Koi Nobori

Children's Day in Japan is approaching (May 5th) and that means carp windsocks (or koi nobori in Japanese) can be seen all around our neighborhood. Matthew admires some of them.

Children's Day celebrates children of course, and the joy and happiness that comes with childhood. People hang the carp windsocks at their homes around Children's Day and each fish represents a family member. The big black one is the father, the bid red one is the mother and then there are smaller blue or pink (or other colored) fish to represent the children. I bought a little blue and pink fish at the market, but I didn't get the black and red mom and dad fish. Our poor koi nobori are orphans. Oh well. Here is a picture of some of the windsocks hanging at a neighbors house: Dad fish, Mom fish, little boy fish. :)
There is a little preschool by our house that has about twenty little koi nobori of all different colors strung up across their play area. It was so cute - like the twenty little ones who play there. I wish I had gotten a picture.

BIG koi nobori hang across this river near our neighborhood. From far away they don't look very big.

Even the close up pictures can't really capture the scale, but they are big. Trust me.

When the wind blows it looks like they are swimming.

So many of them!

We made some of our own at home a few days ago.
I got the printable to make them HERE.

Anna's fish never got streamers since she went and hid it somewhere in the house after it got to this point and I didn't find it for a few days. I think they had fun coloring them though.

Shooting Hoops

Matthew got this basketball hoop for his birthday. He loves trying to make baskets and always wants it at the highest possible setting, which isn't really very high at all. Here he is shooting a few baskets. He stops in the middle to tell me we should write names on the basketballs. I was impressed he made all his baskets. This was taken with my OLD point and shoot camera (my new one broke...sad) so the quality isn't the greatest. Enjoy.

Where are we moving?

OK everyone, here's your chance to take bets on where we are moving next year. Here is a list based on the available jobs that we were given for Scott's career field last week. Take your bets (or votes)!!

1. Florida
2. Washington DC
3. California
4. Boston
5. Ohio
6. Other??

Related

I think kids just come with their own little personalities and it's so fun (most of the time) to get to know their likes, dislikes and quirks. Mostly I think Matthew is just his own person, but he does have some qualities like his dad. He's observant, kind hearted and tidy, like dad. He's also become very talkative lately. We don't know where that comes from.

Here are a few recent Matthew-isms that reminded me of Scott.

Matthew: It's kind of dirty in the kitchen, mommy. I need to vacuum the floor in there.
Me: No, you don't need to do that. You can go play with your trains.
Matthew (starting to cry): But I just NEED to clean the floor in there. It's too dirty!
*Disclaimer: Scott never cries about our house being dirty, but he is always eager to vacuum if needed.

Matthew: Thank you mommy for making this nice dinner for us.

(while I was cleaning up a potty training accident of Anna's from the bathroom floor)
Matthew: That is just making my stomach kind of hurt. I think I have to go away.

And one that reminded me of ME as a kid:
Matthew: My name is Peter Pan. Call me Peter Pan now.

Anna is her own woman and always seems to know what she wants. She was happy to kick the soccer ball around for a while, which made me happy since I also like soccer. She doesn't like getting her hair done, which I never did as a kid either, but I think that might be a pretty common thing. She is also very strong willed, which I think is just her. Sometimes I find this quality a bit exhausting, but overall I think it's good she knows what she wants. I'm hoping it will serve her well later in life.

Just like Dad

Matthew wanted to do some push ups after he saw Scott do some this morning.

He found it a little difficult.

And wanted me to get down and show him how to do them.
I tried to show him, but didn't do quite as well as Scott did.

Then he wanted to try some sit ups.
Good workout buddy.

