just a lazy sunday

Today we are  just bumming around.  Yesterday we went to Japan Day up at the high school.  It was fun.  My favorite part is the Thunder drumming.  I noticed that I couldn't help smiling during their performance.  Then I looked around and a lot of people watching were smiling.  It is just SO COOL.

I was able to do a little scrapbooking this week.  I hauled the kitchen table into the living room and spend about 7 hours scrapbooking.  (Not all at once though I made dinner.)  I got six pages done.  Not bad.  I had planned on making Wednesday my scrapbooking night but this week I am going to go try this Japanese punch art thing.  don't know much about it just that an 80 yr old Japanese man teaches it.  If i decide to take this hobby up I will probably move scrapbooking to Tuesday.  What a stressful life I lead huh?  LOL  I love this!  I have time for things I like to do, and time to try new things.  All while having a clean and tidy house and making dinner every night.   

I finished a book the other day,  Mine are Spectacular by Janice Kaplan and Lynn Schnurnberger.  I really liked it  and flew through it.  I started a new book yesterday, Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons.  I am only a few pages in, but I like it so far.   

 For those family members, Dave put in for his leave the other day.  He is second on the list so, we will be home for Christmas!  I am so excited.   We are planning a few days in Chicago for our anniversary.  So fun!  But mostly we are just looking forward to spending Christmas with our family.   

Well, tata for now    

getting ready for Spring Cleaning

So I have to tell you Dave and I were wasting our money.  We have a printer that we bought for thirty dollars and to replace the ink we spend 27 bucks for the black ink, and 29 for the color.  Which if you think about it seems really wrong.  Why do I spend twice the cost of the printer when I purchase ink?  So, today we looked at the prices of the ink and found that yep we do buy the most expensive ink they sell.  We decided to look at our options.  We found a scanner copier printer all in one for twenty dollars more than the ink I needed.  And from now on the ink will be 10 bucks less for each.  Well, anyways.  We are really excited to have a scanner.  I have been wanting to scan our wedding photos to send to put on a disc. 

Well, the reason I needed ink is because i found this really neat Spring Cleaning Checklist on womansday.com.  I am planning on tackling spring cleaning next week.    Anyways, for anyone looking for a really cool checklist be sure to check this one out.  http://www.womansday.com/article.asp?section_id=6&article_id=8674

made it!!

Hey all!!  I am back in Japan land.  Things worked out fine in Tokyo.  They let me in with no passport problems, so it was a huge relief.  Dave met me at the airport and we stayed the night in Tokyo at the Holiday Inn.  It was nice to sleep!! I was really tired from the plane ride. 

We took the bullet train home this morning.  It was nice having him to carry my bags.  Tokyo station is hectic to say the least, so it is traumatic if you are lugging around luggage.  LOL  We got home a few hours ago after stopping and doing a little food shopping.  Came hope to a loose dog in the house which was scary.  Dave has been keeping Wendy in the kitchen while he is gone at work and he left her in the kitchen when he left for Tokyo.  She made  an escape from the kitchen apparently, but luckily she didn't make a big mess.  She of course pooped and peed, but on the vinyl runner by the door so it made clean up easy.  Thank heavens we have that thing! The carpet would have been a big mess to clean up.  She didn't tear anything up.  I was kinda proud, first that she leapt over the 41/2 foot doggie gate , then she behaved herself.   Wendy seemed glad to see me.  She sniffed the Anna and Molly scent right  away and went crazy!  LOL

Well, I am going to post pics of Chicago and our train experience.  enjoy.  take care.

Thought I should blog before I forget what I have done...

