Of Ninjas and Crazy people

 

 

Nice title eh?

Anyway, I was visiting Cassidy's blog today and had this huge comment going about enjoying baby gates while she can since when the actual Terrible 2's hit, itll be bad. Then it turned into a huge post, so im gonna keep it here instead.  ^.^

Anyway, so if you have a child under 2, make use of those baby gates and cages while you can. Eventually the kids can get over them like ninjas. They can also climb walls, hide in plain sight, steal things from your pants from across the room and have the ability to locate the most breakable object in the house and promptly destroy it.

So just a few days ago, Rienna was practicing her ninja skills and decided to promptly open up the front door with absolutely no sound at all, and make a dash for the nearest parking lot and street.

We managed to catch her before she got there, but it freaked us the hell out that she managed to get out without a sound.

So now we've turned into that crazy old guy that everybody knows that lives down the street who thinks "They" are out to get him and has booby traps all over the house and lawn.

It's true, we have bells and chimes hung up on the front door as well as her room. Plus the back sliding door has pressure bars WAAAY up high to keep the doors closed.Ive even installed an extra lock on the front door with a padlock. It's insane how good she is about managing to find a way to leave the house. Im even thinking about how useful it would be if i hung a cowbell around her waist or something.

Hopefully she'll grow out of trying to kill herself, but I dont know, she may just be Evel Knievel reincarnated. Im just waiting for when she manages to get into a stroller and roll it down the stairs for fun.

oh noes! she's awake! Ive gotta spray her down with a bottle of Ninja Begone before it gets out of hand!

*ninja vanish!*

aaannnd we're back

 

Hello everybody!

We finally got internet back and boy has it been a LOOONGG week.

We just got our new house and for the past couple of days we've been fighting against hordes of angry household goods boxes, scheduling Internet, cable, phones, and various other things, and unpacking everything.

I think ill start off with showing you guys the house and then I will give you guys the gift of seeing Buddha.

 

Here's our backyard

Ze Kitchen(im french?)

Here's looking in from the front door

The living room filled with just the crap we had brought over on the plane with us.

The little spot for the washer and dryer between the kitchen and the dining/living room

These remotes control the AC/Heating units spread throughout the house. We have like 6 of them mounted on the walls, notice it's all in japanese ^.^

WARNING: CUTENESS FOR NEXT 3 PICTURES!

Heres a view out the front, notice the awesome playground about 20 steps away from the house ^.^

 

And as promised, the walk to and  view of......THE GREAT BUDDHA!

 

Special Note:  Anybody ever play the Legend of Zelda? Anything looking familiar?  Yeah the tri-force is everywhere here. ^.^

And that's the Great Buddha. Yes he is large, very large.

We also visited some other shrines/temples. If you want to see more pictures check out the picasa site(picasaweb.google.com/jinxz0)

but for now ill leave you with the cutest thing ive seen in awhile. Other then my kids of course :-P

Hellos From The Ipod

Hey guys,
We just got our new house a few days ago but no Internet and LOTS of stuff to do. Anyway. Yes we are alive. Updates soon

Posted with LifeCast

HAPPY BAGS!

 

So today I will be talking about Happy Bags! (Disclaimer for my male cohorts: Im not talking about what you think I am, feel free to guiltlessly move on if you get bored)

Anyways, apparently here in japan, at the start of the new year, malls and shopping centers everywhere have this awesome sale where not only do they have lots of stuff at reduced prices, but they also sell Happy Bags! These are pretty much grab bags with random(but evenly distributed) goods in them and generally youll pay like half of what it would normally cost to buy all of the stuff in the bags.

So today while we were out we bought like  $200 worth of stuff in bags, and didnt even know what was in the bags. I tell ya, it was FUN. We did get a few things that were so so, but we also got some awesome stuff too. One bag had several types of dishes/cookware, another had some clothes, and of course, we got an awesome Hello Kitty handbag that had a bunch of cool kids Hello Kitty stuff in it(Toothbrushes anyone?)

On to other things, we still dont have our house yet and we're staying at the Navy Lodge at the moment. However, the housing people have been on vacation since before xmas, and we have a lead on an empty house, so first thing monday, we may have a house(or at least a timeframe on when we can actually move in).

And then, when we get the house, im going down to the 100 yen store($1 store but way more awesome then the stores back home, you can actually buy stuff that is worth more then $1) and im making off with like 5 dump trucks worth of household goods to decorate our new home!

Im so excited!!!

anyway, till next time

Sayonara!

There are ups, and downs.

 

So whenever one is transplanted from one part of the globe to the other, one is bound to run across new people, new plants, new animals, new germs.

I managed to get sick first and yesterday was the worst of the entire thing. Seriously, I felt like an oven on thanksgiving day, 400 degrees and going All....day....long. Sweat was pouring off me like a monsoon, it was that bad.

Eventually things got better, and now I only have a sore throat and cough, but of course, now everyone else is in the cooking stages.

Anwyays, other then being sick, things are good. We're next on the list for a townhouse here on base, so it's only a matter of time before we get one. whheee!

Till next time!

Konnichiwa!!

  

So anyway, it took longer than expected for the next blog, but whatever, we're having fun. Just about every day this past week and a half we've been going outside of base and traveling around. Plus for this week we've been going to an orientation to the base and japan in general.

To say the least, it's been BUSY!

Now of course, all of you can see all of the pictures we post up at: http://picasaweb.google.com/jinxz0

but heres some of the better stuff.

Fist off, ive started to collect all of the cool stuff you can get at the vending ball machines. If you dont know what these are, basically it's a favorite past time of the japanese to collect toys that are sold out of these machines that release toys that are sealed in plastic balls, which of course you can take out and enjoy.

They also sell random cards and other silliness (swords, airplanes, boats, ninjas!)

 

And of course, we had to go to the mall and buy stuff for the kids. Behold!  Japanese children's books!

And we also ran across some delicious animal crackers that have way more then our normal kind do, plus they provide spellings of the words in japanese and english!

 

Followed by random pictures of us and the room in the Navy Lodge!

 

And here we are in Tokyo with the Kirkbrides. BTW Cheese Ramen is DE-FRIGGIN-LICIOUS.

(note- that yellow bowl below is empty cause i ate it all ^.^ )

 

(outside of the ramen shop had this small window with random pigs in it)

And then! on the way back, we stopped by the 7/11(yes we have a 7/11 but think of about 70% of the stuff replaced with japanese stuff....sushi anyone?) and i found the coolest thing.

Final Fantasy Drinks!

Then we had our first storm, it wasnt that bad, but the view from the hotel was fantastic.

(Random cute picture inserted here!)

And then for today, we went out on a tour of the area close by the base, and also visited a shrine nearby.

(Here is a park right outside of base)

(and here is Meredith pointing to the building she will be working in, which btw is up Really, Reaaaally high)

and our fortunes! hehe

oh, and we also stopped and got some hangy things for our phones, which is a necessity here of course :-P

 

Anyways, that's all for now, theres some more pictures on the main picture site, so feel free to go browse. Im exhausted so I wont go into anything more at the moment, but I hope ive at least given you guys a glimpse into what it's like for us over here.

More to come another day!

Sayonara!

A short one today, I R Tired!

 

So just about every day that we've been here in Japan, we've managed to go out and walk for at the very least 3 hours straight. Today we left at maybe 9am, and we didnt get back until 8pm. Crazy huh?

anyway, just a quick update for ya'll, we're doing fine, and it's so extremely fun out here that I have to say, even my huge expectations of japan were blown out by how cool it is here.

more pictures to come next post!