A day the Aquarium and other snowy adventures

There was so much snow in Aomori. It was hard to go out a few of the days because the winds were so strong and the snow was blowing sideways. But we did it. Violet was so excited to play in the snow. She told us "I've never seen snow like this before. She wanted to play in the snow and throw snowballs.
Violet was thrilled to go to the aquarium during our vacation. We actually went twice because she loved it so much. Her first words as we walked up were, "I hope they have a whale! I'm going to look for a blow fish and some penguins too!"When we walked up to the tank with giant sea turtles she said, "They are so graceful! I wish I could swim with them." Then we came up on the long tunnel aquarium. She was a bit timid at first. She kept asking me if the aquarium was open or closed. She wanted to make sure that the fish could not come out. ;) By the time we left she was walking up and down the tunnel by herself exclaiming that she was so brave. :) When we came up to the sea lions we all were excited to see them up so close. We caught them at feeding time and so the trainers had them do some tricks to get their food. One was swirling around while balancing a ball. Violet told us "it looks like they are dancing at the glass slipper ball!" We also saw some penguins that Violet quickly informed us were Pip, Mary, Loca, Hoka, and Kerlise. She loves making up names. Pip and Mary come from one of our favorite books called "Don't be afraid Little Pip" by Karma Wilson. If you haven't read that one, go check it out at your local library. :)
Violet  does not like wearing long sleeves. Every time we got inside somewhere she would unzip her coat and drop it to the floor. When we got back to the hotel she would strip down and put on a short sleeve and take off her tights. She does this at home too. ;)
I loved how excited Violet was about every single experience we had. Every time we returned to the room she would take off her boots at the door (what people do in Japan when entering a home or school) even though we didn't have to do that at the hotel. She would close her eyes and shout out in surprise as she looked at the room every single time we walked in from being out for the day. As if she were shocked to see it still there. There were so many wonderful memories on our vacation. On our last night we decided to have a dance party in the hotel room. While listening to Motown tunes. Violet really loved the music and stood on the bed so she could be tall enough to dance with us at eye level. When "Where did our love go" by the Supremes came on I started singing loudly. It's one of my favorites. Violet must have been listening very closely to the lyrics. I noticed that she was watching my mouth very carefully. I was singing "Ooh, baby, baby, baby, ... baby don't leave me
Oh, please don't leave me (baby, baby) all by myself". Then she stopped and looked right at me and said, "mama, I won't leave you! I promise I'll never leave you by yourself!." I smiled at her and gave her a squeeze then she looked up at me again and said in a concerned voice with almost tearful eyes, "But mama, one day I will grow up and I will have to leave you. I will be all grown up and go away. Then you'll be all by yourself." I smiled down at her and said "yes, one day you will but don't worry I will still have daddy. I won't be by myself I will be with Daddy." She smiled back and said "but I am not going to leave you yet ok?!" It was a sweet sweet moment. One I will treasure.
When dancing with daddy she looked up at him as the song finished and said "I don't want it to end!" We said, "you don't want what to end." She said, "the song! I don't want the song to end. I want to keep dancing!"
On the last day before heading to the train, we went to the Nebuta museum. It houses floats used in the annual Nebuta Festival It was really interesting and had floats at different stages to show how they are made. All the floats were so colorful and bright. Violet enjoyed seeing them. Then there was a live performance of Taiko drums, flutes and cymbals. It was nice to see and hear but it was very loud since it was taking place inside a concrete building. Finally Violet looked at us and said "I'm ready to go because it's loud here. I want to get lunch because lunch is not loud in my mouth" We laughed and said we agreed!
Some other memories from our trip were
At breakfast every morning in the hotel she would tell the staff Good morning and thank you for the meal "Gochisosamadeshita!"
She loved the giant sting ray in the aquarium and named it Mama Ray. She loved pretending to be stuck inside the tunnel and we would all take turns being the one stuck. Then the unstuck ones would go out of the tunnel and say "I've got an idea!" Then we would run, skip, jump, swim or gallop to the stuck person.
She loved walking in the snow and was insisted that she was not cold. She wanted to be a grown up so badly.
On the train ride home we were drinking some water and she dropped her container. It rolled back and a woman 2 rows back caught it and unpromted, Violet walked over to retrieve it from her. She shouted out "arigatou!" and hugged the woman. I could tell that the woman was surprised (as was I)  but she smiled so wide! Then, on the next train, she made friends with the woman sitting next to us. They talked in Japanese at a level that was almost beyond my understanding. The woman gave her some chocolate covered apples (in an unopened package) and the were chatty the whole rest of the way. It was very cute. Violet didn't want the trip to end. I know she made some wonderful memories as did we. These pictures are not in correct order. Same as the previous post. But hopefully you can get a little taste of what our trip was like. These were all taking with our ipods so the quality might not be the greatest either.
ps It's going to be a lot of pics (scroll through if you like)

Here is Violet with the pigeons at the station. She chased them around saying "Hi Pidge!" She wanted to hold one.

New Year's Eve kiss for Daddy

she didn't want to stop running in the snow!

can I swim with you graceful turtles?

Dressing herself

So we went in to the store to buy mommy some socks. I forgot to pack enough for myself. While I was paying for them she brought up a purple lacy bra and underwear set up to the register and said "you should buy these mama! They are pretty!" Then Violet saw these and decided she wanted to buy one for mommy. Then she decided she wanted to buy one of these "dresses" for herself.

Dance party!

This was a neat display wear you could design your own mask with a touch screen and it projected it onto the paper mask.

One of her favorite parts of the aquarium was the drawing board.

Study time at the hotel. Violet is learning to read and spell with the Bob books (thank you Aunt Victoria) and then I found the Bob book app. Violet loves it!

Drawing a blowfish

Blowfish 1

Blowfish 2

Silly Daddy