long ago and far away...

All this cold weather is taking me back to Japan in my memories. So I thought I'd share them with you. :)


Yeah and I thought we had gotten a lot of snow here this year. *sigh* I do remember this. Brrr...shivering. For those of you who remember Japan...this is the road to Towada Lake.


Lest you think that Japan is always snowy. The Hirosaki Cherry Blossom Festival. I don't remember exactly how many trees there are here, but I thinks its in the hundreds. (Arlene, do you remember)?



The Cherry Blossom Festival again. Yes, I've changed a bit.

The Aomori Aquarium. Our singles group from church went there for an activity. The man in the foreground with the camera was in our group. I think his name was Earl Jefferson. He was in the Navy. My at-the-time-future husband was taking the picture; this was before we were married.


The Aomori Glass Factory. One of two in Japan. This was downstairs in the gift shop. This stuff was really expensive. I bought a small glass piece that I have since lost and it was around 500 yen which was about $5 then. (Airmen don't make much money).



Upstairs in the glass factory where all the action took place. These people were super talented. They do this the old-fashioned way: glass-blowing. This is the huge furnace and several assistants. The man in the white shirt and hat on the far left walking away was one of the master craftsmen. There were only a few.


Yes, Dairy Queen in Japan. Speaking of DQ. Have you had this month's Blizzard of the month? If you go to their website and sign up for their fan club, they'll send you coupons via email. So far we've received two "Buy One Get One Free" coupons. This month's Blizzard of the month is chocolate overload. (Not that you can overload on chocolate, but you get the idea). Yum! But, I digress...back to Japan.


And last, but certainly not least. My husband holding our oldest. (She loves the fact she was born in Japan). See that little bottle he's feeding her? It was so cold in our house that I could set those little bottles of breast milk outside our bedroom door in the little hallway and they would stay cold all night. I literally lived in our bedroom that winter (she was born in December). The house we had was off-base, built for the American military but by Japanese builders. Can you say "no insulation"? We kept the heater in our bedroom going constantly and only heated up the living room when we had company...which wasn't often. Now, I did nurse M.D., but on the few occasions I would pump to let my husband feed her I seriously never had to put the milk in the refrigerator. Very convenient for middle of the night feedings.

And have I mentioned one of the things I absolutely LOVED about Japan? Heated toilet seats. I kid you not! Unfortunately the amps (?) are different here and we can't have one sent to us. They wouldn't work.

So, that's my little stroll down memory lane. Doesn't someone have a meme about this? I think I've seen it somewhere. Oh well. :)


Until next time...

little milestones

Isn't it funny how little things make you realize your baby is growing up?

A.Z. dipping his chicken in BBQ sauce. Dipping! and not just smearing it everywhere. Well, he did that too, but he's eating like a big kid now!


More BBQ sauce, please?

Yea, Mama's getting a picture of you.


Until next time...

gingerbread houses and calendars

We've been crafty lately...the good kind.

We found a gingerbread house kit on sale for $5 at Sam's Club this weekend. So the kids constructed it yesterday...







...and ate it. Yum! The finished product




Also, this weekend we went to the Kid's Workshop at Home Depot. It's the first Saturday of each month if you want to check out the one in your area. The kids get a child-size orange work apron and each time they get a pin with a picture of the project on it. One girl there had her apron full! My kids only have two, but they now have the goal of filling up their aprons!





Sorry for the blur, something was on my lens. Umm...not sure who's these are...they are creative.



Until next time...

six years ago...

...I had my fifth child, M.E.

After four births at hospitals, I was ready for a homebirth. For reason I won't go into right now, I was eager to have my next baby at home. We found a midwife who would work with us and started our journey.

On Dec. 30th, 2003 I woke up at around 4:00 a.m. with contractions. I wasn't sure if they were real or not because the last 3 births had all been induced in the hospital. I called the midwife and she said she would come if I wanted her to. I told her to come, I would feel better, especially if they were the real thing. She started our way (a two hour drive; one and a half if she speeds).

At around 5:40 our fifth baby; third son was born unassisted in the shower. Yeah, they were real, alright. Our midwife walked in about 10 minutes later. :) She later told me that usually when the woman is that close to birth she's not on the phone with the midwife, so she didn't hurry...stopped for gas and coffee, etc. haha

I was thrilled with this homebirth experience and proceeded to have my next three at home. (Our ninth was different; far different, I had to have an emergency c-section; but that's another story).

So our middle child turned 6 yesterday (when I started this post it was the 31st...I'm up late, or early as it were). He is truly in the middle (so far). He has 2 brothers, 2 sisters older than him and 2 brothers, 2 sisters younger.

The birthday child gets to pick the meals for the day. M.E. picked peach cobbler for breakfast (sorry no pic), for lunch he got to go to Sonic with my brother, and for supper he picked pizza. We bought 6 pizzas from Papa John's (yum!). We had invited another large family over per birthday boy's request and the pizza went fast...


...as did the large cake; appropriately decorated with tigers. :)



This guy is very serious. A total opposite of his next older brother who is a clown. :)



M.E. has to have things just so. He hated that we moved last year and it took him a long time to adjust. He doesn't like change and thrives on schedules.