Park FAIL

On Saturday we tried to go to a park we've been meaning to visit that has a big roller slide. We knew where it was but had a really hard time finding out how to get IN to the park. We drove past it four times and couldn't figure it out. It's on a busy divided highway type street so you have to get off at just the right exit otherwise you have to do a freeway turn around to go back past. There was a lot of traffic so it took forever to turn around. It was a huge pain. After the fifth pass we finally figured out how to get in. Unfortunately we still missed the turn that time and we saw that the big roller slide was closed. So we just decided to go to a different park and try that one another day. On the way home we passed a park we'd never been to and decided to check it out. Everyone got hurt, except Scott, so it wasn't the greatest park for us, but we still had some fun.

They had a little roller slide. Not as big as the other park, but maybe that's for the best.
The kids both loved this slide and didn't get hurt on it. Hooray!

Matthew fell off a zip line and hit his head. He had gone on zip lines like that before, so I thought it would be ok, but he got nervous in the middle and let go. Poor Matthew. I felt really bad.
Anna went down a fast cement slide and got scared, but not hurt. Then she ran into a metal pole and bonked her head.
I skinned both knees taking Anna down the fast cement slide.
Here's Anna waiting at the top of the cement slide. She was nervous about going down, and rightly so. It was very fast.

Scott caught her at the bottom, so she didn't get hurt, but she was pretty scared. :(
I tried to go on it with her the next time and went flying off the bottom of the slide, scraping my knees. Ouch.

A little Japanese girl came and gave me this four leaf clover. Maybe she felt bad for me.

After too many bonks we just let the kids run around. Matthew loved it.

And Anna wanted to do just what Matthew did, which somehow resulted in her running into a pole.

This pole.
We decided to go home soon after that. Too much park excitement for one day. Maybe next time.

Holidays, Happy Days

It's been a crazy couple of weeks here, especially this last one, and things keep sneaking up on me. My usual routines of things like laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping and making dinner have really gotten away from me. Even with all the chaos, we still managed to celebrate a few holidays...we didn't always celebrate them on the right day, but we got pretty close. And we had fun. That's what matters, right? Here are a few pictures.

April Fool's Day

We made these mini fake hamburgers for April Fool's Day this year. I wasn't actually planning to make them - I had planned to make this fake sushi instead - but mid-day I realized we had all the stuff to make it, so we went for it. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I never got to the sushi, but I still have all the stuff, so maybe we'll get to it one of these days.

Here are our little burgers.

Anna licked all the sesame seeds off first thing. It was probably the healthiest thing in there.

She ate the rest of it too.

Another of our April Fool's Day treats. Juice cups of jello. Anna was determined to drink it through the straw. Read a little more about it HERE.

This had nothing to do with April Fool's Day. Anna was just playing with her umbrella in the house. I've since had to ban the umbrellas from the house, but it was cute while it lasted.

Buh bye
I love that umbrella, and I loved it even more when Matthew insisted on carrying it around, all by himself, at the park last week since we forgot his (much manlier) Buzz Lightyear one.

Easter

Here are the kids checking out their baskets on Easter morning. They were having a great time.

We had a little Easter egg hunt - indoors since it was a little rainy.
Matthew was super excited to go find the eggs.

Anna worked at a more leisurely pace, finding a few other things along the way (Oh look, Piglet). At the end of it, they were both very happy with what they got. Success! We also had a nice Easter dinner complete with Scott's buttermilk rolls, but we ate it the next day since I wasn't feeling well on Sunday. We still have lots of ham, which helps with my dinner planning problem.

Happy Birthday

Here are the kids singing happy birthday. Anna was really into it. I love how she looks like she's in a musical - jazz hands! My birthday was on Easter this year and I also ended up getting sick that day, but we ended up doing birthday stuff the next day and it was a lot of fun. Scott made strawberry shortcake for me, which I love. He's so sweet. The kids were really excited for the birthday festivities, or possibly just the promise of cake. I got lots of nice b-day greetings from friends and family (thanks everyone) and that really made my day...and week!

From the potty training files

Anna was telling me a few things regarding potty training and I tried to get her to repeat them for the camera. My favorite part of this is when Matthew says he uses the potty all the tiiiiime.