I have  a little more than a week left of my trip but I thought I should blog now before I forget everything that I have done while here in Mich.  I had a little trouble getting thru  immigration in Detroit as you may have read in my previous blog.  I thought that was going to be the beginning of a horrible trip but it hasn't thankfully.  I spent the first few days just enjoying being in America again.  Amazed by commercial on TV,  overwhelmed by the huge grocery stores with so much new stuff Ive never heard of,  new cars on the road.  The first week I was here Melissa and I went to a scrapbooking crop in Lapeer.  We had such a great time and we got a lot of work done.  Melissa  finally got past crying and actually scrapbooked her pictures.  LOL  It was a little rough for her but I really think she is proud of the really pretty pages she has all finished.  I am proud too.   

The week after I got there Melissa and I went to get our haircut by some fancy foreign guy.  He was dramatic and went a little scissor happy on my hair.  I thought I would get used to my short new do but now I thoroughly despise it.  My hair grows fast though so hopefully in a couple months It wont be so damn short. 

I got to go to my mom's band concert the  first weekend I was in the states.  It was really fun .  I have always liked going to her concerts and have found over the years hearing about the concerts make me really homesick like missing a holiday homesick.  I had a really great time and Melissa also enjoyed the music I think. 

Melissa and I stayed busy visiting with Jennifer one afternoon, looking at her Colorado pictures.  My mom and Jim came over for dinner one evening and Jackie came over for supper too.  Everyone at my moms house was sick the first week I was in MI so I kinda stayed away for a bit until that cleared up. 

We went to Chicago  on Tuesday(mar 7).  We woke up early to ride the train from Lapeer to Chicago's union station.  It was fun and of course it was cheap.  Melissa and I walked around the station once trying to find the street we needed.  We ended up walking all of the way to our hotel.  It took us a while but the weather was nice and it was fun to walk around and see everything.  We checked into our hotel and didn't waste anytime, we headed straight for the navy pier.  The pier happen to be just down the street from our hotel.  We walked around a little and ate at the jazz restaurant there.  It was nice.   Melissa got a bag of Oprah's favorite gourmet popcorn, cheddar and caramel.  We went to our hotel changed and got a cab to Zanies Comedy Club.  It was really fun, there were four comedians.  The last comedian was the funniest.  I was laughing so hard my stomach hurt. 

After Zanies we went to BLUE Chicago a blues bar.  It was really COOL.  Live blues and a one drink min.  We sat there for awhile just enjoying the entertainment.  Their was one influenced Canadian that kept asking us to dance..... but what happens in Chicago stays in Chicago.  LOL    We walked home from the bar even though it was late.  Chicago despite the homeless seems very safe.  We were really pooped since  we had woke up that morning at 4 am to get ready for our 6am train. 

The second day of our trip we woke up and headed to a really cool place called Hot Tics.  They have half price show tickets the day of the performance.  We got tickets to Menopause the Musical.  We headed over to the theatre only to get a cab who didn't know how to get there!  He was lost for  30 minutes of our 45 minute ride.  He didn't charge us though.  We felt bad for the guy.  LOL  We ate at a little diner across the street from the Apollo  Theater.   We went to the 2 pm show and had a great time.  It was really fun.  We got a cab who knew his way on the way back to  the hotel.  LOL

We got a tip from our hotel to check out this place called   Howl at the Moon.  It is a dueling rock n' roll piano bar.  So we ate dinner at the Melting Pot (YUM YUM), and headed to the bar.  (Both the melting pot and Howling at the Moon were  really close to our hotel.)   It may have been the best part of our trip!  It was so fun, singing along to all of these requested songs.  Those two guys knew all of those songs it was crazy!  We spent a few hours there and headed back  to the hotel to turn in a little earlier than the night before!  LOL

We woke up a little earlier on  Thursday and decided we would do all of our sight seeing  during the day and catch a show in the evening.  So we walked up and down Michigan Ave.   We went to the American Girl store, the Orvis store,  Burberry, and a couple other places.  We went to the Hancock building and got lots of great pictures of the city from up there.  Then we headed over tot the Sears Tower to see what we could see from up even higher!  We rode the subway to downtown and walked the rest of the way to the Sears tower.   It was really cool.  

