Clara Doesn't Like Frankie's Coat

This video was acutally taken in Novebmer, while i was skyping with Mom and Erika, Frankie had ot go outside so I took a pictrue of her in her new snow coat : )

The snow was pretty deep. IT was back in november when we got a really good drop of 6-10 inches. The first video is Frankie in her new coat in eh deep snow (sorry my voice is so loud) The second is where it was all just too much for Clara, apparently.

For more shots of why Frankie needs this coat, check this Nov. 20th post out.




You're welcome : )

I "Teach" English

I got an awesome opportunity awhile back to teach conversational english to a high school student from Hatchinohe. I use the word teach loosely. She speaks good english (Although we've had a few rough spots, but really, she's really good). Her name is Fu (pronnounced "Who") and she's awesome at Japanese archery.

She's going off to college in March and will be living on her own, so we've been making things in the kitchen. Both American foods and Japanese. She's taught me a lot about culture and answered questions about the schoolkids I see and a bunch of other things. She also taught me how to make a Japanese Omlett (Tamago is the short name for it).

I bought the supplies and we made Nori Rolls one night. Just with cucumber and omlett, but they were pretty darn good! And I thought they looked just like the rolls you'd buy at hte commissary or Universe (the japanese grocery store down the road).

Then the next time we made Red Bean Cakes from this SoyMilk Desserts cookbook I bought. Getting the Yudeadzuki was tricky. I didn't see the english on the jar until after it was in my cart. But I dind't know how much I needed becuase the recipie is in grams (we used a kitchen scale while baking) so I ended up buying a truckload. I guess I just have some yudeaduki for later! (Red Bean Jam)

>scene: Anna at Yokomachi Grocery Store<
Anna: Sumimasen, Waarimaska. . .. . (looks at paper) Yude adzuki?
Guy: >confused look<>still confused<>wait for it< style="font-style: italic;">She turns to the guy and says in Japanese: She wants Yudeadzuki. to which the guy says Oh! YudeAdzuki! She kept saying YudeAdzuki and I was like "I have no idea what that is!" Which was like someone asking for RED bean jam in English and saying OH! You want red BEAN jam! You kept saying RED bean jam and I was like "I have no idea what that is!"
Anna: (Thinks to herself THAT"S WHAT I SAID! YUDE ADZUKI!!)
Girl: Runs to the aisle and shows me the cans of Yude Adzuki
Anna: Domo, domo arrigato. Ah, waarimaska ammanato?
Girl: (pauses) ah! Hi (runs down the aisle and points to the Ammanato which is sugar glazed adzuki beans)

I think it helped that we were already on the subject of adzuki beans : )

Clara likes the window

January second in the Young household meant that Anna went outside to take down the lights she put up and Tyler stayed inside with clara and fiddled with his PS3 : )

As I was outside I hear clara start to bang on the door. She at one point rested her forehead against the window and let her arms fall down to her side, keeping her balance by herforehead. That's what originally made us get the camera, but she didn't do it again. But it was hilarious when it happened. So, instead, you just get to read about it and see pictures that aren't as cute, but still have the bonus of me in our aweomse 2000 yen homac winter boots.

(PS Its now february 12th and there's still one strand of lights that is wrapped around my side fence becuase the snow that fell off our roof iced over so I couldn't dig the light strand out of the mini-ice mountain that formed over one part of hte fence--whatever. At least I unplugged them! : )

New Year's Karaoke

On New Years' Night we were invited out to dinner and karaoke by our friends Matt and Christina Lyon. We drove aroundfor a while trying to find a place that was open and we finally found one. It was a little expensive, but it was good. Although, there was a LOT of fish. Sashimi as a meal is tough I think beaucse yo ucan only eat so much raw fish (well, I kept cooking mine on the little burner thing, but still). I didn't try the sardine, but tyler did. And I dind't try the snail but tyler did. I kepy bemoaning the fact that we just killed innocent snails and made them writh in their own boiling body juices. . . it was aweful. (Similar to my feelings during the Rokkasho Salmon Festival)

But aftweards we went to Karaoke! at a place called LaLaLas. You rent a private room for your group[ and you have wireless mics and a touch screen display tablet that you pick songs from. They have abook of english songs available but they still put the kanji characters above the english words on teh screen.

