It's a Beautiful Day!

We had a couple of weeks of very icky weather here, it would turn cold at the drop of a hat or a rain shower would pop up out of nowhere, and I ended up with a cold to go along with my seasonal allergies. After a few days of fever/achiness and a few days of Annelise having a fever, she has fully recovered and I'm back to dealing with allergies with a little bit of a leftover cough. My new best friend is Tylenol Sinus Pain, it made me feel much better and I didn't have to worry about taking a sinus med AND a pain med. Between limitations due to me breastfeeding and limitations due to the small number of options at the BX, I was very glad to find something that worked!

The weather warmed up over the weekend and Annelise got to play outside with the new bouncy ball I bought for her. She has a blast and LOVES being outside! She has also learned her second Japanese word. She uses 'hi' for 'hello' as well as 'yes' and now she can say 'ohana', which means 'flower'. She doesn't say it often, but I was so excited to hear it yesterday!

We're gearing up for Melisa and Trent's wedding next month, I can't wait to get to Texas and start really helping out! I have a feeling I'll be spending a lot of time attaching candy to styrofoam balls and other small stuff like that. Annelise is very excited to get back to the States to play with her cousins, she loves playing with other kids.

Aside from the wedding and seeing everyone, I'm looking forward to picking up a few new books while I'm back home. Janet Evanovich and Catherine Coulter both have new books coming out in June and although I will be able to get them in Misawa eventually, I can definitely get a lower price at Hastings! We're not going to be doing a lot of shopping this trip, but we are planning a trip up to Tinker AFB for a Thunderbirds show and a trip to College Station so I can eat at Wings n More (and maybe see Friend and her baby belly?). When we get to Indiana, the families have so many things planned we may not get to sleep! And I finally get to eat at the real frozen custard stand in Lafayette, something my friend Mandy has been giving me hell about for a few years.

Well, I think the kid wants to go outside and enjoy our beautiful Monday, so I guess that's the end of this post! I'll be back in a couple of weeks!

Happy Mother's Day!

To all of the mothers that I know, especially my mom, John's mom, and our two grandmothers, Happy Mother's Day!! Annelise and I went to brunch today with my friend Vanessa and her two boys, we had such a great time. Annelise really enjoyed her plain waffle, scrambled eggs, and lots of grapes. She loves playing with the boys and I think we're going to have to spend some time at the park together this summer so she can chase them around.

I feel so very blessed to be a mom and want to thank all of you for showing me how it's done!!

OOPS!

Ok, so I was really tired on Monday and then didn't feel well on Tuesday and that's why I didn't post when I was supposed to. I was tired on Monday because on Sunday we went to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Hirosaki!! I had a ton of fun hanging out with friends, seeing the beautiful cherry blossoms, and eating a potato on a stick. Annelise enjoyed being adored by all who saw her. This is par for the course in Japan and she will be very confused when we move back to the States in a few years.

We haven't done a whole lot over the last couple of weeks, but it has been so nice to spend time with friends. Hopefully we'll get to go to the Mother's Day Brunch this weekend with some friends as well as go to Shimoda Mall for Pepper Lunch. I tried to go last weekend but Annelise fell asleep right before it was time to leave and one of the most important lessons I've learned from my friends and family is that you NEVER wake a sleeping baby. Especially when the kid only takes one nap a day.

I finally got Mother's Day gifts mailed, they'll arrive late but there's nothing I can do about it now. I bought them a while back, I just suck at getting everything together and to the post office on time. I also bought something for my Dad's birthday, that's coming up soon!

We booked our tickets for Melisa's wedding, I can't wait to see everyone! Annelise is going to be so adorable in her flower girl dress and I love my bridesmaid dress. My friend (and cousin) Alisha just had a baby so I also can't wait to meet little Easton and to see how much Quinn has grown.

Spring has finally sprung in Misawa with the blooming of the cherry blossoms and many beautiful flowers. There are daffodils everywhere and the tulips have popped up as well, now I'm looking forward to the hydrangeas. Japan is such a beautiful country and I love watching the seasons change and all of the little surprises that come with them.