We walked around downtown a bit and walked to Greektown for lunch.  It was yummy we ate at a place called Athena's.    Afterward we took the subway back to  the magnificent mile area and walked around a bit longer.    We went to the  Uno's Pizza for dinner.  Unos is  where the Chicago deep dish was created.  It was good, more of an experience than  the best pizza ever. 

After Unos we headed over to the Briar Street Theatre to see the Blue Man Group.  What a trip that show is.  We had a really great time there and loved the ending with all of the toilet paper.   It was just such a cool show.

  We headed back to our hotel and turned in for the night.  We woke up the next morning and had to get ready to leave.  We went to the train station .  We had a little bit of time at Union Station so we tried a real Chicago Hot Dog.  LOL  That's what the hot dog stand claimed anyways.  LOL  It was a good dog and it was a great way to end our Chicago Trip.  

After we got back home I decided if I was going to see my family I needed to go stay at my mom's.  So that's it where I have been.  I went with my mom and dad(Jim) to my grandpa McNary's house to look through old pictures yesterday.  I am planning on making copies this week. 

I am going shopping with Ben today which should be fun.  Tomorrow is Jackie's 17th Birthday so we are going to dinner which will be  really cool.  We are going to great lakes crossing to the Japanese place there. 

Well, that is really it so far.  LOL  I know Dave has been working  a lot, and is hating keeping the house up on his own.  One day he told me he thinks taking care of Wendy must be all I do all day since she is driving him crazy.   He is working while she is home sleeping and when he gets home it is time for her to wake up and eat and play.  SO she has been a little bothersome to him.

That's it so tata for now.

My trip to Michigan so far

Well, I have been here for almost two weeks.  it is really nice to be in the States.  I wish Dave would have come though!!!!  I have been able to get a ton of scrapbooking done.  And spending time with Anna has been great! 

Melissa and I are going to Chicago tomorrow morning.  We are riding the train from Lapeer to Chicago and we are really excited.  Oprah will be on Spring Break so we wont get to seee her show.  Whatever, we are still going to have a lot of fun we are looking at dinner theaters in Chicago.  The murder mystery  gangster style sounds like fun.  I am sure I will take a lot of pictures but I will have to wait until I get home to post them because Melissa's Internet is so F-ing slow it makes me want to scream. 

Hope everyone is doing well. 

made it here... sorta

I arrived in Michigan yesterday.  Long traveling whipped me out.  I had a little trouble getting into America.  Had to be interrogated.  Cried a bit, wished I never left Japan.  LOL  But I am really glad to be in USA finally.  Ill write a little more about narrowly escaping a full body cavity search later. 

Packing day FINALLY!!!!

Well, it is finally packing day.   I will be leaving the day after tomorrow.  Tuesday I fly to Tokyo and spend the night.  On Wednesday I fly to Deeetroit.   I am just doing a bit of laundry so I can do my packing.  The house is clean but I may vacuum one last time.  I bought Dave a ton of easy meals to eat while I am gone.     I am really geeked about going to the USA.  I don't really have huge plans while I  am there I am just looking forward to being in America.   

Dave is fiddling with his car.  I am a little concerned because he he came in the house a little while ago with a part from his car that looked kinda important.  I hope he is planning on putting it back.   He has a four day weekend.  Thank you George Washington. LOL  He had Friday  off and has Monday off also.  you know now that I stay home  I have discovered that Dave gets a lot of days off.  A couple of weeks ago he had two snow days in one week after having Monday off for the Superbowl.  He is here a lot.   It is nice getting to see him and spend time with him.  That was the point of me quitting my job. 

Well, Ill post an entry in the US when I get home I always have crazy things happen to me while I am traveling, I am sure someone is going to barf or something.  The first thing I am going to do when I get home is go see Anna , but the second thing I do is teaching Melissa how to use her computer so she will be posting blogs and sharing pictures soon.  So be watching out for that.    Tata for now my friends catch you  when I am on the other side of the globe!