Thursday, November 29, 2007

All You Can Eat Desert!

The kids had a day off from school on a Monday, so we went out together for all you can eat lunch nearby. It's pretty cheap, about 1,000 yen for adults and 780 yen for kids, you can stay and eat for 90 minutes, which is more than enough time to stuff yourself and let it rest until you feel like desert. Speaking of which, I sometimes feel like I'm paying for all-you-can-eat cotton candy and ice-cream. After about 10 minutes on the real food, the kids are off to the desert bar!
Here the family is lined up in front of the restaurant.

The cotton candy making machine..

..drink bar..

..ice-cream..

..cakes..

..sushi..
..salads..
..fresh meat and veggies for cooking..
..closer up..

..table grill for BBQing the food..

..dad busy at work cooking..

..a very full Jordan..

..girls on their way to stack up a plate..
..pre-fried foods..
I'm sure there was more food, but that was a lot to dig into!

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Meet Chester




My friends told me I was insane, and I have to admit, I think I've got a bit of an insanity gene running through my blood and DNA and all that. To add to our happy (and full) household, I threw in a dog!

Here's how it happened:
I'd been thinking of getting the kids a dog for a long time, but I got pregnant instead, so the dog got put on hold. Then I got to thinking, Jordan is at home alone most of the day, with me to play with, and I really don't want to be the one and only toy he has, so a dog would be ideal, maybe when he's about 2 or something.

I met a friend of mine on the road who has 5 small dogs, and asked her where she got them. We chatted and she said she could mention to the local pet store she visits that I am on the lookout for a dog. She said if I got one around 6 months old, it would be way cheap and have all its shots already. I said I was thinking next year sometime, when Jordan would be older and potty trained.

Two days later she calls me to say her shop had 2 dogs that hadn't been sold, and so the prices on them had dropped dramatically. Would I be interested? I said I'd go see them, but I really wasn't interested in buying a dog right now, a baby, starting work again, broke, you know, lots of good reasons.

So, I IMd my friend Renee to say "I'm going to look at a dog and I need someone to talk me out of buying it!" Big help she was! Once we got to the shop and met our Chester, she fell more in love with him than I. Jordan, he really could care less, he was more interested in the plant dirt, but oh well. We brought Chester home and he has been with us for a couple months now.

In case you're wondering, we gave Daddy the honor of naming him since it was a complete surprise, we decided it should be Daddy's dog, you know, forcing him to accept it?

See, I didn't really ask for permission. I sort of asked Art in the morning, "How mad would you be if I got a dog?" and he said, "Well, make sure it's a big one cause if you get a dog we're having hot dogs for dinner for a week!" and since he was so silly about it, i figured he wouldn't be too upset. But as the time came for daddy to get back from work, I sort of chickened out and hid in the bathroom with Jordan, you know, giving the baby a bath, and let the kids deal with daddy's fall-out. Honestly though, the shock of the dog overrid any anger, and after about half an hour daddy and doggy were friends.

Chester is a long-haired miniature chihuahua. He probably won't weight more than 2 kilos when an adult. I thought chihuahas were yappers, and they are, but Chester is a very quiet dog, we hardly hear a peep from him. He is also pretty well potty-trained, with the occasional accident, and honestly, he is adorable. But not as cute as Jordan!

Chester's favorite humping partner..

Favorite sun-spot..With his big sister Juli..
and his best friend Renee..
sleeping on the floor with Jo..so sweet..both of them..great friends..
in his new sweater, trying to get away with Jordan..enemy number one..must hide from Jordan..

Finally

I am finally starting to catch up. But to be fair, I sat down to do my blog on more than one occasion, and either I had a baby start screaming at me, a dog pee somewhere it shouldn't, or the stupid blogger site was having technical problems and after 20 minutes of hard work on an entry, it wouldn't upload anything. Frustrating to say the least, but here I am trying again!