Soccer Saturday

Saturday started soccer season!  Despite a Friday night family play date, which put the kids to bed pretty late, they were up early for their first soccer games of the season.

For two years, Jason has been going to soccer games, wearing hand-me-down uniforms, just to feel like part of the gang.  He finally gets his own uniform and his own game!

Looking at the schedule, we've got two kids playing many Saturdays at the same time on opposite ends of the school... and after Ben's game, I felt myself starting to lose my voice... it's gonna be a fun season!

"Tomorrow can be Friday"

Jason went back to preschool last Friday and though he wasn't super eager to start school again, he happily greeted his new teachers and had fun at school. 

To mark his first day back (and since we no longer have to rush to pick Ben up at 12:15pm), we went to Foster's Freeze for lunch.  I don't think I've had a meal here since high school and I forgot how much I enjoy the floats and fries!  I suggested to Jason that maybe we should go to Foster's every Friday to which he replied, "tomorrow can be Friday."

This week was the start of soccer practice for all three of the kids.  Even though it's still super hot at 5pm, everyone seemed to enjoy practice.  Only a few more weekends until our Saturday mornings will be spent on the sidelines cheering for these kiddos.

Clay's tradition is to have a Roller Towne outing at the beginning of the school year, so today Ben and Kara both laced up their skates and around the rink they went! 

Last year Ben kept his skates on for about five minutes.  This year he worked up a sweat and had a lot of fun doing it.

Kara also had fun skating and when taking this picture with Kiara, who has been her best friend since kindergarten, I was reminded of their first skate together three years ago and how fast time flies.

Just to add to the fun Friday, we had the Carrasco kids over after school.  The kids had fun and will definitely sleep well tonight!

After all the fun today, I'm sure they'll all want it to be Friday again tomorrow :)

Back to School...

Kara and Ben headed back to school today.  They were both excited to see their friends, most of whom we haven't seen all summer!

Even though Jason isn't going back to preschool until Friday, he wanted to take his backpack too.  The kids were all up early and ready to start the new school year.

 But... the start of school means there won't be as much time to swim...

Or travel to see the other creatures in the sea...

Or to play video games...

Or bury ourselves in the sand...

Or enjoy the water slides and sights at Legoland...

Or build sand castles and protect them with our sand walls and moats...

But we had a GREAT summer and we are so grateful for all of the fun times we had together.

Soccer season... here we come!

Fantastic Four!

Jason has been asking about his birthday for months and he would be so disappointed when we told him his birthday was still months away... But today Jason turned four!  Jason woke up and said, "it's my birthday!" and he even sang Happy Birthday to himself.

Jason's day started out with breakfast with some of his new friends.

When asked how he wanted to celebrate his birthday, Jason said he wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese (again) with some friends and then have a hamburger, fries and a soda.  Perfect!

Even Uncle Todd was able to join in on the celebration.  

Jason enjoyed all of the games. On our recent trip to Legoland, he discovered the Marvel Super Hero video game and fell in love.  He is a serious gamer.  He likes the driving games, the shooting games, the action games... he really does love it all.  So Chuck E. Cheese with some friends was the perfect way to spend his birthday.

In addition to video games, Jason has also developed a love of Super Heroes... He has his favorites (usually Iron Man, Captain American and Hulk) but today he said, "I'm Fantastic Four". 

Jason got a lot of new toys for his birthday and he even got two new video games (including the Marvel Super Heroes game he has been obsessed with) and when I asked him what was the best part of his birthday, he answered, "that everyone celebrated with me."  Definitely fantastic. 

Bake, Roast, Shave & Dance

Saturday was the Parlier Buddhist Church obon, which meant a very busy (and fun) couple of days.

Medaka no Gakko had a bake sale in conjunction with the obon, so the kids helped make sour cream apple pies along with carmel popcorn, arare and butter mochi.

The bake sale was a huge success!  Towards the end, Kara and her friends were wearing their yukata, walking through the tables of people asking if anyone still needed some dessert... and we sold out!  Who can say no to those little smiling faces? 

The kids all participated in dancing. I still remember carrying Jason in a baby bjorn and dancing with him our first year back in the valley.  How fast time flies!

Sho was a busy guy... He was the lead in taking care of the pulled pork for the bentos, which meant cutting, seasoning and getting 400 pounds of pork roasted and pulled apart for all of the dinners that were sold.  

And it's not obon without shave ice, so he switched gears and made (I'm guessing) about 170 people very happy. 

Our lazy summer days...

With Gakko behind us, I feel like summer vacation is really here!  We've been staying up later and the kids have finally taken to sleeping past 6:30am!  Life is good.

We made a quick trip to meet the Ishimatsu family at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  It had been a few years since we had visited and everyone loved the aquarium!

The kids were excited to see everything...

And the weather was a welcome change from our 100 degree heat!

The kids had a great time playing together and just hanging out.  Sho and I reminisced about how even before we had kids, we talked about taking them to Pajaro and how we'd just sit and watch them enjoy the sand and the ocean...

So it's wonderful to watch them enjoy simple things like building sand castles...

And drawing in the sand...

And  having fun with their shadows.

We are grateful for all the wonderful memories that Parajo provides us!  We will pack them in and savor them all, for soon, I know they'll want to go without us!

Sayonara to Medaka no Gakko...

Week 2 of Gakko was also a busy one... Our group split up and visited three local rest homes as part of a service project.  The kids introduced themselves in Japanese, presented a project they made and also sang the school song.  It was a nice outing and the residents really seemed to enjoy interacting with the kids.

Even Jason was comfortable to share his koi project with the residents and show them where he wrote his name, where the tape was and that this fish was for Boy's Day.

Thursday night was Open House where each class did their own thing... Kara and Ben's classes sang a few songs.  Jason's class introduced themselves and we were so proud of Jason that he introduced himself in Japanese and also introduced some of his friends who were too shy to step up to the microphone.

Saturday was the Undokai, where the kids split into two teams and competed in several events...

And though Ben wasn't feeling super well, he rallied and did a good job for his team.

Following Undokai, we decided to host a post-party at our house.  It was nice to have time where we could all just relax and enjoy each others company without having to discuss the plans for the next day.

I  know the kids loved their two weeks at Gakko... they had a lot of fun and enjoyed the time they got to spend with their cousins and friends. 

And now that Gakko is over... what do we do??  We don't have to wake up and be out of the house by 7:45!  So this morning, we pulled out the empty cardboard paper towel and toilet paper rolls... got the tape out and now everyone has their own custom-made light sabers!  Summer vacation is here!