Mother's Day 2014

On Saturday morning, Violet woke up and said, "Good Morning, mama! Happy Mother's Day! You can lay in bed and play your favorite game on your player while daddy and I make you breakfast in bed. You might not be familiar with that because you've never done it before. But just try it and you might like it!"

I had to work that morning so I asked for a rain check. 

While I was gone her and Daddy prepared lots of surprises. 

I felt showered in love! 

They made me a fancy omelet dinner, bought me a cake set, painted pictures, bought me flowers and Violet wrote and played a song for me on the piano. 

The next morning (Sunday) they made breakfast and then we took a trip to our new fish market and enjoyed the museum inside of it. 

After that we went for a fancy lunch at The Plaza Hotel. Wonderful family memories! 

Oh and she wanted to wear her Yukata all day! She's currently enjoying the book Suki's Kimono so she wanted to wear her cotton Kimono like Suki. ❤️

Healthy Eating

We've been so excited this past week as we finally found a place to buy kale. I've been experimenting with different recipes and found some ways to make fun meals with it. Here are some of our favorites.
Chicken, chia seed, carrot, asparagus and kale meatloaf cupcakes. Iced with guacamole and topped with a sweet potato.
Kale, basil and cheese omlets
Kale, kiwi, banana and mango smoothie
Kale, asparagus, garlic and cheese pizza

Violet really loved the cupcakes!

Beer Jell-O!

A Present from friends... very interesting!

Not Everything is Small Here

A big one from Yonesaki... near here.

School Lunch

Todays menu was "ika po po" (squid).... pretty rare actually...

"Somen" Lunch @Tono Church

Sayonara Party for Alison & Patricia (;_;)

It's the 4th of July in Japan! Seems like yesterday that Alison & Patricia came to our neck of Iwate... Recently our good friends the Ozawa's had a goodbye party for them....

We arm-wrestled. Why? Why not?

Many Beautiful Sundays in Tono

We really enjoy our Sundays in Tono. Here are some pictures and videos of some memories with our dear parents here in Japan, the Yoshidas.

Video: Car/Flowers/Dinner in About 1 minute

A short update...

Snickerdoodle Christmas Cookies

Hey everybody...I made this back in December but never got around to posting it. This is one of my favorite schools! The kids and the teachers are great! We had a great time making Snickerdoodles together.

Video & Pics: Christmas Eve in Tono

Some Pictures of Christmas Eve & Day

Video: Scallops for Dinner

Video: Steph's Bday Thank You Movie

Hey everybody, I made this little video to share some memories from my birthday weekend. Thank you everyone for making it so special! Hope you like it.
Also, you can see the inside of a really old traditional Japanese inn where we stayed. There are video clips of the fancy dinner and breakfast we had there too.

Shrimpy Got Featured

Our little Shrimpy got featured on a Japanese website called WiiTube...
If you like you can check it out here: Shrimpy on WiiTube
(And, to give shrimpy a good rating you have to click the balloon that has Japanese in it followed by an exclaimation point)

Video: Daichi's B-Day

Our good friends the Ozawa family invited us to celebrate their son's (Daichi) birthday. They are always so kind to us and we just thank our Lord for their friendship... I made this little video and uploaded it to Google Video. (To watch, press the play button in the lower left corner)

Thank you Ozawa family! We love you! Gabe & Steph

B-day Movie & Karaoke

Hey ya'll,
Gabe here,...
Just wanted to share some of my video goofery...
Our friend Alli recently had a birthday. Her husband Dan (a great guy) really worked hard to pull-off a big surprise party for her. I cobbled together this little short memory video for their blog with Windows Movie Maker and just wanted to share.
We really had a great time. Lot's of food, drinks and fellowship,...then, of course, KARAOKE!
In the movie you can see us in a "Karaoke box". Karaoke in Japan is pretty cool because you get a private room for your party...

Making "O-mochi" at Church

Last Sunday, our church made "O-mochi"...

To preview the videos click the below play button. Or, to watch all eight short videos (less than 2 minutes total) click here.




"What the heck is mochi??" Click here to find out.

Yamakake

Izakaya

Below is a video inside a Japanese "izakaya (居酒屋)" restaurant. We recently attended a welcome party fro a new teacher from the USA who came to our town. We had a great time...drinks and lots of delicious "snack" food.

Click here for an explaination of Japanese izakaya (居酒屋)

Onsen Trip

For our 3rd year anniversary trip we stayed at a Traditional Japanese Inn (Ryokan) which had an "Onsen (hot spring)". The town where we stayed is called "Hanamaki" and it is famous for onsens.

Above is the name of the hot spring hotel where we stayed. Below is the the "rotenburo (outdoor hot spring)" where we soaked about 4 or 5 times a day....




Tea House with foot bath:



Inside the tea house with foot bath(below):





Dinner:


Sashimi(raw fish) & other delicacies:


Dinner Video 1:


Dinner Video 2:


Dinner Video 3:


Inside our room:


A little Japanese television:


Breakfast:






A nearby hotel where we went for coffee:




Here is the website of the Ryokan where we stayed: Misuikan

Steph wrote a nice entry about onsens a year ago. To read it click the link and scroll down the page a little to "Onsen Mania"