Christmas Movies

Here is a list of Christmas movies we have watched so far:

• Polar Express--wonderful animation, I highly recommend it for everyone with children to watch together with their kids! It was way better than I had thought, we all loved it, and it sparked my kids' hope that maybe Santa is real if we just believe.
• Santa Claus 2--We saw 1 a few years ago, and totally enjoyed this follow up, esp. the tooth fairy! And I decided to put the cloak that Mrs. Santa Claus wears to her wedding on my wish list.
• Christmas Carol (G.C.Scott)--We didn't make it through this one, wonderful story, dated filming, it didn't hold the kids' interest, they were all asleep within 10 minutes. We will give the Muppets version a try.
• Grinch the Movie and Grinch the animation--We watched the animation first, and the movie right after. I prefer the animation myself, but the kids love the movie. Unfortunately we made a mistake and rented the Japanese language version, and the kids were very disappointed, they like foreign movies in their proper language. But they still enjoyed the movie!

And here is our list of movies to watch--

• Elf--We saw this last year, totally fun and kid safe!
• Jingle all the way--Don't know if we'll get to it this year, but we want to!
• Surviving Christmas--Have no clue how this will go over, but we have it on our to-watch list.
• Jack Frost--We saw this last year too, a lot of fun!

And these movies I would like to see, but I know the kids will not enjoy them at all--

• White Christmas--What is Christmas without watching this classic!?
• Bishop's Wife (B/W version)-- I watched this every year as a child, and have only seen it once in the past 20 years. I'd love to see it again, Gregory Peck is one of my favorite B/W actors.

Merry Christmas all!

A few more pictures from USJ--Art and the kids in front of the USJ globe, Art and I in line for Terminator, Jason and Julia posing with some character I don't know, Me and Janni in a rare mother/daughter shot, and the kids talking with Lucy at Snoopy's pavillion.

Trinity

Here's a couple pictures of my first little niece, Trinity! We love you Trini! You're absolutely adorable!!

Phantom of the Opera

It's been a long time since I saw a movie that so moved me emotionally. Perhaps I'm just in an emotionally sensitive state, I don't know, but this movie got me. I saw it twice in 24 hours, and I could see it again. I need to get the book, I need to understand what is going on. Why is the phantom so taken by Christine, and does Christine actually have some feeling for him? Does he destroy it when he tries to force her love? But then he lets her go, what happens to him, and to Christine and Raul. We know they married, she lived to a good age, but does the book go into the emotions and the happenings deeper than the movie, or is the movie a romaticized version of the book? Like Man in the Iron Mask and Three Musketeers?

Favicon

For those of you who know what it is, I added a favicon in the address bar for my blog here. You'll see a small snowflake picture next to my URL, and I know if you use Mozilla Firefox, you can drag that icon down to the bar right under the address, and drop it there, then you can always fast-click to my blog--yeah!!

Me and the kids

Here I am with my little gang at USJ in front of a Christmas tree. We had a really wonderful time and plan to have many more throughout the year!

USJ

We decided to do something different for Christmas this year and give the kids a one-year pass to Universal Studios Japan. Here's the entrance to the park, all made-up for Christmas.

The Accident

Unfortunately, Jason and Julia's beanie babies had an accident and had to be wrapped up for safe-keeping, until Jacq got ahold of them and ripped off the bandages--savage beast!

Recent Finished Cross-stitch

This adorable Santa took me about 6 weeks to finish, I think. I haven't decided yet what to do with it, a cusion, or a bag, or framed on the wall. Any ideas would be wonderful.

Janni the Dancer

It was hard to get Janni in a pose, what is it with growing older and pictures, they don't really like to smile anymore.

The whole dance troupe

Here is the whole troupe, minus two. They put on a pretty fun show!

Some more of the dancer

A few more of Julia the dancer before her big show.

The Dancer

The girls had their first-ever dance show, here's Julia in costume before the performance.

A day at the park with our friends, Ken and Jo.

Jacq and Janni

Janina and the ever-growing Jacq, out for a day at the park.

Birthday Time

Here are Janni and Julia with their friend Emma for Emma's birthday party! Happy 11th Emma!