New Leaf

My sisters complain that I don't post enough, so my new goal is to post every other Monday. That gives us enough time to do interesting things worth writing about and doesn't put too much pressure on me.

Last week I turned over a new leaf and started exercising. I've been overweight for a long time and Melisa's impending wedding (and the GORGEOUS bridesmaid dress) is a perfect short-term goal. I don't really have a goal of how much I want to lose by then (ok, I do but I'm not telling anyone), but I do want to work out every week day of the two months we have left until the wedding. I've done pretty well so far, it helps that my friend Kim has agreed to be my workout buddy. The first day I went to the wrong gym, but I worked out anyway. And since then we've met every morning at 6:30 to exercise in the family room while Annelise watches Sesame Street.

Since we've been back in Misawa, we've spent a lot of time unpacking and cleaning up. My house is still a wreck, but I have received all of the stuff that I mailed from Tx/In and it's all been put away. We've been spending time with friends, sending some off to deployment and saying hi to others that we hadn't seen in a while. I went to Pepper Lunch (see Morioka post) last week with some friends, I love that place! In fact, I'm thinking about going back next week. I also tried a fish egg the week before last. We were over at a Japanese friend's house and she had sushi rice with shrimp and fish eggs on top. I was not a fan of the fish egg, but at least I tried it. While we were there, Annelise discovered a love for kiwi and showed everyone just how good she is at eating strawberries. This kid LOVES fruit, she would eat it at every meal, now I need to get better about preparing veggies for her too.

Last Friday I went to Shipwreck Beach with two of my friends while Annelise stayed with a sitter. It was nice to have a day to myself and I found some really cool sea glass too! I think I'll go back in a few weeks, once it warms up a little more. It wasn't very cold this time, but I did have to wear my coat until I walked enough to warm up.

And today we're going to our squadron picnic so I guess I should shut this down and make some corn flake treats! Annelise is growing smarter and smarter every day, now she says 'step' and 'ball', and one thing I forgot to write down last time is that she says 'good girl' when she does something good like say please or thank you. It's so adorable!!

Long Time, Crappy Internet Access

The last time I posted was right before we left for the States. My parents have really slow internet, as did the other locations we visited, so my internet time was limited to the important things like checking e-mail and catching up on facebook. I didn't even farm very much because it just took forever.

Our trip was wonderful, we spent lots of time with my family in Texas and even weathered a snowstorm that brought nine inches of snow to Ennis. The highlights of our time in Ennis include: a wonderful butterfly birthday party for Annelise that we held at Sherry's because of the icky weather, me learning to sew pillowcase dresses for Annelise (my friend Susannah made some for her daughter a few months back, check her blog on the side of this site), Melisa's bridal portraits and wedding shower, lots of yummy food, and plenty of time with friends and family.

Annelise's birthday party was so much fun, I made a cake and decorated it with butterflies, we decorated foam butterflies, ate lots of yummy food, and opened a ton of gifts. We left most of the toys at Babi and Grandaddy's house so she'll have something to play with when we go back in June, plus I didn't want to pay to mail it all home. The pillowcase dresses are awesome and adorable and I have lots of fabric to make more. I'm going to make some for Annelise, Carleigh, and Carsyn that all go together, different color solids with bands of the same polka dot fabric. I also have fabric to make some pillowcase tops for myself and one of those will coordinate with a dress I want to make for Annelise.

