Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Growing and Building

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She really is getting big.  Her hair is getting long, she’s quite physically coordinated (here, she is walking on the edge of a low wall), and her vocabulary is expanding daily.

 P1090515Beautiful smiles while waiting for friends to meet us at the park.

 
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Speaking of getting big . . . can you believe Logan is almost 4?!?!  His creativity is exploding and he’s excited about learning all the letters/letter sounds.

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Naomi wants to know if it’s time for the picnic yet, meanwhile Logan is too busy playing to think about food.

P1090549Come on Mom, only 50 more steps to the top of the slide!

P1090551 They have so much fun together :)

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Yah, goofy fun like this.

P1090563Naomi’s working her cuteness—it helps offset the stubbornness. 

P1090575This was our first real beach trip of the season.  We celebrated by bringing extra digging toys.

  P1090579They cooperated very nicely on their construction project: building a duck pond.

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Hope you find some sunshine this week!

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Fresh

This will be kind of a mundane post, but I’m going to miss having this fabulous farmer’s market available to us.  So now you get to see it and be jealous.

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I should mention that it’s open six days a week, year round.

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The kids enjoy the very large aquarium tank in the lobby/cart room.

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This is how we do it: Naomi rides, Logan pushes, Mommy shops.  Everybody is happy.

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On one side is the fresh fish market.  They have three ice beds like you see in the front, another set of cases like you see in the back, and a small tank for live creatures, such as lobsters and clams.

P1090482  Then there’s the produce market.

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The assortment of fruit is actually smaller than you might expect.  The Japanese aren’t as big on fruit as they are on vegetables.  They do have passion fruit when it is in season though—oh so delicious!
 P1090484Yep, the meat is fresh too.

P1090485Bins are marked with pictures of the growers.

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They also stock some dry goods type of stuff.  That is the BEST tofu.  Good ahead, laugh, but it it really is worlds different from the tofu that you get at an American grocery store.  The sea salt is locally harvested, and you can get big bags of rice as well.

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The veggies range from things that we find familiar, like eggplant and bell peppers . . .

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to things we were decidedly less familiar with, such as daikon and goya.  We’ve made a point of trying just about everything though.

P1090494The fresh flowers are amazingly inexpensive.

   P1090497There is also a small baked goods section, a place to pick up bento lunches, local eggs and a few other odds and ends.

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Best of all, our day’s haul, including the flowers and snack treats for everybody was only half the price of the equivalent amount of produce purchased at the commissary.  

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Our ritual, after we’ve gotten everything that we need, is to take our beni-imo muffins and shiquasa juice across the street to watch the boats.  And yes, we’ve seen people taking fish directly off the boat and carrying it into the fish-side of the farmer’s market.  Now that’s fresh!

Friday, April 13, 2012

Life and Times

Wow!  It’s been nearly a month since I posted here and I haven’t gotten any nasty notes from the grandparents.  Thanks for cutting me some slack :)  Must be the thought of this summer’s visit that is keeping you happy.

In the meantime, here’s what we’ve been up to:

P1090421Tricycle sailing.

P1090429Truck scooting.

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Two gentlemen competing for Naomi’s attention: super-cute boy next door vs. super-hero daddy.

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Mugging for the camera.

IMG_2807Reading with friends.
  P1090462Reading solo.

P1090445Falling asleep while reading.

P1090466Singing.  Dancing.  Laughing.

P1090470And just generally hanging around.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Spring Cleaning

You’ve probably assumed as much, but in case you didn’t, please allow me to clarify: other pre-moving projects have pushed blogging out of the top of the priority list.  Besides, as long as I’m doing boring things like weeding through recipes and cleaning out the junk drawer, there’s not as much that’s worth taking pictures of anyways.

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These guys are always worth a picture or two though, especially when they have awesome new PERSONALIZED aprons and chefs hats, gifts from the amazing SG!  (Sorry I couldn’t get Naomi to keep her hat on.)

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They were so inspired by their new cooking gear that they baked up this batch of brownies all by themselves!  And then they put them in this plastic bag and shook them up a bit for that truly authentic, fresh from the mail, as good as Grammie’s, brownie goodness.  By golly those aprons are magic!

P1090381 The butterfly became a willing subject for the kid’s science lesson after it had been pounced on by the cat.  It was still alive but it seemed a little stunned.

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I actually had trouble getting it off my hand and onto the butterfly bush.  Or maybe it was just grateful that I rescued it from master-hunter Henry, I don’t know.

WARNING: The following pictures are guaranteed to make you smile.

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P1090406Are you grinning?  I thought so.

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They also splashed the wall of our house pretty well, so I made them line up for mud/mug shots.

We probably needed to scrub that wall anyways.  Are you doing any spring cleaning around your home?

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Making Tea While the Sun Shines

This has been on my list since we got here: a class on Japanese tea ceremony.P1090272

You enter through the little Zen garden, stopping to rinse your hands and mouth along the way.

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Then you enter the tea room . . . through the tiny door . . . to show that everyone is on the same footing at the tea house.

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We get a few instructions in the fine art of tea and the proper way to consume it.  Did you know that the tea cup has a face?  When you pass the cup to the next person you pass it so they are facing each other, but before you drink from the cup you want to turn the face away.

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There are also rules for the accompanying sweets.

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Additionally, we were given lessons in bowing, sitting, standing, walking and opening/closing doors. 

P1090281 But the real beauty of the ceremony is just in watching the preparation of the tea.

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Our sensei was actually a Christian woman who has been instructing in the art of tea for 40 years.  Where the lessons would normally include Buddhist teacings, she has substituted Bible verses!

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At the end of the tea ceremony, you are supposed to inspect your cup—each person’s is unique.  Mine had an inscription on the bottom reading “Peace be with you”.

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Back out through the garden and back to the real world!