Smiley Boy

Just a joke. It's very hard to get Jason to smile for pictures, we usually end up with a scowl of some sort.

Posing Pretty

Here's Julia posing just for us, out at the local rice patties near our house.

Jason's thank you note

Here is Jason's thank you note to everyone who sent him a present for his birthday. He got himself a Pokemon card set, and an electronic kanji dictionary, which he is very happy with.

Halloween party

The girls went to a Halloween Party at our friend's church, here they are in costume with Emma, Janina's best friend!

We love you Jason

Jason and Mom.

Jason's birthday

We had a small party for Jason on the 10th. I realized after setting the cake in front of him that I had only put 9 candles on the cake--AND IT WAS HIS 10TH BIRTHDAY!! Poor guy. At least he didn't cry, he took it good naturedly!

Thank you to Papa, the Dollwet family, the Shibuya family, the Fukuyama family, Grandma Shuko, Auntie Windy and Mommy and Daddy for the neat presents! Jason cashed in with about $100, half of which went into savings, half of which went to a new game and a set of Pokemon cards, along with a remote control car, a stack of manga, and some stationary supplies.

dressing up for halloween

We stopped at Toys R Us again for a round of Halloween dress-up pictures. I love Art's yellow hair-do!

Out for the day

We went out after Sports Day to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (we LOVED it--except for the OopaLumpas). Here's Art and the kids at the mall.

Green Jacq

Jacq loved the pompoms from Janina's Sports Day dance, they kept her occupied for about an hour.

Julia Bully

Julia is Jacq's number 1 enemy, here she is terrorizing the poor thing.

Art and I

A very rare picture of Art and I, taken by Jason on Sports Day.

Children's Sports Day

Every October we have Undokai (sports meet) in Japan, every school, every grade, every child is involved in this. Fortunately this year, all our kids are at the same school, so we only had to spend one day watching, next year it will be at two different schools (Janni will be in Jr. High).

The little red girls are Julia and her schoolmates, they were dressed for their dance, and the rest of the girls are Janni's classmates. We couldn't catch Jason for this picture.

And here is Jacq reading a comic book with Julia. Jackq thinks she's human and can do whatever we do. She especially likes fried eggs and toast.

Here we are, three of us, taking a silly picture. Can you believe I'm related to these guys?

Time Traveler's Wife

I've spent the past 2 days listening to the audio version of The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. It's fascinating, I can't hardly stop myself. It's close to 20 hours long and I've already listening to 13 hours of the book. One day I'd like to get the hardback copy.

My Niece's Birthday

It's my niece Marylin's first birthday, and we want to wish her a most wonderful birthday and a big congratulations for making it through the year and let her know how happy we are to have her in our life and our hopes that one day we will meet and get to know each other. We love you Marylin!

I tried to upload a picture of her, but unfortunately it wouldn't upload. Maybe later!

Dragons

I have a thing for dragons, I think it has to do with the Inheritance Series by Christopher Paolini (Eragon, Eldest). For those of you who don't visit my webshots pictures, here's a recent cross-stitch project I completed over summer, I haven't framed it yet, or decided what to do with it, but it took me about a month, averaging less than an hour/day, and it was a free pattern from my favorite designer--Teresa Wentzler--she does some awesome work!!

Podcasting

My dad introduced me to podcasting and now I'm into it. You have to download the ipodder software, a very small application, and with it you can find 'podcasts' for news, music, fun, entertainment, sports..., download them into your computer or directly to your MP3, and listen to them. For me this is really ideal cause I'm on the trains and I like putting things on the MP3 player, and there are various news broadcasts you can download for listening. Yesterday I listened to an interesting interview with Chavez from Venezuela. To be honest, there's not a whole lot I remember, but something that did strike me is this:

The Cuban government's effort to give free medical services to the poor by training doctors from anywhere in the world in Cuba for free, and expecting only that they donate a few years of free service to the poor in return for their medical training.

From what I understand, Cuba actually has an excellent medical program, with excellent doctors, and they are more than willing to share that with the world, but the US refuses the help and most likely is scaring other countries off from taking advantage of it as well, which is really sad because SO many people in the world would benefit from cheap or free medical help. What's up with that anyway?

