Well not really….    We’ve been back long enough that I’m finally starting to get rid of the jet lag a little, which means now I’m able to reflect a little bit better on our trip than I would have previously.  I can’t believe we were actually there for 2 weeks, to me it didnt feel like that at all.  Of course to my husband it probably felt like 2 months.  The fact that he doesnt speak English and I was the only one who spoke Japanese, with the american food and portions was pretty stressful on him.  Even when I made rice for him, supposed ‘Japanese’ rice mind you,  it was terrible.  The rice, even though newly bought, was obviously very old since when you ate it it just sucked the moisture right out of your mouth; my husband also pointed out to me that even though its sold as Japanee rice it was obviously mixed with some other varieties of rice as well since the grains were all diferent shapes and sizes…  The lack of decent rice was actually a lot harder on me than I expected it to be.  

We actually made pretty good timing in our decision to visit,  I didn’t know it when we booked the tickets but we showed up just in time for Easter.  I got to teach my husband the art of egg dying and Yosei got to take pics with the Easter Bunny, some of which were hilarious.

We took a 4 day road trip as well out to western/soutwestern Colorado to show my husband a lot of the cool scenery that you just dont get in Japan.  We made the rounds to Glenwood Springs, the Colorado National Monument, Mesa Verde, and the Great Sand Dunes.  Lots of time in the car but it was fun, especially since my husband is a sucker for scenery and taking photographs.

And now vacation slide time…

‘I find this giant bunny man to be very suspicious’

Yosei - King of Burgers

Family Photo in Citizens Park, Idaho Springs, Colorado  (a place a spent a great deal oftime during my high school years)

I guess first off I should say thanks to Sanriotown for featuring my blog.  It feels pretty nifty ^^

In other news we finally made it back to Japan.  My dear Yosei was actually pretty good this time around, and we were seated next to a little girl the same age as him.  They didn’t really make friends so much as stare and smile at each other and try to touch hands during the times they were awake.  Yos slept most of the time on the trip  which made it kind of nice (except for ther fact I was holding a boneless baby for a good duration of 12 hours, since my husband was too fidgety to hold him and not wake him up).  Even though we landed in Japan around 5:30 pm Friday  we actually didn’t make it home until 3:30 am Saturday.  The reason for this was my husband being dead tired and not able to drive very safely.  So first we stopped at a rest stop and napped about 20 mins.  We tried to get back on the the road after a nap and something hot to eat at the rest area (Japanese rest areas are very very nice btw)  but in the end we ended up stopping at a kenko land (public bath house).  Of course a kenko land isnt just a public bath,  the provide you with all nececities; towel, pajamas, shampoo, soap, hair brushes, lothion, hair dryers, etc.; they also have a couple restaurants, lots of comic books, and of course you can sleep there too.  They don’t have beds or even futons though,  they have recliners or you can take a couple blankets and sleep on the floor.  We took blankets and put them on the floor since there were 3 of us.  Yosei didn’t manage to sleep for too long, so in the interest of being able to go home sooner I sacrificed my sleep to go play with Yosei in a non-sleeping area while my husband slept.  We went and hung out in the baths a second time and afterwards hung out and ate ice cream together, yummm.  In the end we made it home, exhausted but safely so I suppose I couldn’t ask for anything better than that. 

Next post I suppose I’ll do some reporting on the America trip, but today I’ve got a lot of unpacking and grocery shopping to do

So in the meantime to hold you over here are some America trip pics…

Yosei and his Grandma. That’s my old high chair that he’s sitting in ^^

Meeting his great-grandma for the first time (his auntie made the super cool punk rock jacket he’s wearing for his birthday)

Easter Eggs~   This was my husband’s first Easter so we tough him how to decorate eggs.  In the pic  half of me,  my husband, my dad, and my little sis

So I”ve been gone for about 2 weeks on our first family vacation to America, and now its nearly come to an end since we return home on Thursday.  It’s been fun coming back to Colorado where I grew up seeing my family and friends.  Of course the best part is being able to show off my super cool husband  and my absolutely cuter than cute son.     Though my husband being super shy and not speaking English kinda put a damper on the introducing him to people thing (especially when I got into girly talk mode with old friends, he got kinda mad at me for that)

There was a huge blizzard over the weekend that we fortunately managed to escape with a mini road trip, but our return was delayed by over 3 feet of snow. 

Today was kinda fun, we went down to the tattoo parlour that my little sis works at (yup she’s a tattoo artist and piercer) and I got her to re-pierce my nose that I had to let close up once I started working in Japan.  But now that I’m stay at home mom-ing I figured why not have some fun.  My husband was gonna get his ear pierced till he saw me getting my nose down.  He kinda chickened out after that ;) 

Don’t have any pics at the moment but will post some of the more fun ones from our trip when we get back.

P.S. I don’t reccommend flying internationally with a 1 year old as a lap child, eating on the plane is a nightmare.  Also the fact that every time he touched the window shade the vibrations of the moving airplane would make him screech with joy.  While he was good most of the time, the occasional shrieks of joy are the reason many people would like to ban babies from airplanes ><

I really love the place where we live.  Our building overlooks a huge park and a river. How many people literally have a giant park for a backyard??

Anyhow, right now the cherry blossoms are blooming, and yup there’s quite a few in our ‘backyard’.  So on Friday I made up some ongiri and a bento and the three of us went for a picnic near the river  among the cherry blossoms.  It was a lot of fun, glad we got to do it before heading on our big America trip.  I really would have been sad if I had missed the cherry blossoms this year.  Anyhow some picnic pics for your enjoyment…

Yosei and Mommy in our ‘backyard’

Yummmm picnic