NOOOOOOOOO....anyone but Tom Cruise

I need to share this freaky nightmare I had. For some reason I was at Church and sitting next to Tom Cruise, who, to my horror, I was dating. Yeah he even kissed me, blech! After that there was riding on a boat, Cate Blanchette being an angered(at me) goddess and of course the pee scene(you know, when you have to pee you dream about going to the bathroom...I call that the pee scene). It was scary, and I was glad to wake up. What a way to start Halloween, all scared!


Clark woke up shortly thereafter, and then we had a fun day. We even got to go visit daddy at work. No candy, but we did buy a box of goldfish crackers, which are just as good as candy to Clark. Our friends Julie and Soun came too. Soun likes to go everywhere but where his mom is. It makes me very glad that Clark likes to hold my hand.



Oh, and we got to play with Daddy's shaving cream to end our day of dress up.

Clarkative

know I have yet to do a Japan Cool! post, hold your horses....we were sick this week, so cut me a bit of slack. I will update you on Clark now, with some good stories and a ton of pictures. We are healthy now though, or 90% healthy with a little bit of a runny nose.

Clark has been super active and fun this week...here are a few things he's done.


He's climbed into the entry way and tried to put on his shoes so that we could go for a walk.

He's learned how to unlock and open the front door.(I am going to the store Tuesday to find some sort of baby lock)

He took the wiping cloth off of the sink and started to clean the floor with it.

He helps me to open and close the storm shutters every night.

He goes to his highchair when he is hungry and then makes the 'pick me up' grunting/whining noise.

Before nursing the other night he lifted up his shirt, so that I would get the idea of what to do.

Helps wash the rice before we cook it.

Helped peel the potatoes(ok, so he just hit them with the potato peeler after I was done peeling them, but he thought he helped).

He LOVES opening and closing doors.

He helped me brush off the futons after airing them out today.

He has started to do hand motions to songs now.

He folds his arms for prayers( it only lasts 10 seconds at most though).

His new words are :water, tonbo(dragonfly), kutsu(shoes), socks(I'm not sure which language he is using for this one), and ball, bubu(car in babytalk in Japanese)


His new sign is: rabbit

He loves the amaranth graham crackers from Grandma

He goes to the fridge when he is hungry too. Last night he went to the fridge and said bubu. Why? Because his sippy cup has cars on it, so he wanted the cars from the fridge.


He has developed a like for hats.

He chose the neighbor's dog over me when I said 'bye bye'.

He likes to hold my hand when he walks(at least we have balance).

Ohler Update

They are back at home, got back about 2 hours ago. The fire stayed about half mile to a mile away, so the outside is dirty but everything is fine!

Fallbrook Ohlers

For those who want to know, are interested, or anything. Grandma, Grandpa, Kevin, Alice and I would assume younger Nicole are all safe. Fallbrook has been evacuated, but Kevin being the great deal finder that he is, got a good deal at a Temecula winery that surprise surprise has lost some reservations lately. So they have two rooms there, and are sitting it out until they can go back. Luckily they aren't cramped in anywhere, and hopefully are having a decent time. I'd say pray for their home, but seriously people, pray for everyone, not just my family. Everyone in CA needs some extra lovin' right now.

Take care!

Week of the Klutz

So if it were not for the fact that I am 100% sure I am not pregnant, I would think I was by the number of accidents I've had this week. Here is the list since Friday.

- Dropped and broke a nice ceramic mug
- Twisted my ankle 90degrees while walking, luckily it is walkable, but I was worried for a bit
- Fell down the stairs in the train station while holding Clark..he was fine.
- Knocked over my chair at church right as I was sitting down and so I crashed to the floor.

Plus my butt hurts from this funky rolly slide in the park that I took Clark down...ouch!

my shins are pretty torn up from the slide down the stairs.

oh and one more time
I AM NOT PREGNANT....just a klutz.

opps forgot this one too

More pictures as promised

Yep here are the rest that I tried to upload last night.

eating some edamame....yum!



Here are the new hats that Obaachan made for Clark...we of course had to try on both



and of course a few more aquarium pictures...



...including Clark's own fish! It is called a Clark's Anemone Fish...dead serious!

Clarckalicious

Today's post will be mostly pictures from our last few weeks. I do want to add though some of his big happenings.


He now says dozo(dodo) when he wants to give someone something, or recieve something. Not quite proper usage of the word, but close. He also says bobo for tonbo(dragon fly). Oh and when we nurse at night and daddy is still in the room he usually issues a very forceful bye bye to tell daddy to leave. He also said his saddest bye bye ever when he thought he didn't get to play with his friends the next street over(we were actually just going home to put the ice cream in the freezer, but he didn't understand that we were going back).

My little boy is so cute, but wearing toddler shoes now, playing in the dirt and acting more like a little boy and not a baby anymore.

Oh and he says bye bye when he wants to leave too.

Here is from our day at the Aquarium





ok blogger is being a butt...more later.

Kitty Chan

So I lied about posting tomorrow
I like to wait up until Masaki gets back from the Temple
Which means you get a Japan Cool

I was going to take people pictures, but they didn't turn out....so you get
HELLO KITTY!
Woot!

