HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

It has been a LONG week but there have been some fun times on and off. We ended up staying with my in-laws for two days longer than planned and I was SOOO ready to come back home by the time we left yesterday morning!! On the 29th my SIL and BIL came to stay for the night. It was fun just hanging out with them as we never really have the chance normally. Aoi-chan is getting pretty big and is doing well. She laughs and smiles alot and Joey thinks she is very funny! We spent alot of time trying to stop him from stroking her head and putting his finger in her eye!!!

new Year was alot better this year than last year. Last year I was pregnant and tired and felt like I had to help but didn`t really know what to do and it felt like my SIL was trying to be DIL of the year with her hyper-energeticness and over-willingness to do stuff when all I wanted to do was curl up and sleep most of the time! This year was better. We were both busy with the babies and as Aoi-chan needs her more than Joey needs me at the moment I was able to help alot more without feeling inadequate. It also helped that this year my MIL decided not to invite her side of the family so it was just PIL and us which made for a quiet laid-back new year. We had shabu shabu on New Years Eve and all the traditional food on New Years Day. I really don`t like the traditional osechi but this year my MIL made a big pan of nimono which I love so it was all good! The good thing ahout SIL is that she is like me in that we both have food that we just don`t like! She doesn`t like most of the traditional food either so neither of us ate it and I didn`t have to feel like a weird foreigner! LOL! The other good thing was that MIL had ordered two great big crabs from Hokkaido and they were really yummy!!! I ate alot of crab over the three days that they lasted!!!

Because it was raining at midnight on New Year`s Eve, we waited until the next day to make the traditional visit to the local shrine. The shrine is within walking distance of my PIL`s house but it is pretty small and boring. If you go to bigger shrines there is more of a buzz and vendors along the street leading up to the shrine gate where you can buy food and other random things! Maybe one year we will spend New Year here and will be able to go to one of the bigger more fun shrines in the city!! On the 2nd I went to visit my home-stay family and had dinner with them. Their granddaughter turned 6 on the 2nd and she was dressed up in kimono because of the Japanese 7-5-3 ceremony. (which I will have to explain another day when my crazy son isn`t trying to clamber into my lap!!) She looked very cute!!

Joey was very taken with her, especially the sparkly bits in her hair! We came back to the city yesterday and I was glad to be back. SIL and BIL headed back to Kanagawa today so we stopped off at SIL`s home on Sakurajima on our way back to have lunch with her and her family. Her family are very cool and it is always nice to see them.

Today was another fun day as our friends came over with their son who was born two days before Joey. I only had two close Japanese girlfriends for a long time (I now have four, five if you include SIL) and all three of us had babies in the same week. Mihoko now lives down on Tokunoshima so we don`t get to meet very often so it was cool to get the babies together and see how they were doing!!! Souta is a couple of kilos lighter than Joey, even though he was slightly heavier when they were born! They had alot of fun playing together and it was cute to see them interacting as this is the first time I have seen Joey play with another baby rather than along side them!

They wore themselves out and fell asleep at the same time just as we were finishing lunch so we got to have some adult time!!

It was a really nice couple of hours! Below is a picture of Mihoko and I with our boys!! :-)

As a final aside as this post is getting WAY too long, Joey`s hand has healed nicely and he can now use both hands normally again!