready bright and early the next morning. It was a long night. Aeris had her appointment at the American consulate in Fukuoka that morning to file her paperwork to make her an American citizen and able to leave the country with us in May - but we made her illegal in Japan, heh. She now needs to get a Japanese visa like we have. We stayed an extra night in Hakata just to relax. We walked around a park and mall after her appointment then relaxed at the hotel.

We left Hakata on the 23rd for Huis Ten Bosch (see later post on that!) and stayed that night in a hotel in Sasebo. Sasebo is famous for its hamburgers of all things! We each tried three different Sasebo burgers over the course of our entire vacation. They were pretty good! On the 24th we left Sasebo and went to Nagasaki. We had planned to visit a couple of the popular touristy places, but cold, yucky weather hampered our plans. We spent Christmas eve wandering China Town and department stores. On Christmas day we spent the morning lazing around our room and then went to the shopping arcade for more shopping. On the 26th we went to the Nagasaki A-bomb museum and Peace Park, then ate some Nagasaki champon (a hearty seafood and vegetable noodle soup) for lunch before heading back to Hagi in the afternoon.

Daddy as Santa
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Cuteness! We love this outfit grandma sent her!
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Nagasaki China Town
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Sasebo burger
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Nagasaki Station on Christmas Day (the next day the tree, fried chicken stands, cake stands, and everything Christmas had completely disappeared).
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
We got our Christmas cake from the Lawson convience store, just like last year, ha!
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Nagasaki A-bomb hypocenter
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Lots of origami crane chains everywhere, inside and outside
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Some of the museum
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
It was snowing pretty hard when we left, it was wet and heavy and made things pretty slippery!
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Me and my champon
Image and video hosting by TinyPic

Christmas morning

On Christmas eve night we realized we didn't have a present for Aeris so we bought her a toy from a toy store in Nagasaki. This was her first wrapped gift (I think), and the only present any of us had on Christmas.

She thought the curtain was her first present - she LOVED playing with it! She had to sleep between us the next night, lol.
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
We read the little story rhyme of baby Jesus
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Then she opened her present
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
View from our room window: it was a cold, rainy/snowy day.
Image and video hosting by TinyPic

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Huis Ten Bosch

We went to Huis Ten Bosch, one of the best theme parks in Japan, and THE best place for Christmas lights, on the 23rd from Hakata. We stayed the night in nearby Sasebo, famous for its burgers, which of course we sampled. :-)

Huis Ten Bosch entrance
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Chocolate fountain
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Canal views
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Doremon Tower views
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Replica of 1855 ship setting sail
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Aeris was so happy!
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Flower clock and building
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Museum of Trick Art
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Thriller Museum light performance
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
It's MJ!
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
We got lost and missed the start of the parade, but somehow wandered in front of it later on and almost got hit by the lead car, lol.
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Lights
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Image and video hosting by TinyPic

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Christmasy

It's been a festive couple of days. Yesterday, we put up the tree and decorated for Christmas. Then we turned on the Christmas music while I started making our Christmas cards and Jeremy started baking sugar cookies. Aeris laughed and laughed while we decorated! We topped the night off by decorating the cookies in red (i.e. pink) and green (i.e. spring green) icing and sugar. They were delicious! (All the video/pictures from last night are still on the video camera.)

We took the cookies to church with us today. After the service, we took some pictures of Aeris with the church Christmas decorations.




Then later, we went to our friend Toshiko's Christmas party and took more pictures of her there.



I got a laugh out of this, these pictures were taken in immediate succession:
"Ok, mom... I'm done with the pictures now..."

"I think I'm getting hungry..."

"...and that camera looks mighty tastey!"


I love our little girl, but I think this blog is easily becoming "all Aeris, all the time", heh...