She is so famous and cool that every city/tourist spot or anything that can remotely be called that has their own special Kitty. For example, Okinawa Kitty-chan is tanned and has a hibiscus in her ear
Curse me for not buying one!

I bought Boso Kitty


She is from Tateyama and the surrounding area, and body boards.
Thus the body board and tan.

My friend Julie forgot her phone at my house.

She has Nagasaki Kitty(looks like a Portugese Samurai Christian Kitty). I THINK it is Nagasaki but I'm not possitive.

Ok she didn't forgot her phone, our sons hid it on her.
She is another part of Japan cool....here a blast from the past picture of the boys about the same time last year.


...and because I love my husband...a teaser for our pics from two weeks ago in Chiba.

Paula Abdul

I promise to write some good stuff tomorrow, but tonight I am catching up on making Christmas presents for my three neices. This is best done to Paula Abdul.

I am so glad Masaki loved her back in the day, now I don't have to be sad for getting rid of my cassette tapes of her.

Rock it Paula!

Clarkscendent

Hehehe, I'm proud of this title too.

So I need to recap our last week too since I have been remisc on the update. Hey, my house is clean, you get a post or a clean house, not both.

We went to Chiba last weekend to hang with Obaachan and Ojiichan and went to the aquarium near Tokyo Disneyland. We went there Thursday night because Masaki had a party at an electronics show on Friday. Obaachan and I hung out and went to Coldstone that day. We went to this nice mall like place, and it was AWESOME! I want to go back, and I'm definitely taking Grandma with me next time. Then Saturday we went to the aquarium where we all had a good time. Ii was surprised at how big the tuna were. YIKES! We have some fun pictures, but Clark seemed to enjoy the suhi restaurant more. Now he'll even eat BIG chunks of fish too.

New This Week: started saying tata for cords and outlets(I say itai itai which is the Japanese for ouch ouch). Feeding himself a bit better. Starts walking on his own without prompting now. Signs baby and water(kinda). He's just being really happy and explorative. Nothing much new, but everything is new. Oh he has started moving my hand to do things that he wants done like putting it on the computer mouse, moving food in my hand to his mouth, etc.

Likes:fish to eat and see as always, starting to eat pancakes, just about anything in the world he enjoys including playing in dirt from our planters.

Dislikes: seeing Daddy and other people he likes leave. Short naps, late dinners


and now some pictures shortly.

Japan Sucks!

So as promised a post about the not so good side of Japan. Sorry, I'll talk about last weekend's trip to Ojiichan and Obaachan's later. I'm tired. Now onto the meat of the post...literally.

Don't get me wrong, I totally dig this place. What I find sad and fascinating is kujira. Kujira= whale. Yep, whale meat. Masaki had some at the sushi restaurant on Saturday. It was "ah alright". Talking to Kimiko about it, she said it was all they had for school lunch when she was a little kid. Beef and Pork were too expensive, but it wasn't that good she said. So there is a history of eating, but it isn't that good. They are selling it in the supermarket right now. I kinda doubt the whole 'scientific research' excuse. What is sad, the gov't is trying to encourage people to eat it because the demand is dropping. I say, just let it go and stop fighting the population and a large portion of the world. Oh well. I just wish they'd say it wasn't scientific...and fess up, if nothing else. I mean, seriously, who believes it? Especially when whale meat is sold at the famous Tsukiji Market where sushi for large portions of the world is bought and sold. Not scientific in my book.



Nevertheless...I still dig living here...just wanted to show the balance.

Fabulosity

This is the first of a few posts(though it looks like the last...trust me it is the first), so bear with me. My budgeting of computer time takes its toll on my blog, but I do get a lot more done. YEah. Anyway, onto the meat of this post...

..Thank you Katie for thinking I am just as fabulous as I think you are! It made my day. Even more so because at first I didn't see my name there, so when I reread the post when I wasn't trying to hold a conversation with Masaki, I was even more excited!!! You always keep me entertained, thank you! We'll have to head to HK one of these days, like Masaki and I have talked about since we we started dating, and meet you in person.

So since I am fabulous, I get to spread the love too...woo hoo!

I know lots of fabulous bloggers, and truly I feel bad leaving people off this list...but here are the three blogs I look forward to reading the most(besides Pam's, but hey she updates when she gets time, which isn't very frequently). Oh, and all of these are public blogs, I left the private ones off for privacy reasons. tee hee....I said 'privates'.

1. Kim & Co. over at Sometimes you Feel like a nut... She's a good friend from the SD days, and I feel truly blessed that such an awesome lady finds the time to keep in touch with me!

2. Jen at Allen Overseas. Another bud from SD, I remember seeing her when she was a freshman, just starting school, and taking the missionary discussions. Now she has a wonderful husband, two brilliant and fun girls, and already enough adventures to last a life time!

3. Hatsuho at the Cook Family Blog. We were roomates in the MTC, and hit it off well. I'm so glad we've somehow managed to keep in touch(a lot of work on her part!). She and her husband are expecting their first, and it is so fun(though I am sorry about the hurls) to read how it is going.

