When the cat's away......

The Friday after Thanksgiving gave the ladies a chance to have a surprise birthday party/crab boil together and the guys could get together to play PS3. Eddie volunteered our house for the guys.

Before leaving the house I took a few walk throughs and made sure there was nothing (ummm how should I say it) EXPLOSIVE, FLAMMABLE or SHARP hanging around. With 5 years as a safety monitor under my belt, I felt like I had done a pretty, darn good job clearing things. We grabbed our purses and the ladies were on our way to adult solitude!

There were a total of 4 different families at our house. ALL the kids were B.O.Y.S. -- every single one of them! All of them are 100% boys too! 8 years old, 7 years old, 5 years old, 4 years old, 17 months and 15 months.

A few hours later I walked into (I'll try to help you make a mental picture of this):

-- PS3 Black Ops was still on (no surprise there)

-- the boys cleaned up Elijah's room - there was a mixed pile of toys and clothes pushed to the corner of his room? huh?

-- the bottom 24 inches of the Christmas tree was ornamentless........I guess the lights and shiny ornaments were too much for the younger two. On a good note - all the ornaments were sitting on top of the kitchen table -- unbroken ☺

-- a bowl of glass balls (usually sits in the bookcase) high on some furniture

-- laughter from the older boys in the backroom (my FAV part)

-- aaaaaand this 36 inch vase.... the absolute best part! Sitting on kitchen table also. Eddie said that it was all like the "quickest, slow motion he had ever seen". Take a second....please reread that description -- that is directly from Eddie! He saw it about to happen, but he just couldn't get to the kids on time.

These families are TRULY like family to us! We do MOST things together - I am 100% positive that Elijah has broken things at their house too! NO HARM, NO FOUL! Just great memories of our extended family here in Misawa!

Salmon Catching 2010

So we went to this festival 2 years ago. It was so much fun that we had to go again. Last year we planned to go, but the salmon catching was cancelled because there was a jelly fish invasion and the jelly fish were killing off too many salmon.

Eddie was successful in catching a large female fish.....I wasn't so lucky :) I was too busy socializing with the Japanese locals to really pay attention to what was going on around me. It didn't help that someone (that shall remain nameless) lost her balance and fell into the salmon pool. There is a 3 minute time limit on catching a salmon, so when you spend 1 1/2 min laughing at someone......one's time gets a bit limited. (excuses, excuses)

Elijah couldn't catch one either. Though in his defense, those suckers (female salmon) are STRONG! Elijah swears that his dad stole his fish from him....that wasn't the case at all....but we allowed him to believe his fabrication as long as it made him feel better about being unsuccessful in his attempt.

Salmon Roe - this is what the sac of eggs look like inside the salmon

Waiting to get into the pool of salmon

English/Japanese rules of salmon catching signs

Halloween 2010

Rainy and cold.......Elijah only wanted to trick or treat for about 40 min. (he got cold, wet and uncomfortable) When he got back he took over the front door duty at our house....until we ran out of all 80 giant Pixie Stixs. There is a window of time to trick or treat on base (5pm-8pm) We ran out at 630! There were a TON of kids out this year!

He got more candy in 40 min then he could possibly eat in a year! Thanks to Andre for the regulation helmet! Elijah said he was going to carry it all night because it was too big for his head (he looked like a bobblehead when he wore it) as soon as he realized that it was still raining outside he decided to put that helmet on to protect his head from the rain.