We had a great weekend all planned out...Friday night we were going to get a sitter and go out to dinner for our anniversary. We had planned on going to a traditional Japanese restaurant where you take your shoes off at the door and wear wooden sandals into the restaurant and sit on pillows...on a side note there are bathroom sandals at the restrooms. So you switch out your sandals before entering the bathroom and then switch them back again...and should you forget to switch them you may hear the word...Gaijin. This means foreigner...but usually tends to be a bit derogatory, such as "stupid Gaijin"! Saturday we were going to head to Yokohoma(the next largest city north) and do some sightseeing/Chinatown with friends. However...mother nature had another plan...a typhoon(equivalent to the U.S. hurricane). So we had to cancel all of our exciting Japanese style adventures...and you will instead hear about our American style weekend.
Friday afternoon...Noah and I had a play date! I had met a mom at the park the Saturday before with her son that had just turned two. Noah and her son hit it off immediately and they played together almost the entire time. The mom and I started talking and found that we had a lot in common...and they also just moved here around the same time as us from VA. Just about everyone in their Navy careers is stationed in VA at some time or another...but it's always nice to run into some that just came from there...kinda like sharing that common bond of someone being from "home". We exchanged names and numbers and I promised that I would invite them over for a play date....as they live in an apartment and I have the yard and outdoor toys. We were to start feeling the wind/rain on Friday night from the typhoon and Zack was told that he may or may not be able to come home from work that day. The plan was that they were going to keep a second duty section on the ship(meaning the duty section scheduled for Friday and then plus a second one)...so that they could make adjustments to the ship if necessary so that it wouldn't receive damage from the storm. So I decided that it was a good day to call our new friends and invite them over. The boys had a blast...playing well together the entire time! Her son is about 6-7mths older than Noah...and they were just about on the same level. I should mention that when we go to the park or to play with other children. Noah will not play with younger children or children below him developmentally. It is not uncommon for him to be playing with children that are much much older than him. If they are willing to play with him then he puts in his best effort to keep up...but usually his playmates are around the age of 2-4ish years old. I had a great time getting to know the mom a lot better while the kids played. Zack came home during the play date to stay...because the storm had choose its direction and we were on the outskirts of its range. The rain ended the play date and the kids unhappily said goodbye to each other! After supper we went to the football field and watching some of the JV game...our school against another base school here in Japan. However...I'm pretty sure that these teams also play teams from outside the country...such as base schools from South Korea. They hop on plane to go to another country to play. Zack and I are going to look into this...as we know someone that couches for a base school in South Korea. We weren't able to stay for the varsity game because it was close to bedtime.
Sunday we played outside in the yard and after nap we went to the base pool. Noah had a great time playing and splashing. They have a fairly decently sized pool area that goes from 1ft to 3ft in depth. Noah could stand in the 2ft depth water but wanted to go farther..and we had to follow him around to make sure that he stayed within his limits. He understood his limits but he had no fear. He did go under a few times...but it didn't bother him. He enjoys testing his own personal limits and strengths and I think he was using this opportunity to do just that. We tried to put on a life jacket but the smallest one was rated for over his weight...so the jacket wouldn't let him touch his feet on the bottom of the pool. We stayed for a little over an hour and then it was time to head home, clean up, and cook supper. Noah is very sensitive to chlorine and Zack took him into the shower area at the pool...and then we also gave him a bath when we got home. He thankfully did not break out. We came home and did supper...Zack instructed me to relax on the couch and to stay out of the kitchen! A great husband. We then went on our evening walk. Along our walk in our neighborhood is a pretty decent sized steep hill. The land was cut away for the road and flattened for housing right next to hit...and this hill is what is left that connects it to the large mountain behind it. There is one side of the hill that faces the houses and the other sides face a road. The neighborhood children use flattened moving boxes to slid/fly down the hill right after a rain...but it can also be done on dry grass...that's how steep it is. Noah has tried each day on our walk to climb the hill...and on Sunday he succeeded in climbing it to the top...first walking, then bear crawling, and lastly just crawling on his hands and knees...but he was very excited and proud of himself for making it to the top. Zack would then sit on one of the flattened boxes and slid down with him. Our walk was put on hold so that the two of them could slid down the hill many many times! They both had a blast and Noah kept signing..."again, again"! On our way home we stopped and rented a few movies...one being "Rio". It's a kid's moving about birds...and there is a lot of music and dancing in the movie as well. We put in the movie for his wind down time...and we didn't realize our mistake until it was too late. Noah kept singing, dancing, and yelling..."bird, bird"! There was no winding down done until the movie was over...we should have known better than to put in a movie with birds! But it was a great movie and got Noah's approval too. Just maybe I'll be able to fill you in on our Japanese style weekend next week...we are running out of weekends before Zack leaves. But we may be able to fit in a train trip next weekend.
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