So go catch up with these fabulous ladies...there are lots more, and I am sorry for not listing everyone. Dang baby is awake, more later!

Clark - the update

I figure since I just did a Clark post two days ago that I'll just make this an update. Not much to report, but he can now sign baby and use it correctly on his own. I also think he did his sign for cat too, so we are well on our way. He also says 'ga' for all gone(notice the resemblance to gone), occasionally says 'wa' for water and says shhh shhh for the Japanese word yoisho(kind of a one word version of the Little Engine That Could's "I think I can") and he uses it while he is pushing the push cars uphill.

He is really good at pushing, he'll push anything. Including a push car with a little girl(about 2 months younger) riding on it, up hill. He did REALLY good.

I'll try to post some pictures of him soon, but we are at Obaachan and Ojiichan's for the weekend, so we may not have that much time. We are going to try to get to a different aquarium tomorrow.

Oh and in exciting news. We've been able to feed him some wheat products without any excema showing up. We'll take it slow, but maybe his body can handle it now! Yeah, one more thing not to worry about.

The Suica is so sweeet

Today's Japan cool! will be short because I have a mountain of laundry to fold.


It is all about Suica, a transport card for almost everything. It started out as a card you could charge up and just press to the ticket gates on JR trains so you don't have to buy a ticket every time, but has been integrated with another system so that you can basically ride any train, and some buses with this bad boy. Heck you can even buy stuff from vending machines and some stores(including an electronics store called Yodbashi in Machida. You can just charge it up at any train station and you are good to go again. While it isn't as cool as the Octopus card of HK, it is still super useful. If you want more from our wiki friend you are welcome to check it out.

By the way, I HATE Atsugi base. You can always tell when a big carrier has come back because the jets start to strafe the house on a regular basis. I swear we are all going to go deaf. I have no idea how Clark sleeps through it. Yeah for US world domination ;) At least I have my lover, nutella, here to comfort me until the carrier leaves again.

Itinerary and a sexy machine

I have to show off the sexy used sewing machine I picked up the other day. I finished Tenna's Christmas present with it, it was so nice! Not sewing by hand speeds things up considerably.



Also, we reserved our plane tickets for Christmas. I figure this is a better way to disseminate the information than an annoying email...so here is what Masaki, Clark and I are up to.

December 19th
3:00pm-7:00am Tokyo to LA(remember we cross the date line so it is the same day)
10:15-1:00 LA to Salt Lake

January 4th
11:00-12:00 Salt Lake to LA(anyone want to drive us to San Diego?)

January 11th
10:30-3:00 LA to Tokyo(land on the 12th)

Masaki has to go back on the 30th of December for work, but will come back out for CES in Las Vegas and then meet up with me and Clark in LA. Right now the plan is to spend the night of the 10th in LA so we can get to the airport quick. Anyone have suggestions on people or hotels to stay at there? Also, I am sure we'll hit Provo one day, so we'll try to visit people there too. There is a Minerva Teichert Exhibit going on now at BYU that I really want to check out!

Yeah, comment and we'll start arranging stuff ahead of time(which plans will get dashed by sickness and jet lag I'm sure)

Sock exchange

Ok, I got a nice letter in the mail yesterday for a sock exchange. It is like that recipe exchange thingy, but you send a pair of socks instead, just 1 pair. I am trying to decide which 6 people to send it to, so instead of wasting $1 per letter on people who may not want it, I'm asking you all. Who wants to be part of a sock exchange? Leave a comment and we'll get addresses lined up through email.

Clarktasmagorical

Mommy! I want to go for a walk...NOW!

Yes I know, I should have done this almost half a week ago, but hey I'm trying to spend less time on the computer and more time doing stuff around the house. If I didn't have a baby, you'd see a spotless house, but since I do, it is only marginally clean. Anyway, onto the real juice! Clark! (p.s. can you guess the original adjective in today's title?)

New This week: Says wawa(for dog...the Japanese word is wanwan), gives a CLEAR and DISTINCT buhbuh when waving bye bye. Has begun to bow when other people bow. He tries to put on his own shoes so he can go outside. Started signing 'baby' when prompted. Recognizes the word for fish in both Japanese and English.

Likes: LOVES FISH still(I got a year pass to the aquarium), eggplant, pumpkin, dogs, cats, clocks, watches, fruit, mixed veggies, pushing things



Dislikes: chicken, pork, beef(he'll eat fish now! yeah!), loud barking, being rocked to sleep.

So we have a few anecdotes this week. First though, I discovered how difficult it is to feed him at a restaurant...so much meat on the menu and he won't eat any of it! Curse you TGI Friday's!

He likes to share, so he always gives us his water, banana, soup for us to have a bite or a sip before he eats again.

Ok n/m, I was going to write more, but it is taking me three days to do this post...sucks...enjoy the pictures...see we went to the aquarium, he got to pick up a sea cucumber and touch baby sharks...what toddler gets to do that, eh? Ok he just really wanted to splash in the water.



Anyway today sucked cleaning wise, had to clean up water, cheerios and milk and a bird pooped on me. Only one of those was his fault, so not too bad.