Ice Skating in Yokohama

Sometime in the last month or so Ellie has gotten it into her head that she wanted to go ice skating; I think it was from reading "Angelina Ballerina Ice Skating" (or something like that). At any rate, she's been asking and asking, and we know that there is a small outdoor rink in nearby Yokohama. We thought about going during Christmas Break, but the girls were sick nearly the whole time.

Suiting up

Finally, this Saturday we were able to go. Eleanor was ecstatic. I was a little worried that she would get out there and be afraid that that would be the end of our adventure.  But she LOVED it! They had skates small enough for her (though not for Clara) that were double bladed, so balancing on them was much easier. And she even got to wear a helmet (she kind of loves wearing helmets). Ben took her around the first few times, hold her hands and helping her figure it out.

Clara standing on the ice admiring the twinkly lights.

 Then Ben sat out with Clara, who just enjoyed being out and about and admired by all the Japanese girls there. I took Ellie around and she was a riot!

She even started wanting to do it alone and she did pretty good, more or less walking on the ice. When Ben went back out with her she did a full lap all on her own.
We had great fun, that was almost spoiled by a miscalculation of Yen on my part, but miraculously I found another 1000Y in my bag (which is about $8, just as an FYI). Anyway, we completed the evening by getting dinner, at least for the girls, at a "kombini" or convenience store. They are everywhere in Japan! Ellie and Clara both thought it was the greatest treat. Sure made us feel like good parents instead of like a mom that can't count.

My girls are getting bigger

Eleanor is a Sunbeam and Clara and go to nursery now (hallelujah!). As Ellie reminds me, they are both "getting bigger and bigger everyday!"

Here are some funny things my girls have been up to lately.

Eleanor likes to practice writing her name on her chalkboard.

Clara likes to be my big helper.

Here she is helping make chili.

And they like to play in giant boxes we bring home.

Little Artists

I saw this idea on Pinterest and I thought it would be a perfect project for my girls.

I didn't take any in process pictures because I was "supervising" Clara, who has a tendency to color/paint anything but paper. But this was so much fun!

The set up was a little labor intensive. I put masking tape on the heavy paper in the form of their names. Getting the spacing right was tricky. And figuring out curvy letters. Admittedly, this would be easier with a short, angular name (like Lily or Ava, my new cute nieces!).  But the result was totally worth it.

 The girls love painting so I just let them at it (mostly). At first Eleanor just painted the tape because she is a little obsessed with spelling her name. Then I told her she needed to paint the white around it. It helped that Clara finished first and Ellie could see what was going on when I started pulling off her letters. That got Ellie super excited and she then become obsessed with filling in all the white spots.

The end result was fantastic! Eleanor was very proud and immediately wanted to hang it up on her door. I don't know where she got the idea, but she's been dying to hang up her name on her door.

First Dance Recital

Holy hysterical! When we got there Ellie freaked out at the idea of putting on her costume (which consisted of a carrot pinned on her leotard and two tufts of tulle pinned in her hair), and then just generally didn't want  to do it. But we found her friend Zohie, who held her hand so she walked out with her-sans costume. So the best way to spot her in the following pictures, and requisite video, is to look for the blondie without any pink in her hair.  They danced to some Japanese song the teacher referred to simply as "The bunny dance" and then Winter Wonderland. This was all at the bases' Festival of Trees celebration (at which our ward had a tree that I was in charge of and it turned out quite lovely if I do say so myself).
In the end, she really enjoyed herself. She loves going to her ballet class, even if she has a hard time focusing half the time. And she loves to come home and dance around the house.  She's my girl!

 Find the earless bunny

 

 

 

 

 

Now try and follow the earless bunny around the stage...

A Very Little Randomness

We have been busy being silly at our house. Here is the proof.

Silly with markers. Another reminder that silence always means trouble.

Silly fish poses

FISH!

Silly dress up

Awesome autumn leaves crowns...

...with silly faces.

Not so silly, but ridiculously awesome. Eleanor wrote her name all by herself.

Silly sleeping sweetheart

Big News

It's just an 11 week ultrasound (or is it 10?). But we've definitely got a wiggly one on the way. Expected opening date is June 12th, 2013. Which is the penultimate day of school. Ben says no big deal, he doesn't need to be there to hand out finals anyway. 
We're excited. I'll be more excited when I'm not nauseous anymore. Because it's constant. But it's all good, it just means the baby is growing, right...

Hakone

On Columbus day we threw the girls in the car right after breakfast and took a long, long drive (about 2 hours) along Sagami Harbour (read: the drive was gorgeous)
 The funniest thing were these barrier holders in a construction area. Only in Japan would they make a cute version of that.

Once we were in Hakone (which is a sort of national park/resort area), we first went to the Open Air Museum. It was pricey, but totally worth it. I loved that it was a real museum but still very kid friendly. So here is Ellie and Clara playing in their "Woods of Net" playground.

 This is what it looked like on the outside.

They had a large building dedicated to Picasso that both Ben and I were really excited to see but ended up being a bit disappointing. It had a lot of his pottery in it which was, well, uninspiring. But there were some fun things. I guess it didn't help that it was all curated in Japanese.

Here are a few more of the exhibits we liked.

This is Ellie being a triangle inside all the triangles.

 From the inside of the a large silo like structure that you could go up. I forgot the name...

And Ben in front of a giant buffalo. Because we love Wyoming.

And then we visited what Ellie called "the Ice." And  Ben called really cool tessalations.

I have no idea who is photo bombing back there...

 We had to drag Ellie away from this, but it was way past lunch time.
So we went and grabbed some lunch at a nearby cafe and then hopped on the train to go the the cablecar and ropeway that would take us up a mountain and over some very majestic valleys to Lake Ashi.

 Clara fell asleep waiting to ride on the ropeway. And when we went over the "Valley Greater Boiling" I got incredibly nauseous from the smell of sulfur. Side note: the Japanese people in the car with us kept saying how great it smelled, because it reminded them of an onsen. To me it wreaked of rotten eggs. Though it was really cool to see all the "volcanic" activity below us as fumes plumed from the valley.

That my friends is Mount Fuji from our ropeway car. Every time we take a picture of it we can never do it justice. It was so huge compared to the mountains we were in, which were not small. Huge I tell you, HUGE!
Then we arrived at Lake Ashi were it's apparently tradition to ride the "pirate ship" from one end to the other. So we did. Um...a little anti-climatic.

 It looks so cool you just know it's going to be fun!

But it's just a diesel smelling boat that gets you from one end of the lake to the other with lots of other people,

And this pirate captain who wishes for a better life in Disneyland. Well, Ellie loved it anyhow.

But by the end of this ride I was feeling so unwell that we decided to forgo going to the shrine on the edge of the lake, and took the bus back down to where we parked our car.

Despite my nausea and the lackluster pirate ship, we really did have a great time.

 

How could you not with these two cuties?