It's the Easter Bunny!

I had a little picture session in my living room with my sweet daughter for Easter. Brett brought home the bunny ears for Mallory from his trip to Thailand, and the tutu was from friends in Florida. Put them together with a black blanket and it makes for a pretty adorable photo session!

Yay!

Easter basket and goodies

Muah!

Mmmm...this ceramic egg is delicious!

Family Trip to Ome Plum Fest

I did it again. I'm super behind on blogging. I think I might never catch up, but I'm going to try. We have a 4 day weekend for Memorial Day, and I"m sitting in our living room watching a movie, watching M play on the floor, and wearing sweats. The weather is cold and rainy outside (despite this being the unofficial start to summer) and I think this is some good bloggin' weather. So, I'll try to post a few things. Tomorrow and Monday (depending on the weather) we wanted to go do a few family things, so I need to catch up about March and April so I can post about May and upcoming June!

Anyway, on with the post. Mid-March is blossom season around Japan, and like everything else, they have "festivals" for it. Now, all that really means, usually, is that lots of people are out enjoying the weather and flowers. The Ome Plum Blossom Fest was just that- lots of Japanese people out in the plum blossom park enjoying the nice weather and flowers, and we decided to get in on the fun. We rode the train over to the park (about 25 min ride) and walked up the hill to where all the trees are. Aren't they pretty?

Along the way there are tons of food vendors, and of course we had to try out a few things. We had some okinomoyaki (one of our absolute favorite Japanese foods!) and also a chocolate covered banana, to name a few. Both were delicious.

We also saw this sign "Welcome Eyeball". What does that mean??? :)

These are literally fish on sticks. Brings a new meaning to "fish sticks", huh?

Taking a quick nap on the way up.

Mmmm...delicious!

The flowers were definitely not a disappointment, and in full bloom. A few posts back I talked about going to this same park with my Culture Club, but it was freezing that day and the trees weren't quite ready yet. Today was MUCH better and we really enjoyed it! We were kinda dumb though, and brought the stroller. I forgot you had to go up and down the hill, which has a pathway with TONS of stairs. So, we sat towards the bottom and enjoyed the view for the most part, but that is really ok.

Some family photos.

Cool dude!

It was a good day. Life gets so busy with work and life and cleaning house...it's good to get off base and spend some time together as a family, and enjoy the Japanese culture.

Culture Club learns to cook...American Style

A few posts back I talked about how my culture group taught us how to make some yummy Japanese foods. We thought it would be fun to teach them how to make some American dishes. Kimiko had requested gumbo, and we also made pizza and cheeseburgers. So, we all gathered over at Kim Kincaid's house and also Suzie Nardozzi's house (they live 2 doors apart) and cooked and cooked and cooked.

Mallory, the star of the day as always.

Jen shows the ladies how to chop up ingredients for the gumbo

All the women in on the vegetable cutting action.

Kim K and Kimiko read the gumbo recipe

squishy-fishy face

making pizzas

look at all those ingredients

pizzas are ready!

Darcie is a grill master!

All the ladies, ready to eat all the yummy American food

Delicious!

Me, Marisa, and Darcie enjoying our lunch

Kimiko and Mallory

At the end of each meeting, we usually give them some small present. Today we gave them bottles of Lawry's Seasoned Salt, which they LOVED. Sounds funny, but they can't get that off base, so they all thought it was really neat and I'm sure they will use it!

It was a fun day and we all had full bellies when we left!