Melisa's bridal portraits were taken at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens and were preceded by Trent's groomal portraits. Our cousin Penney is the photographer and does amazing work, plus Melisa and Trent are very photogenic. We brought Annelise's flower girl dress and she took some pictures with Melisa plus I took a couple of shots for her Easter pic. I'll be mailing those out soon, I just have to figure out where I put the cards that I bought... Dianna, Mom and I hosted Melisa's wedding shower in Ennis and everything went really well. I made a purple cake with daisies on it, there were supposed to be tulips instead but they are very difficult to make. She got a lot of really nice gifts and I know her favorites were from us. Dianna and I gave her a crystal pitcher, which is my usual wedding gift because I think it's something that everyone should have, and Annelise gave her some kitchen stuff in a hand-decorated gift bag. I couldn't find a gift bag at Target that worked so I bought a plain one and let Annelise color all over it while I baked the cake. Mom wrote a big T on it, for Tobola, and it looked adorable! At the shower, I finally got to meet Trent's family. Melisa and Trent have known each other since high school, but that was when I was in college and then living in New Mexico, so I was really excited to meet his mom, his sister, and his adorable nephew. Brekon will be the ring bearer and Annelise had fun playing with him.

We got to spend plenty of time with our family and friends, between Annelise's birthday party, spending time at Grandad's and Granny & Papa's, and seeing people in the church nursery. We also spent one day with KristenSue (see The Asker's QotD? on the side) and Annan drove to Ennis one evening for dinner. I didn't get to track down any of my air force friends, but we'll try to make up for that in June. Most importantly, we met my cousin Quinn who was born in December and Savannah's fiance Chris. Quinn is this adorable little man and we all love holding him and loving on him. Annelise loved playing with all of her cousins and accidentally sat on Quinn's arm and then kicked him in the head. She also got kicked by one of my cousins, but no worries she kicked him right back! I'm pretty sure she thought it was a game and didn't realize he was being mean... Savannah's fiance, Chris, is from England so everyone in the family had met him but me and the logistics of us both being in Ennis at the same time were a little crazy. Chris is this adorable little man (hehe!) with a hilarious accent who says things like 'whilst' and obviously loves Savannah very much. I can't wait to go to their wedding on New Year's Eve of 2011.

We also went to Indiana to see John's side of the family, man was that fun! Annelise had a blast with her Minear cousins and made cookies with her Grandma. We got to see Becky with her adorable baby belly just days before our sweet new cousin Liv arrived and can't wait to meet Liv in June! It still amazes me how much Annelise loves everyone, she ate lunch with Uncle Paul and would have spent all day playing with Grandma Walsko if everyone else hadn't wanted her attention. When we were in Indy, Annelise took turns sharing her affections with Blake, Austin, and Claire, but her favorite is still her Uncle Danny. I cried a little when she said 'Bye Danny' the night before we went back to Texas, she just adores him.

We ended up extending our stay in Texas by a couple of weeks because John came to San Angelo for work. We rented a car and drove to San Angelo to spend about 10 days hanging out together. Annelise had so much fun playing with him and John was amazed by how much she had changed in just the six weeks that we had been away from Japan. We went on a picnic one day and to the park on another, Annelise LOVES being outside. She loves to run around in the sunshine and pick up stuff off of the ground and get chased by anyone. We had to be careful at my parents' house, if she saw that the back door was open she'd be outside before we knew it.

Because Easter Sunday disappeared in the crazy time change of flying back to Japan, we went to Dianna and Kyle's house on Friday night for an Easter egg hunt. It was pretty funny to watch, Dianna doesn't have a lot of patience and was putting candy into Annelise's basket until she finally got the hang of it. Once she figured things out, she had lots of fun picking up candy, hard-boiled eggs, and plastic Elmo eggs.

While we were gone, Annelise changed so much. She's a champ at climbing stairs (aack!), got 4 new teeth (her first dentist appointment is in May), and has picked up so many new words. Annelise now says please, thank you, no, Annelise, Elmo, cheese, baby, and lots of other things. She loves singing 'Itsy Bitsy Spider' and is pretty good at the ABCs. I can't wait to see what she'll have learned by the time we go back to Texas and Indiana in June!!