I also heard something about the US refusing to accept aid from other countries during Hurrican Katrina, when the help was readily available and even on its doorstep, but they turned the help away. What's up with that??

Some things I just don't get. Now, if I were king...

Growing Kids

I just realised that Janina is growing at a rate of about 1cm/month, she was 138.7 in April, in September she is 142.6, and she's gaining weight too. Soon she'll be taller than me, she just can't wait for it to happen!
Here we are in front of one of the beaches we wish we'd gotten to on our vacation--next year!

My youngest siblings

I spent a day with my 3 youngest siblings, we managed to get a picture of us together. (The dork looking away from the camera is Tim--pretending to be Napoleon Dynamite--admittedly, there is a very strong resemblence!)
from the shortest to the oldest:
Jerry (13--that's the most of a smile we could get)
Me (a bit pale in comparison!)
Timmy Dynamite (the best pose we got so far!)
Aimi (is it 15 or 16--I simply can't remember!)
Dad (the head of the clan)

Summer is over

Summer is finally over, fall is here, the kids are back to school and I am back to work. Life seems busier than ever and I hope I can figure out how to use Dreamweaver and make my 2nd ever web-page. I'm too lazy getting around to it, but I am determined!

Here's a picture of darling Jacq all dressed up (the kids could never do that now--she'd rebel and scratch the hell out of them!) and the kids in front of the hotel we stayed one night at in Ise.

My brothers

My little baby brothers are staying the night. Tim is 18 now, 6'7" and is pretty buff man, he was a skinny little shrimp last year, tall, but skinny. He's filled out quite nicely, I have a feeling he won't be lacking for girlfriends. He starts UCLA in September, and I am quite jealous, not really, I'm happy for him to get the chance and to get it so young. He'll be studying physics, how fascinating is that? I don't know if I have the brain for it, but I think it would be totally interesting.

Jerry is taller than me too, but I still am the big sister, hahaha! He does try to remind me that he's bigger, but it doesn't work, I still remind him I'm older and smarter, for now. Always will be older, but the smarter part is highly debatable. He delights in being outrageous, rebellious, stubborn, and is begging me to tell him where the body-piercing doctor is. He bought a piercer to pierce his chin, and tried to do it himself, but he thought it would hurt too much. The doctor I went to uses a local anesthesia. At first I said no, I wouldn't tell him, but believe me, he's gonna do this one way or another, so I said if he waits until the beginning of next summer vacation, I'll take him myself to get it done, then it can heal over vacation and he can take it out for school (his school doesn't allow body piercing like that). He hates it though, he's really trying to wear me down. But he's only 13 for goodness sake! I just wouldnt' want Janni to do anything like that until she's around 15. I hope he can wait one more year.

Catmares

Last night Jason stayed over at a friends, so I slept in with the girls. Problem is, I didn't tell the hubby that I wasn't going to be sleeping in bed with him that night, and he'd already gone to sleep when I made the choice. I slept great, no problem at all. Unfortunate for him though, he had a bit of a shock.

Next morning he tells me:
"Honey, I didn't know you weren't sleeping in the bed last night!"

"Ooops, sorry, yeah, I decided to sleep with the girls, why?"

"I woke up to something licking my leg and I thought it was you! When I turned around there was noone there!! I looked down and it was Jacq!! It scared the crap out of me!"

"Honey, what kind of dreamin' were you doin' last night?? When was the last time you ever woke up to me licking your legs??"

Jason the cross-stitcher

I never would have believed it, but Jason finally took a try at cross-stitching.

The kids have to do some summer craft project to take back to school, part of their stupid summer homework assignments! Anyway, I found some cute simple Nintendo character cross-stitch patterns, and Jason decided he wanted to try it out, and amazing enough, he has taken to it better than Janina! I basically showed him how to make the X and read the pattern, and that's about it. I wonder if he'll pick up a career in it, I kind of hope not.

Calories and kids

I don't think I ever gave calories a second thought until I was 36. I basically ate as I liked, and was fortunate enough to not have a problem with fat, though it is creeping in slowly these days.