He likes tigers and has several stuffed ones (including one very small one that he can carry in his pocket). And, as of yesterday, several Schleich brand ones. He also like Thomas the Tank Engine and has several of those as well. He got a new one yesterday because his old one broke. He also got one called Billy (because it's orange - his favorite color).

He started school this year (homeschool) and loves to do his computer program (Click 'n' Kids) that teaches reading.

He has been such a blessing to our family.

Happy Birthday, M.E.!


Until next time...

Happy Birthday!

She's turning 12.

She's almost a teen.

She's quiet most of the time.

She loves to read.

She's an animal person, mostly horses.

But she also likes those weird animals like spiders, snakes, and crocodiles.

She's more tomboy than girly-girl; even in a dress.

Her favorite color is green. And so are her eyes.

She's very helpful; I don't know what I'd do without her.

But even if she could do nothing; I don't know what I'd do without her.

She's dependable.

She's friendly.

She's energetic.

She thinks things over carefully.

She works hard.

She "plays well with others". :)

She was born in Japan (but not adopted; we were in the Air Force).

She's my oldest child; yet she'll always be my baby.

Happy Birthday, M.D.!

Until next time...

let it snow!

Woke up to this. Lovely snow. Really, it does look pretty. Reminds me of that verse in Isaiah...

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Isaiah 1:18

But the ground was still pretty warm and it didn't stick around for long. We were able to stick to our plans for the day and go to Home Depot for the Kids' Workshop. If you've never been, you should check out your local Home Depot. It's completely free and the kids get really cool stuff. All our kids loved it today.

Working.

Finished product...little wagons and picnic caddies.

(lol...I swear, every picture I took of this last pose, someone was either making a goofy face or walking off. This was the best I could find. I spent my time laughing at them while trying to find a good one).

Then we looked at Christmas lights in Pigeon Forge. I would have put a picture on, but they were all blurry. For my camera to take a night picture, it has to be held steady...and no matter how hard I tried it just didn't work. I guess I needed a tripod, but we don't have one. Oh, well, I'm sure you folks have lights where you are.

P.S. If my name doesn't show up below, something is wrong with the site that I got it from.

Until next time...

largest Christmas Wonderland

One of the things we look forward to this time of year is the lights. Lights, lights everywhere! Normally we like to get home before dark, but when it starts getting close to Christmas we don't mind if we are out after dark.

The other night we stopped by the Shadrack Watersports & RV Christmas light show. It's located right off of exit 407 in Sevierville. It's very close to our house, so doesn't take long to get there and we wouldn't be out too late afterward.

This is the largest show of it's kind and uses tens of thousands of lights. The lights are synchronized to Christmas tunes. It's very cool.

Now I realize that everyone can't come to TN and see a light show. So I thought I'd bring it to you.

Go see the Christmas Wonderland light show here. The larger video is just a commercial, but the smaller ones above have the actual music and show.

Enjoy!


Until next time...

Happy Birthday!

Our second boy/fourth child turned seven yesterday.

Homemade donuts for breakfast.


The cake. Yes, for some reason my children love these cakes. Just pick a favorite flavor, color the frosting, and throw on some wild animals. Easy. Works for me!!

A favorite event: licking the frosting off the decorations.

The game: Pin the trunk on the elephant. :) Elephants are his favorite animal.

lol...overloaded with gifts!! He also loves fireman stuff. (His favorite movie is Fireproof).

In case you couldn't tell, he's the comedian of the family. He's a very good actor and very dramatic.

Happy Birthday, little Actor!!

Until next time...

Last minute decisions...

...can turn out to be fun.

Such was the case this weekend. We left Kat and her family Saturday night wishing we had more time to visit. But, alas, that was not to be.

As they went back east, we headed west - and then, south. We stopped for the night and started out Sunday on a new adventure.


We love to visit different zoos (can you tell?). Let me tell you, this one was big. 500 acres!!! We really enjoyed seeing all the animals. And I guess the walk was worth it. The tram definitely helped. So did the shuttle at the end of the visit. This is the first zoo I've been to that had 2 parking lots. We parked in Africa and came out in North America. Interesting, huh? So we had to take the shuttle back over to Africa.

Having fun!

Am I camouflaged?

What's supposed to be here, Mama?

Not happy!

Content to have big brother push me around the zoo.

They had interesting sculptures all over the zoo.


This was really cool. Well, actually it was warm, but you know what I mean. It was the Sonora Desert display.


View from inside the bird aviary, where we saw birds from tropical areas. Like this:


Eclectus Parrot
And this:
Scarlet Ibis

Another sculpture.

The one thing we really wanted to see, and didn't get to, was the polar bear. It was too hot for it.

*****************************************************

A bonus when we go to NC is being able to get this.



Cheerwine. It's a soft drink. Ok, so NC is not the only place you can get it, but it is pretty much exclusive to the Southeast. And it started in NC. We have seen it here in TN, but we found the glass bottles in NC and you can't get those here. The formula in the glass bottles is the original using pure cane sugar instead of corn syrup. It tastes a little like Cherry Coke, but not exactly. (Psst...I like it almost as much as Dr Pepper).

Well, that was another highlight from my fabulous weekend. More to come.


Until next time...