Out for dinner

Daddy had to work today. Emma had a field trip to the chocolate factory...during which she ate more chocolate than lunch apparently. I stayed home.  But tonight my friend Tabitha asked if Emma and I wanted to go out for dinner since her husband is out of town for the weekend. So we had a spontaneous dinner out! It was a fun new experience...even if I don’t know what it was called...some sort of Japanese buffet. You go in and pick your food on skewers, then you fry it yourself at your table. There was lots of food! I almost got Emma to eat squid, but she took a bite when it was too hot and had to spit it out so she wouldn’t burn her tongue. They also had curry, some corn soup, salad bar, drink bar, and a dessert bar. Emma especially loved the fondue.

Random vending machines: Pringles, mentos and suckers

They explain in English how to do it.



All the things on skewers: from hot dogs to squid to bacon to tater tots to fresh veggies...Emma thought fried broccoli was better than normal broccoli. Her favorite was a cheese donut thing. We mostly ate chicken, beef, tater tots and cheese donut things. The broccoli was good, too.

Tabitha and Emma.

My first plate. We thought it was weird to have to put all the raw meat on the plate with everything else.

After you cook it you let it sit and let the grease drip off. The greasiness was our least favorite part.

Only in Japan: a matcha fondue. It was really just green white chocolate. Emma loved this.

Dipping marshmallows in fondue. They also had cream puffs (my favorite) and mini donuts. 

Yum! Thankfully most of their food is very small portioned.

Ice cream! We may have dipped it in our leftover fondue. The ice cream was extremely cold.  She didn’t want to smile.

You keep your stuff under the seat.

See?

She wanted to carry my purse. We had a fabulous time...it was fun to try something new spontaneously....Tabitha is good at that kind of thing. And we may have stayed out later than normal, but I hope she is exhausted and will sleep in. 

6 year old drama

Being 6 is never boring...unless of course, you are bored. And then it is dramatically boring. We never do anything fun or go anywhere or get to do anything that the other kids do...you know, like bringing giant bags of crayons on school field trips. 🤷‍♀️ Lately the mornings before school have been drama filled. You name it, it is an issue: eating breakfast, getting dressed, getting the backpack ready, wtc. Sometimes I wonder how she ever gets to school on time. Only 2 weeks left!! 
This was typical this week. I was making her change because her outfit was not a good achoice for school/ the weather. Pretty sure she picks things out knowing I will make her change. 

We went for a walk yesterday afternoon. She loves to swing. She does not, however, love coming home after a walk. She spends the whole time thinking of ways to be slow. Seriously one time she pretended to be blind while walking as slow as a turtle...While telling me she had to go potty really bad. 

She does love me sometimes. This card is proof. 

This is her weeeknd news. It’s always interesting to see what she writes about. 

Her picture is from daddy’s explanation to her about what  his back feels like. Apparently it was very tight trying to protect his spine. He is feeling better. Getting a back injury on your birthday does tend to make you feel old though.

Ome Roller Slide Park

Today we went to a roller slide park in Ome. It was good to be in green nature again. Although I got either a weird caterpillar or a poisonous centipede on me and got a small rash. Emma was super excited to see the super long roller slide. It’s 200 meters long! It looked liked so much fun! And I suppose it was, at first, but it was actually a lot of work to get down it, and 200 meters worth of rollers hurts your bottom...I am still sore. There was also a small park and a small zip line for kids. We all enjoyed the outing.

Going down the fast part

Daddy found her the perfect size box to ride on in the basement before we left.

He had a flat box.

About 1/3 of the way down.

Swinging 

Ropes 

Climbing ropes



I can’t remember what this says. Steven knows. 

We found the zip line on our way out and had to go back. 

She is crazy.

She had a blast. She did not used to do these.

Paper Mike we found this car at the gym.

Happy birthday Steven!

Yesterday was Steven’s birthday. We like birthdays in Japan because we get to do presents in the morning. 😬 And we had cake at lunch. We were all exhausted by evening. We had planned on going to Round 1, but Emma’s friend couldn’t go and Steven tweaked his back while working out. He has been stretching and moving pretty slow....jumping around was out of the picture. He wants to try this afternoon, but he is still pretty slow, so we will see.

We may have used minion candles from last year. 3 and 2...since he is 32.

Emma likes how we turned out the lights and sang when Grandma Connie was here. So we did it again.

He asked for carrot cake. I found a really good recipe, it was delicious!

I attempted piping. It’s hard to know what to do when you only do this once or twice a year. 

Waterfall hike

Today we went on a short hike to see a waterfall. It took longer to get there than it did to hike. But it was nice to be out of the city.

She brought her new toy, which she found in the basement. It’s a pregnant dog.



Touching the water

The waterfall! 



Daddy surprised her by going down and putting our feet in.

She wanted to go up a little higher.

She needed help getting down.

There were lots of dogs...this one was cooling off in the water. We saw some people with a stroller...for their pug...which they were carrying. 

Pretty water