Morioka

We went to Morioka last weekend on a base-organized trip and had a lot of fun. Morioka is about two hours from Misawa and there is a Handi-Works Square there that is a kind of artists' co-op. There is a large central store, exhibition hall, and classroom and then there are smaller workshops around the central area. Each shop features a traditional Japanese craft or food and has space not only for the making of the wares but for the teaching of the craft. Annelise and I went on this trip with Kim, Vanessa, and Vanessa's two boys. A is 7 and E is 4 (?). We went into the main classroom and were taught how to weave bamboo pen holders. The wooden bases had already been cut and drilled and the upright bamboo pieces had been secured to the base, plus a few rounds of weaving had been done. We were shown how to weave our bamboo in and how to start new pieces when the others ran out and were instructed to weave until our pen holder was 10cm tall. Then the ladies showed us how to weave in the ends of the upright pieces to finish off the top. My pen holder doesn't go straight up, I was pulling too tightly and it narrows a little at the top, but it's really cool. Thank goodness for Kim, Annelise got fussy halfway through the project so I played with her while Kim wove and then we switched off.

After we finished with our pen holders, we were free to explore the shops and of course buy souvenirs. We watched sembei being made, they're traditional rice crackers with a variety of flavorings. I bought some honey-peanut sembei and also liked the cheese-flavored ones. (who'd have guessed that I liked the cheese ones, right?) The best part was being able to buy fresh sembei that were still warm, they were very very delicious.

We went into a toy workshop where I bought a rolling toy for Annelise. It's a rat because she was born in the year of the rat. I also bought myself a necklace from the ceramic workshop with a beautifully painted ceramic fragment pendant. After we explored the workshops, we went back to the central area and I bought a kokeshi, of course! Vanessa bought a couple of Mutsu apples, those are my favorite. They are huge and expensive, but she got a good price at the market. Mutsu apples are a little tart and just between American green and red apples in the texture department. I don't like red apples in the US, they're too mealy for me, but I love basically all Japanese apples. Actually, writing about the apples was making me hungry so I took a small break to slice up a Fuji.

After we left the Handi-Works Square, the bus took us to the mall so we could grab lunch and do some more shopping. We ate at Pepper Lunch, it was my first time to try that restaurant, and the food was delicious! In the truly Japanese way of doing things, you put your money in a vending machine and choose what you want to order, then hand the tickets that the vending machine spits out to the lady at the counter. I followed Vanessa's lead and got a dish of beef, rice, corn, green onions, and of course pepper. The rice and corn are already cooked, but they load all of your food (including raw meat) onto a very hot cast-iron dish and then you can cook your meat as much or as little as you want. I didn't realize just how hot the food was until I fed Annelise some of the rice and she screamed and spit it out. Best Mommy Ever! She forgave me when I gave her a fruit twist and then went on to eat plenty of rice and LOTS of corn. I've gotten ok with chopsticks, but I still can't eat corn with them and had to resort to the spoon provided. Well, I can pick up the corn one by one, but I didn't want to deal with that.

We walked around and shopped a bit, I didn't buy anything but I oohed and ahhed over the adorable matching rain boots/jacket/umbrella sets in every color of the rainbow that they had in the kids' store. Have I mentioned lately that I love Japan?? Just before it was time to get back on the bus, we stopped by Mr. Donut to get dessert for the road. I love Mr. Donut and it's a good thing that we don't have one in Misawa because it's addictive.

In all, we had a lot of fun in Morioka and I'd like to go back with John, one day when he's not working his tail off!!

Things to Buy

I have a list of things I need to buy while we're in the States and I figured if I put it online, I'd be less likely to forget something...

Printer toner- Brother TN-330 or TN-360
Whole wheat pasta- shells, macaroni, etc
Pepto bismol tablets that you don't have to chew
FABRIC!!!
Slippers for Annelise
Elmo DVDs, especially the three-pack that we're wearing out
BOOKS! J.D Robb's new one, The Holy Bullet, crappy romance novels, anything that catches my eye
Easter dress for Annelise
Quiet tape
Grill cover

I'll add to the list as I come up with more stuff...