Noah's 7th Birthday Party

We celebrated Noah's 7th birthday at Chuck E. Cheese in Minnesota. Noah was lucky enough to have both sets of grandparents there! Also present were cousins Joey, Jaden, Travis, and Nick, and Aunt Nancy, and Shannon. As soon as we told him we would be in MN for his birthday, he requested Chuck E. Cheese as the location--he remembered it even though it had been two years since he had last been there! He had a great time, and so did Alex and Ian. It was Ian's first real experience at Chuck E Cheese's, and he was very excited!

More Minnesota pictures, Nov-Dec 2008

A few more pictures from our trip so far: The Amundsen side getting together to watch the Vikings play.

A Christmas event at the local YMCA--decorating cookies with Grandma and Grandpa.
Alex with Great Grandma Galzki on Thanksgiving.
Noah with Great Grandma Galzki.
Great Grandma Galzki with the Robert boys and second cousins the Larsons.

Pictures with Santa at Mall of America

We are two weeks into our family trip to Minnesota, and yesterday I picked up Christian's parents from the airport. They will be visiting Minnesota (what a cold month to visit!) for about 5 days. We went to the Mall of America after picking them up, and the boys had a great time. They went on some of the rides at the amusement park...unfortunately I had to ride a few with Ian, too--I don't think I'm cut out for kiddie rides anymore!
We also visited Santa. The boys have never really been into visiting Santa, but I figured I needed to get at least one picture with all of them in it, before they get too old!
We are enjoying spending time with family and friends here, the only thing missing is having Chris home for the holidays.

Japanese school annual bazaar and open house

Ian's class is the "ringo" class, or apple class. Ian is standing in front of his pizza that he made.

This is in Alex's classroom, the "kuma" or bear class. Alex's class had an ocean theme. Each class had large displays and the children's artwork to see.

A space theme in another classroom.

Alex standing in front of some of his art. His was the blue picture, with an octopus on top.

The school is actually pretty large--there are two classes of Ian's age (2 1/2+ year olds), 2 classes of 3-year olds, 3 classes of 4-year olds, and 3 classes of 5-year olds. The Japanese begin their school year on April 1st, so children must be the class year age by April 1st, or they are put in the younger class. Since Ian's birthday is April 9th, he missed the cutoff for the 3-year old class, so he is actually in the 2 1/2 year old class. Alex is also in the 4-year old class, even though he is already five, since he has a July birthday.

The bazaar is quite a huge event for the school--besides showcasing the children's work, the parents donate household items and baked goods to sell, and they turn the gym into a large cafeteria, selling things such as curry, yakisoba, ramen, popcorn, cotton candy, and hotdogs. It was very crowded, with lots of kids and parents. The also had a little game area and other activities for the kids in some of the classrooms. The donated baked goods are a huge money maker--I wrapped rice krispie bars in cellophane bags, and they were selling them for 150 yen each--or $1.50!

The boys had a great time, and it was fun to see all of their artwork!

Halloween 2008 in Misawa

Happy Halloween! My pirate, my motor cross driver (How great is that--Noah wanted to be the EXACT same thing he was last year!), and my little red power ranger.Here are the boys getting ready to go over to our friends' house (Thanks Carla and Keith!) for a Halloween dinner before trick or treating. The weather wasn't too cold, just a little windy, and lucky for us, it sprinkled for a few minutes around 5 pm, but stopped by 6 pm, and then it started raining again around 8:45 tonight. Perfect timing! If you haven't heard about trick or treating on base, it is crazy! The Japanese don't do trick or treating (for the most part, although I guess it is gaining a little popularity now), so all the Americans who live off base come on base, and the base also sponsors BUSLOADS of Japanese kids onto the base so they can experience and American halloween! And, we are also allowed to sponsor Japanese friends on base, so there are just a ton of people, both kids and adults. It really is quite a sight! I would say during the busiest half an hour, I easily gave out 100 pieces of candy. I didn't buy nearly as much as I did last year since Chris wasn't here to pass out candy, but I still ran out! The boys had a lot of fun, but it was so crazy that it was hard to keep track of the kids, and I didn't get nearly enough pictures as I had wanted to...but here is another pic of the boys with our friends, the Millers. Unfortunately, Noah Miller has his eyes closed!