Exactly!

Jenn from Maybe If You Just Relax totally nailed NaBloMoPo for me!  The exciting parts of my Friday was buying holiday soap at the commissary and taking the boys to their check ups.

(Although to be fair, these soaps smell ah-mazing!  I want to eat my hands after using the gingerbread one.)

(And bonus points to Hubby for noticing the new soaps when he got home from work.)

The boys are doing great.  They're a little on the chubby side (especially Owen who's 91st percentile for weight and only 15th for height) so we'll be cutting back on the juice and milk.  But they're cruising through their milestones and are perfectly healthy little troublemakers.

Isaac carb-loading for a long day of ornament snatching

The Christmas tree!

Behold!

We put the tree up on Black Friday (for my non-American readers, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving when Americans supposedly go apeshit over shopping for Christmas gifts - lining up for sales that start at midnight, pulling guns on people who cut in line, punching grandmothers in the face for the last Wii, whatevers).  Although I miss going out and cutting our own tree down, having it ready to go in a box has it's advantages too.

Note how there isn't decorations on the lower 3 feet of the tree and the topper is askew.  The boys haven't stopped "helping" with the decorations long enough for me to take a picture.  And they knocked the tree completely over today. At least it's plastic, all the ornaments are plastic, and no shoji screens were damaged in the process.

I'll try to get better pics when I finally get around to putting up the removed ornaments (so, maybe Christmas Eve?? Also, NaBloPoMo should really be in a month like April when there ain't jack going on.)

Our genkan

Welcome to our house!

Looking into our genkan

We have a Japanese style home, so the first room after the front door is called the genkan (玄関).  The genkan is an entryway where the transition from the unclean outside to the clean inside takes place.  Shoes are removed before entering the rest of the home and there's also a place for umbrellas, bags and jackets.  (I'm always surprised at how fast and elegantly Japanese people can remove their shoes!  Even people like the movers or handy men just seem to pop right out of their work shoes and right into the house.)

Getting used to taking shoes off at the front door was a little strange at first.  But after seeing how much cleaner our floors are, I'm definitely a fan of leaving our shoes and dirt in the genkan.  Now wearing shoes inside seems as weird as wearing them in bed.

Our 下駄箱 (getabako - shoe closet)

We aren't super strict about the genkan.  If a guest feels more comfortable wearing shoes, that's cool.  We don't usually wear slippers or socks in the house either (I can barely get my 3 year old to keep his pants on, I'm not going to fight him over socks).  And sometimes I'll cheat (there's no way I'm going to try putting my high heels on after getting into Spanx, bustier, and ball gown!)  But we generally try to stick with the tradition as much as possible and never allow shoes or slippers in the tatami room.

Definitely another part of Japanese life that I'll miss when we have to move.

Shaking off the turkey coma

We had a great holiday celebrating with friends!

Last year I made everything by hand, which was very stressful and frustrating (I was able to find a turkey small enough to fit in my tiny oven and our friends brought over a larger bird).  So this year to avoid all the fuss we ordered the small ham package from Tengan Castle.  The ham was good, but the side dishes (yams, stuffing, potatoes, ect) were disappointing.  Very bland.  For Christmas, I'll probably pick up a ham and turkey then make the side dishes and desserts at home.

This year we also had an early dinner at a friend's house and went to a dinner buffet at Camp Foster's Ocean Breeze club.  Although we had to wait about 20 minutes for a table and then stand in a long line for food, we'd definitely go back.  I was surprised how good everything was!  The glazed carrots, herb stuffing and turkey were delicious.

Best of all, I still managed to lose a pound this week (only 7 more until I work off my summer vacation indulgences). Ug.

Beautiful day at the beach

More pictures from our weird but beautiful day at the beach...

The boys playing by a "cave"

Hermit crab tracks

Loving the gorgeous weather!  Although I miss snow and going skiing, getting a tan in November is pretty awesome too.

Weird day at the beach

Not to sound like Cloverfield viral marketing, but there was some odd stuff at the beach today.

Started off just like any other trip to down to the beach.  Owen said there was a boat when we were parking. I thought he was referring to some of the small fishing boats out on the horizon we usually see.  But when I got out of the car I looked towards the ocean and woah! giant boat!!

We made our way down to the beach and this is what was waiting for us in the surf:

wtf

I'm thinking octopus or squid.  Could be a kraken or montauk monster or whatever the heck this thing is, though.  Pretty sure it was dead but I didn't get close enough to find out.

As the boys were playing, I noticed a vertebrae in the sand.  And then I found another, and then some sort of beak, and maybe a pelvis??

Vertebrae and beak?

Hmmmm, let's see.  First we see a boat off the coast when I haven't seen one before (maybe boats this size are out there all the time and we just happened to miss them).  Then the thing in the water (again, maybe sea animals of that size wash up all the time and we've just haven't seen it before).  And then bleached bones (maybe someone just ordered Chili's baby back ribs and had a lovely picnic on the beach).  That could all be simply one big coincident.  Or maybe all that Daiichi radiation caused a mutated creature with a taste for human flesh, the boat woke it up and it's lurking below the ocean surface preparing to attack.

If we do become monster fodder, I promise to film the entire ordeal (while shaking the camera as much as possible, of course).

Week 2: Remind me why am I doing this?

Sunday's long run was no bueno.  I was dehydrated (maybe finishing that bottle of wine Saturday night was a bad idea), I foolishly started my run at noon, and the last mile was a sweaty, profanity-laced slog.

But, as Chris so helpfully pointed out, it was only 4 miles not 10 or 16 or 20, the kids weren't screaming, I wasn't attacked by hornets, my legs weren't numb with pain, it wasn't snowing, it wasn't 100 degrees and 100% humidity, no screaming shins or angry ITBs, I didn't throw up or poop my pants, no bloody blisters, no chaffed ass crack, and not even close to an epically awful bonk.

So cheer up - it can always get worse!