I was more than suprised when we went to Costco the other day and the kids had the hot-dog with all you can drink soda. Jason came back to the table with his cup full of soda and asked me to guess what he got. I guessed coke, by the color, and he told me:
"Yep, but I got diet coke cause it has less calories!" And the kid is skinny as a bean-pole, not a touch of fat on the little guy! I laughed, not even I would choose diet Coke!

What is it with today's kids huh? Will they truly be healthier than we were?

This is a test

This is just a test post to see if the people who have joined my members list receive a notification of a new post. Let me know if you did, I can't understand how it works.
Erinn

Jack becomes Jacq

We found out that Jack is actually Jacq, short for Jacqueline. Wish we'd realised that he was actually she a few weeks ago when we were deciding on a name. Oh well, Jacq will have to suffice.

Our good friend Amy stopped by for a visit on her way through the area. It was so nice to see her and we miss you already!! One day we will make it to Hawaii for a vacation together!!

Fun jobs

The kids have gotten a number of fun and interesting jobs over the past couple of years, due to their bilingual and dual nationalities. Both Janina and Jason have done very short parts on a few television dramas, and most recently Jason got a regulary part on a short children's news program for a television station (channel 10 for those who live in kansai). He comes on the show about every 3 weeks. The show length is only 5 minutes total, but for that short amount of time it requires 2 half days of filming, and the pay is really crappy, so we consider it that we're getting paid for experience and learning.
Julia got her first modelling job last month for a popular clothing catalogue (Felissimo for those who know) and just got a second job for another catalogue (I still don't know the name).
Janina has done several voice recordings, including commercials, a book and a CD of children's songs.

So, that's one small fun thing about being a 'half' in Japan and knowing how to speak English.

Batman joins the team

As you can see, we had a fun day goofing around in Toys R Us.

The Force is with the Suzuki-LaMattery family

Oh yes! The force is with us--is that good or bad?

Mommy joins the dark-side

Star Wars--Darth Vader

The three Darth-J's














Hmmm, is Annakin or Darth Vader my favorite character, I don't know!

The Force is With Us

We made it Star Wars 3--Revenge of the Sith. I think the most exciting part for me was the moment Darth Vader took his first breath inside the suit, OH MY GOD!! How many years have I been waiting to understand the sad mystery behind the man in the suit. Is Star Wars and Sci-fi or a romance? I don't know yet, but this one was a very tortured love-story, and oooh, that emperor is EVIL man!! You have to respect evil to that extent, the mind that can work out such schemes. Of course it's mostly due to George Lucas, but nonetheless..
Poor Padame, the kids just couldn't understand how she could die of a broken-heart, made for an interesting discussion.
Yoda rocks man! Julia is in love with Yoda, she is trying to talk like him and bought some Yoda stationary, maybe I'll search out a Yoda cross-stitch pattern and make it for her. Funny kid!

Well, to be honest, I'm totally glad this movie had finally come out. It's been like 20 years too late. The story is told, the mysteries are answered, and I can't wait to see it again. Actually, tonight we're going to watch Star Wars 4, a New Hope. We prepared for number3 by watching 1 and 2 over the past 2 weeks, and then planned to see 3, and finish off with the last 3, so we can grasp the whole story.

The robots in this newest one were so awesome. I personally think it was one of the best of the whole series, although nothing can really compare to the first 3. And that evil robot guy- Grevious, I wonder if he wasn't sort of a pre-Darth Vader, cause he had a real heart inside of him, maybe he was originally a person that slowly got sliced up and replaced with parts?

OK, now to find some downloads and screensavers and wallpapers!!
Pictures will be coming!

Bomb Threat at school

Never a dull moment at the Hashiramoto Elementary School. The kids were all walked home today in groups after the 4th period due to a call the police received that there was a bomb planted somewhere on the school or nearby grounds. I do remember hearing several sirens in the neighborhood around 2:30 or so and wondered what they were. It turned out to be itazura denwa (prank call).

That's the 3rd time in a year that we've had some sort of violent threat to the school, the past 2 involving a knife-carrying man. But with the recent increase in violent crimes towards kids and schools, the police and teachers are taking nothing lightly. I wonder what we'd all do if one of the threats turned out to be real?

pictures of jack