Houji-cha

Houji-cha, or roasted green tea, is a great Japanese alternative to black tea and a fantastic after-dinner tea. Highly recommended.

Anyway, we drink lots of it and Miki has learned how to prepare it for us. In fact, she has on a few occasions sampled the finished, brewed product.

Here she is measuring out a few cups for afternoon tea time.

Happy 3rd

Unfortunately the plans to celebrate Miki's 3rd birthday this past weekend were cancelled because she got sick. Runny nose, watery eyes, cough, all in all, she was a ball of misery for 3 days! Hopefully we'll be able to 'raincheck' the event and organize a belated party before we depart for Tokyo next month. Stay tuned...

In the meantime, as a family, we were able to have a small party at home. Miki had a cupcake, a helium-filled balloon that she absolutely loves and a few gifts from Nana & Grammy to open.

'Giddy Up!

The weather was beautiful today, albeit a bit chilly in the shade. Miki's good friend, Imogen, turned 5 years old today and to celebrate her mom and dad arranged for horse rides for all the young attendees.

And here we have Miki's first experience riding on a real horse.

Sold

Someone finally bought our car. I really do hate to part with it, it's been so reliable and good to us over the 7 years we've owned it. With 2 girls, however, I do realize that it was getting small. Needless to say, I'm absolutely thrilled that we don't have to deal with vehicles for at least 5 years! It's either train, bus, bicylce or by foot for us at least until 2014.

The house still has not rented although we did find a couple who are extremely interested. Keep your fingers crossed...

Miki & Sam are fine. Miki is 3 years old this Thursday. Ericka's been planning a small birthday party for her on Valentine's Day. Sam is starting to teethe (is that how you spell that?) and she is putting on the chunk, much to our satisfaction.

Nana, Aunt Heather, cousins Evann and Sully will be here on the 1st of March for a few days. We are looking forward to their visit.

It snowed here today. Very cold and blustery. I went home for lunch and started a fire in the woodstove for the girls. The snow did not stick and it has now turned to rain. Dreading the cold, wet pedal home this evening. Oh well, as the saying goes: "Suck it up!"

Over the weekend I purchased a new (low-flush) toilet and sink for our upstairs bathroom. A good friend is going to help me install those plus retro-fit banisters for our staircase; housing codes for stair railings have changed since the house was first built.

We saw Slumdog Millionaire over the weekend (thank you, Neil), a great movie. It has inspired me to seek out the book, I'm curious how much, if any, is based on real events/people.

Kimono

Miki has seen many photos of kimonos and a few of her books have characters in them who dress in a kimono. She has recently expressed interest in wearing one herself when we go to Japan. She talks about it quite a bit actually. Well, we are not 100% sure where this one came from, although I'm fairly confident that it was given to Miki a year or two ago by a visiting teacher. At the time it did not fit, obviously, so Ericka put it away knowing that one day she would grow into it.

Grow into it she did. Here she is dressed up for a fashion show. Or for an evening at the sumo stadium with green tea and sushi!

Eye 2 Eye

Ericka was goofing around with the camera...

Gift Wrapped

In Japan there is a deep-seated custom of gift giving and it is "expected" of us when we return in March to pay homage to all those who have helped us with this transition, and believe me, there are lots of friends and colleagues that we owe a hearty thank you to.

Last weekend Ericka and Miki decided to make their own gift wrap paper. Brilliant. E's got all these old sponges cut into various shapes, with a little bit of paint and some detailed instructions, Miki set to work stamping the wrapping paper.

Sam looked on.

Tick tock tick tock

I just about have our car sold and the house was looked at this evening by another potential renter. I'm not worried about the car, but this lack of a serious renter is starting to get to me. And now that it's February I feel like Captain Hook being stalked by the clock!

The Lowdown

Still plugging along...lots of paperwork to deal with and loose ends to "tie-up" in anticipation of this move to Japan in 2 short months (yikes!). Shall I share for you a smattering of the bits on our plates these days?

- we've been getting a crash course in international tax rules as observed by Canada for those residents who are not actually "residents" for a period of time. Lucky for us our tax accountant is patient and thorough.

- still trying to rent our house, 3 couples looked earlier this week but still no word. No news is good news, right?

- had to rent a P.O. Box at our downtown post office. They don't give those away, do they?

- trying to sell most of our furniture and such, plus of course my car.

- a plethora of bank-related transactions and that doesn't take into consideration all the stuff we have to deal with in regards to our mortgage and home equity...

- rented a 10x10 self-storage unit for 1 year, now I've got to start moving stuff into it...

- today went to Victoria with Miki to renew her Canadian passport.

- 2 days ago Ericka and I sent in our Canadian Citizenship applications. Our daughters are dual citizens, why not us?!

In the midst of all this hubub and controlled chaos, I realized I hadn't posted any recent photos of Sam.

818 square feet

Our new digs. A 2LKD (2 rooms, living-dining-kitchen) in Tokyo, Japan.

More Crest Apartment

A few detail shots of where we'll be moving to in March.

Thaw

Still here. Snow's melting, it's cold and blustery today; flurries are "in the air".

It's Friday, E picked up 2 recommended movies this afternoon. Miki had school at the bambini house this morning and then they went to the library. Looking forward to browsing thru her latest borrowings. Ever since the Christmas holiday Miki has taken a heightened interest in reading and her books. Characters, words and phrases surface in daily conversation and she's able to finish the last word or two from every page in almost every book! It's fun. And of course she gets to climb up on my lap in our reading chair in front of the woodstove and what papa doesn't truly enjoy that?

Can't believe there will soon be 2 clamoring for leg space!

Sam is getting her 1st immunization shots tomorrow morning. Yikes. So we've got that to look forward to this weekend. Sunday is a dinner party with another couple at our doula's home in Lantzville. In between will be lots of organizing and initial attempts at packing up for the move in March.

Have a nice weekend, everyone.

Kakizome

Literally, "first writing" (arigatou Flurina). Most would call it calligraphy.

In light of the upcoming move to Tokyo and all that is Japanese, we broke out a few language "teaching aids" this past holiday to begin the "brush up". (Neither of us could correctly transcribe Katakana this evening to save our lives!)

Miki wasn't all that keen until Ericka recently found her old script/writing practice kit: water-writeable paper that shows up either red or blue and a few brushes (fude). Now please understand, she was more smitten with the kit from a drawing standpoint rather than the stroke order practice it is intended for. Nonetheless, the professional language teacher inside of me is saying that it must be beneficial in some way, shape or form!

And yes, I do realize that in one of these photos Miki looks like she's somewhat gloating over the freshly killed owl, "bleeding" profusely on her paper.

Mac's Tees

For Christmas this year, Auntie Mac sent us all custom made t-shirts that she designed, stenciled and in some cases, hand-painted. Sam's is actually a onesie. They are awesome (I'm wearing mine now in fact! Thanks, Kirty) and here are a few photos of us modeling them.