We went with Cory and Cami Farrer as well (and, on a side note, we all happen to be in the same branch). They all seemed ot choose very nice, appropriate songs for the occasion. Team Young,

however, kept coming up with such gems as Nelly's "Its Getting Hot in Here" (which suggests some certain innapropriate relationships with models) and Green Day's "Basket Case" (where he mentions sleeping with a whore who happens to be a transvestite). Then I took over and chose "Trouble" by pink. Which everyone thought was funny when I belted the chorus (BUT THAT"S THE POINT!! ITS KARAOKE!!) then I made Christina sing Whintey Houston "I wanna dance with somebody" and Tyler and Matt sung Sandman by metallica to finish the night off. THere were a variety of other songs in there like, meet in the middle and some poison and even brian adams summer of 69! It was super fun.

I also got an ice cream scoop of Sesame ice cream but it wasn't as good as the hatch food court sesame ice cream. I'll have to figure out hte difference. But all in all it was a really fun evening! Thanks to Christina for the documentation! : )

Merry new Year!

According ot the files on my computer,these are the only photos I have of New Year's Day, 2009. And no, you are not mistaken, these are indeed photographs of Clara on the potty. Like I said, Merry new year! : )

What's a New Year's Eve Without Some Curry?

I am please d to say that my daughter will eat anything. If she was going to be a picky child like her father was I might have had to punch her in the face. So like I said, I'm pleased to say my daughter wil leat anything.

To end 2008 on a solid note we went down to Hachinohe to search for a kitchen hutch for me. We tried the 2nd hand store Doki Doki but they dind't have much furniture. They did, however, have a men's shirt that said,

(who's)
A
yellow
ruby?

I didn't know who was. I also didn't know why they put it in parenthesies or why they thought rubies were yellow or why they capitalized the A.We also found a shirt with a picture of a bull on the front and this written above it,

COREFI
GHTER

Tyler figured out that it was suppossed to sy COre Fighter. They just don't beleive in proper spacing I guess.

Anyway, after Doki Doki we went to the Green Furniture Store. Which, the sign isn't really green its more aqua, but still. We found a good htuch and I got a cool little table ironing board thing. Just a little board I can put on my sewing table next to my machine so I don't have to set up my big board. I was excited.

Then we went the Pia Do mall and ate at the food court. I got Ramen and Curry and TYler got mcdonald's. Clara had some oatmeal, cherrios (Which she wasn't too interested in becuase I think I've given them to her too much) Gerber cheese crackers and then a big chunk of my rice with a little curry sauce on it.

She LOVED it! She kept opening her mouth and lunging towards teh spoon when I would get some more. The curry wasn't spicy, it's more sweet acutally. ANd I didn't give her onions or anything, just a little tasteo f hte sauce. She also liked my ramen noodles. She started to get the hang of slurping them up.

Are We Getting Pulled Over?

No, we're not. But sort of.

On the way to Hachinohe today we took the toll road (Which was a waste of 350 yen, becuase we were only on it for five minutes, but at least now we know) and Tyler sees flashing lights behind him. He gets a confused look on his face because, as he says, "I was going maybe 5km over, but they weren't gaining on me at all. And I didn't hear a siren."

So, not wanting to misunderstand the polite police who may or may not be pulling us over and thus appear to be jerkface americans, he pulled over.

We waited for while for the car to catch up before it pulled over behind us. We used the time to get out Tyler's ID and continue the converstaion on what we could hve done wrong to merit being pulled over.

The guy gets out of his car and runs up to the driver's window and says

"Uh, excuse me. What happened?"

Tyler and I exchange surprised and confused glances

Tyler: Oh, nothing! I thought you pulled me over!

The Guy: bowing Oh, so sorry!

and he shuffle-ran back to his car whose lights were still flashing.

Apparently it was like some roadside assistence car who just travels the road looking for motorists in distress or what have you. That's what the tolls pay for?

Tyler and I got a kick out of it. What happene?! YOU PULLED ME OVER! Yo utell me! Fortuantely we were too surprised to come off like such huge jerkfaces : )