At the car wash

There was all this weird yellow dust around in the air last week that made everyone sick. The theory is that it blew in from China - Beijing had big sandstorms last week too. Luckily we didn't get sick probably since we hardly left the house, but our car got pretty dirty. We tried nearly every day to go to the car wash on base, but it was either packed or closed every time we tried. So we finally broke down and washed the car ourselves. Here's Anna helping out. She did a good job.

Both kids were very good helpers, and between the four of us, the cars were clean in no time. Scott got the high parts, the kids washed the low parts (that makes me want to sing Loch Lomond - or make up a car wash parody to that song - only my sister will appreciate that, I think), I got the ones in between. :)

Matthew was really excited to spray the cars with the hose.

At least he was, until he actually started doing it. You can see him inching away from it in this picture. He thought it was too loud and wet when you are up close to it like that. Maybe next time, Matthew.

A Little Singing

Anna (19 1/2 months) was singing Puff the Magic Dragon a few days ago in the car, so I tried to get a video of it. I thought she did such a good job. She was in the middle of eating a cracker, which is why she has crumbs on her face.

Matthew wanted to sing the song too. He's into word play these days and likes to sing songs sometimes where he replaces the first letter of each word with some other sound. So here's Matthew's version: Pwuff the Pwagic Pwagon. And don't worry, I wasn't driving while I took these videos.

Such a miracle

This isn't the type of news I would like to be posting on here, but here goes.
Scott and I spent the night in the ER last night. I was having some bleeding and we decided to go into the emergency room. We found out we lost the baby. I was about 16 weeks pregnant.
It was very sad for us, but I felt a lot of peace about it after we finally found out for sure. I got to see the baby one more time on the ultrasound. He (or she) was so still and peaceful. It just made me feel so grateful for the two healthy babies we have at home and I realize what a miracle it is to have a baby, let alone a healthy one. Maybe I took it a little for granted before.
The doctors were very nice to us and told us there was nothing we could have done. It was just one of those things.
Scott got to stay home from work today, so we are able to have a little time together as a family, so that's good. We're going to be ok.
On a lighter note, I am kind of glad I don't have to go into labor any time soon, 'cause I was starting to get bummed out about that.

Our St. Patrick's Day

We had a sort of St. Patrick's Day week...spreading out the St. Patrick-ness over several days. Earlier in the week we made beef stew and the kids helped me make green jello to go with it. They loved that. Then we made some green shamrocks out of paper and decorated them and played find the gold treasure with a few gold foil covered candies. Today we just did a couple things...including the fort under the table thing. Not at all related to St. Patrick's Day, but fun.

We made a rainbow fruit tray (I got the idea from Family Fun). I was going to do skewers, but I only had one skewer left for two kids, so we did the tray instead. It didn't look as good as it did in the magazine. Oh well. Also, it was a huge mess 'cause there were no fresh blueberries this week at the commissary, so I used frozen, which look purple, not blue, after being frozen and then bleed purple blueberry juice like crazy all over everything. More stain removal in the afternoon. :( I know, I'm just a big complainer.

Green eggs and green milk. Matthew helped me make the eggs (I think I overdid it on the food coloring). When Matthew got to the table to eat he looked at the green eggs and said, "I don't like these." I convinced him that they were just like regular eggs so he eventually tried them, and liked them (I do, I LIKE green eggs...) so that was good.

And for dinner we went out for sushi. It was a goodbye party for one of Scott's co-workers. We went to a place called Yoshihachi that is supposed to be where some celebrities go when in Okinawa. It was our first time there. It was pretty good.

