A week in review.

It was my birthday on Saturday, it was a very relaxing and a great way to start the week. Kol made me fresh squeezed grapefruit juice. I would have enjoyed eating the grapefruit but it was delicious. The produce here is so good and Lily made me coffee. They also made me lunch when it came time. One of the best gifts a mom can get is acts of service, well and hugs. Liam gave me my gift early as he was not going to be here to celebrate with us. My shinny new purple bike with a basket. I was hoping to get more use out of it in the last 2 weeks but we live at the top of this massive hill and walking my bike up in this sticky heat just didn't seem like fun. It comes with a lock on the back wheel and a pretty decent kickstand as you can see. That night I met some of the ladies from the ship and we went to a luau themed dinner at the O-club, it was good to get out.
The 3 older kids started school on Monday. Yay! It has been an extra long summer for all of us.  I drove them for their first day but it was a zoo. It was a pain to get on base and there are so many kids and no drop off line. I had to park at the NEX and walk them over. The next day I made sure they took the bus. It comes at 6:45am,  this is an early time to be up after the summer we have had never mind catching a bus, although we would have to leave that early if I were to drive them anyway. I also found a new way down the hill from my place a back road it is winding and narrow. I have to say, I have never before said so many times to myself I wish I drove a smaller car. We have always needed bigger and although the van is not big in comparison to many American vehicles it is big when you are trying to pass another vehicle on said narrow road.  
They all really like their teachers, well Hannah says the verdict is still out on a couple of hers. She did get the classes that she asked for band, algebra and Japanese. The algebra and Japanese give her high school credits.  She also says the Japanese is hard but I'm sure she will pick it up quickly and if not I can find her a tutor.
Evelyn doesn't start until next week. I think she will have lots of fun this year in kindergarten. Her teacher is a gem, along with her para pro.  We went and enjoyed some 100 yen sushi after meeting her teacher today. Evelyn's favorite is the omelet and rice and pulling the sushi off the sushi-go-round. Liam and I usually take that spot in the both to prevent unwanted hands touching the food, but when I have just one with me it is much more manageable. I did not get a first day of school pic, I will have to do that with Evelyn and call it the first week photo. I think I did it on purpose so you would all have something to look forward to for next week. :)

CHU-HI

Not sure if my massive migraine today was caused by this one delicious Chu-hi or the fried chicken I ate out of desperation because I took 4 kids school clothes shopping and was exhausted and starving afterwards and so were they, very cranky.You would think they would be kinder to thier mother who just bought them the store. I didn't buy anything for Hannah, she requested to be done on her own day. I may have to enlist a babysitter so just the 2 of us can go. I will however try to never eat fried chicken again, who knew a bit of wheat on the outside would poison me? Oh that's right, I did.

Randomness

Mos Burger.
A very good Japanese chain. Their largest outside of McDonald's but much better quality, I think. They have a rice burger which is very good and I love their fries.

Dad's bunk. They loved seeing the ship and helping him carry all his stuff. It's not often they fight over who gets to carry the bags.

Us girls rocking out to music in the van waiting for Kol and Lily to be done with their AOB class. They had lots of fun learning to count to ten and dressing up in traditional Japanese clothing.

The Cicadas bugs in Japan are very loud. Ear piercing noise. The first time I noticed them was when we walked through the trees at the Imperial Palace. This is what I believe one looks like. It was on the wall outside my front door.  I left it alone, it was gone when I came back later.

Imperial Palace and Shibuya!

We started the day out with Liam waking the children with his new fog horn app, really?!? I made sure I was up before he used it on me, it would not have gone over well. The kids have now downloaded the app to every ipod or ipad we have and have been using it all day, someone please remind me to get Liam back for that.  

Imperial Palace is where the Japanese Emperor and his family live. It is located in the Chiyoda area of Tokyo. It is a very large park with gardens and many outlying buildings. You are able to walk around the gardens, but the actual palace is only open to the public twice a year, I think. It was amazing to see. It reminded me of Central Park in New York. A massive green space in the middle of a large city. We walked around a couple hours and only saw a small portion of it. It was very hot and muggy but we had fun exploring. 

We then got back on the train and went to Shibuya, Tokyo which is kind of like saying we went to SoHo in New York. We walked around Shibuya for hours and saw at most an area of about 5 blocks. The shopping is amazing, the options are overwhelming at times. We end up doing a lot of looking but not a whole lot of buying. 

There was also so many little places to eat at it was hard to decide. We settled on a place where you pay and pick your meal on a machine that looks a lot like a bank machine. You then sit down at what we would call a bar and hand your food ticket to the guy behind the counter and they bring you your food.  We have been here almost 2 months and have tried many different places to eat, some cheap like 100 yen sushi some not so much but we have never had a bad meal. No matter what we try it is very good. This adventure ended up being a very long day about 9 hours of walking and the kids did great.   Some over tired giggling and silliness but at least they were not yelling at each other.

The train again Kol can not get enough pictures of them.

Kol taking a picture of himself in the train window as it went by.

Japanese men dancing in front of a camera on the street. A couple of  local girls where laughing along with us.

This is the moat that surrounds the Imperial Palace grounds

Liam says "Evelyn give me a pose"

7 story Forever 21 store Hannah has been dying togo to.

Street crossing in Shibuya. All the cars are stopped at once and people flood the street in every which way to cross. It is awesome to see this is on a Sunday, I can't imagine what it is like during the week.

The same intersection at night.

This is the 7 floor guitar store. We had to check out.

The kids posing in one of the clothing stores that looked down onto the street.

Household goods.

We got our household goods Friday. My movers rang my doorbell at 7am. I wasn't expecting them until 8, needless to say I was not ready for them. I still had kids in bed. When I opened the front door they had half the truck unloaded up the front steps. I had been laying awake in the tatami room, which is in the front of the house and heard nothing. Can we say ninjas. It was a huge difference from the movers we had on the front end who took 12 hours to pack 2800lbs. Only 3 crates worth. These guys were great they had everything unloaded and in the house by 8:30am. They didn't however believe that our bed would fit up the stairs, they wouldn't even try. They were worried they would take out the walls. Our only option was to lay it in the Tatami room over many flattened boxes and a rug so that we didn't damage the mats underneath. When Liam got home we measured and he was sure it would go up. We have a tempur-pedic mattress with an adjustable frame which is very heavy. Thank goodness for crossfit. It was a workout but we managed to get it up the stairs.
Today we tackled the many boxes that filled my living room and hallway. I just have my closet to unpack.
There is no sign of my coffee press, which I have been desperately waiting for. I was sure I didn't send it to storage but who knows it was a very hectic 3 days. Nothing is broken so far,crossing our fingers. All in all it was a good move.