Rylee is 5!

 Rylee had her birthday!  She is finally 5.  Sadly, it is several weeks too late for her to be in kindergarten, so that's disappointing.  But she's an awesome kid and she had a great birthday!

3 fun facts about Rylee:
1. Her favorite color is red.
2. Her favorite song is anything on the "Saturday's Warrior" soundtrack (although she most frequently is heard to sing the "Jimmy" song)
3. Her favorite food is scones and monkey bread.

Isn't she a cutie-patootie?!

She wanted a chocolate cake, with white frosting in the middle. And she picked out and put the candles on by herself. 

 Yummy yummy!

She was pleased with her loot as well.

Oh yes, we have Barbies at our house.  Lots of Barbies.

And some happy girls!

A Trip to the Daiso

Rylee and I set off on our very first solo trip outside the base walls today!  Granted, we were only making 1 turn, and I had been there before, but it was very exciting for me.  I found it all by myself and found my way back home all by myself, and I am feeling pretty pleased with myself!  Plus, I found lots of exciting purchases and that makes me happy as well.

Rylee is practicing her eyebrow-waggling at me.

Here it is!  The Daiso!  It is like the dollar store.  Everything inside is 108 yen.  With the exchange rate, that is like $1.03.  And they have the FUNNEST stuff.

Check this out.  And umbrella holder for your bike. 

The snack aisle is one of my favorites.  I haven't been adventurous enough to try stuff that gives no clue to what is inside though.  Maybe next time..... 

Bright colors!  Who doesn't love bright colors? Super cute kitchen items here. 

Don't you want this in your kitchen?! 

Rylee wanted a photo of her holding her candy choice. Adorbs! 

Some very interesting snacks. Care to try something new?

No thank you, I do not like almonds and fish together. 

This was my cute cart, full of goodies before we checked out.  Who knew you could end up running out of money before you ran out of things you suddenly need?!

Kintai Bridge

 Saturday we went out.  It was a bit of an adventure.  Dan wanted to go to the Famous Kintai Bridge, which we had been driven to on our Orientation the week before.  However, it was a tricky drive, since there were several turns and well, all the streets are in Japanese!  Fortunately, the main ones have numbers, and Dan was able to open a map on his iPad before we left, so even though he has no internet, he could still get us where we were going.  He did a good job and we only made one wrong turn on the way home.   It was a 15 minute drive and only the last part was hair-raising as it looked like a 1 way street but was really a very narrow 2 way!  Having only just gotten our van, I was a leeeeetle nervous driving on that one!  But we made it and enjoyed the beautiful bridge.

I think they must give boat rides in the summer, since there were several of these wooden boats there.  

It was nice to have the rules outlined in English.  

I would have loved an explanation of this! 

The bridge! I don't know why it is famous.  I only know it is in lots of pictures and is very pretty and you pay 200 yen to cross it.  We had no yen, so we meandered around it. 

I loved seeing these boats, but the photo isn't as pretty as real life. 

Must touch water. 

So lovely. 

We got to the base of the bridge where you could go all the way down and get wet. So the girls did just that. 

Callie said it was cold, but Marian said it was nice. 

Check out this guy's fishing pole!!!  It reached the top of the bridge! 

My sweet girl.  She was looking for fish. 

Yeah, they said they weren't going to get wet! 

I can't tell you how many times this happened.  And yep, she was soaked. 

Then she was sad. 

I love the architecture on these buildings. 

Me and the bridge. 

So cool!  I love that we get to see neat stuff!

Check out my new wheels!

 After 2 whole weeks of having to two-foot-shift to go places, we finally got a car!  Who-hoo!  We probably could have gotten one a little sooner, but we needed a van.  And we decided we wanted 8 seats.  That is hard to come by on the base.  So we found one off base.  It takes a week or so to get a car purchased off base.  The upside is that it should be in better condition.  Americans are only here for 3 years, so many don't care well for their cars, especially when you are only paying between $2000 and $4000 for it.  A car owned by Japanese should have a better history of being taken care of. We shall see if tis true!

Our new van is a Mitsubishi Delica.  It does seat 8 but has very little trunk space. We're hoping we won't need the trunk much and that it won't matter.  Dan and I did have a rousing game of "find the gas cap" which one cannot see until one opens the flap.  And it is located between the front and back passenger doors.

Here is my new van!

Notice the coolest part? 

Yep, the back of my van says "Space Gear"!! 

 And my steering wheel is on the other side, which means I have to be very careful to hit the blinkers and not the windshield wipers when I want to turn.

And 8 seats!  Hooray. 

Birthday Boy

 Someone had a birthday this week!  This kid is such a silly boy.  He won't let me take a serious picture, and he has to ham it up for everything.  He is growing into a delightful young man- when he isn't being a surly, grumpalump.  He requested a lemon cake for his birthday and it was yummy.  His sisters spoiled him.  Callie was bound and determined to get him a cool umbrella with the handle like a ninja sword.  So she used up all her allowance from most of the summer to buy it for him.  Marian was obsessed with getting him a waving kitty, and was busy looking for chores so she could earn money to buy it.

Joshua was well loved and I think he had an enjoyable birthday.