We had to order the sweet potato roll. It has purple Okinawan sweet potato (beni-imo) wrapped around the outside with some avocado. Beni-imo has a really mild flavor, so you hardly notice it, but it does make the whole thing a lot more starchy. So it was a real sushi St. Patrick's Day for us. :)

Okinawa Memory Quilt

I've mentioned before that I've been in a quilting group to make an Okinawa Memory Quilt. We had twenty people who each picked a different Okinawa or Japan inspired theme for their quilt square, and then made twenty squares. Finally, we get together to exchange squares so everyone ends up with one each of the different squares with which you can make a nice memory quilt. I totally forgot to take any pictures at the actual exchange event...the kids were sitting on me and what have you. But here are some pictures of the squares once I got home. Everyone did a really amazing job!! The squares all look really great, I think. A couple people weren't quite done so we only have 18 today, but here they are...mine is the seawall square with surfboards...and if you can figure out which one that is, I will be very happy...

Carp windsocks - koi nobori
On Children's Day in Japan (May 5th) these windsocks are flying all over the place. I'll have to try and get some pictures this year. So beautiful!

Sakura or Cherry Blossoms
In Okinawa these bloom in February...very beautiful to see

Japanese Soda, complete with real pop top
There are soda machines all over the place - like on corners of residential neighborhoods. You are never very far away from a soda machine here.

Banyan tree
Big trees found around Okinawa with distinctive above ground roots and vines.
The perfect place for giant bats to hide (shudder)

I think these decorative balls are called Mari or Temari? It's a folk art thing (I think) and you see them around as decorations.

The beach, with fuzzy sand! :)
No discussion of Okinawa is complete without the beach.

Mt. Fuji
While not on Okinawa, a lot of Americans here travel to the mainland to hike Mt. Fuji. And it is quite the life experience from what I hear. I haven't done it but I hear it takes about 24 hours or something. Definitely memorable.

This is my square - the seawall with surfboards up against it. There are lots of retaining seawalls around Okinawa, including one down the street from our house. A lot of Americans live in the seawall neighborhoods. People surf a lot at the one by our house, so I included some surfboards.

Taiko Drum - a popular instrument in Okinawa.

You will see Taiko drummers and pretty much every Okinawan festival. At Obon the first year we were here we got to watch school age kids doing their Taiko drumming performances as they marched down the street. It's really an art form. There is also a Taiko drum video game (a la guitar hero) which we like.

Three tear symbol - I think it's called Tomoe - and it's the traditional symbol of Okinawa. It's on the flag of the Ryukyu islands. It's used kind of like a crest or coat of arms symbol in Okinawa.

Turtle top tombs - found all over the island right in the middle of neighborhoods. Families in Okinawa have tombs where they keep cremated remains of their departed family members. The tombs are all over the island and built right into the sides of hills some times.

Geckos, very prevalent here - we used to have a house gecko, but I haven't seen him in a while. People like having them around 'cause they eat bugs around the house. And we have bugs here!

Kimonos - traditional women's dress in Japan, probably needs no explanation.

A scuba diver, in the shape of a scuba flag - very cool. Okinawa has great scuba diving. A lot of people get certified while they are here to take advantage of the natural underwater beauty!

Washi boxes - boxes covered in brightly colored washi paper (special Japanese paper). I don't know a lot about these, but I do know there are classes all the time on how to make such boxes. Obviously I have not taken one of these classes. Maybe I should.

Daruma doll
Hollow round Japanese dolls - kind of a good luck charm in Japanese culture or gift of encouragement. They are hollow and weighted on the bottom so they will turn upright again if they are tipped (weebles style).

Japanese Fans!!
Another one that probably requires no explanation.

Kokeshi dolls

Little wooden Japanese dolls that have no arms or legs. Found all over the place in Japan. I know a lot of Americans who have started kokeshi doll collections. There are all different shapes and sizes of them. So Japanese.

Well, those are the quilt squares we have post-exchange. Quite impressive don't you think, and definitely representative of a lot of work by all parties involved. It was great to work on this, and I'm glad I did it and get to have all these other great squares to make a quilt with, but I'm also glad the quilt square production is over. Phew, a lot of work.