Ashikaga Flower Park

 Friday as the children ended the school day they began their Winter Break. They were all excited for the break from school. Staying up a little late every night, sleeping in a little bit every morning. Playing with friends all day. Very little school work and holidays to celebrate.

Sunday the Christmas festivities began. Athena helped me make some holiday treats to give away. The children helped me hide some holiday themed rocks for rock hunters to find. Rock hunting almost died off a while but a few people still do it. It died off because too many people were keeping the great rocks and not replacing them. The only rocks still in circulation seemed to be the scribbled ones made by toddlers. And I am too busy to spend all of my time replenishing the nicely painted rocks.

 But a new member to the base discovered the Rock Hunting and was excited about it so I decided to make time for a holiday tribute.

 

In the evening we bundled up and walked some plates of goodies around to give to friends. We enjoyed seeing the festive lights on people's houses and in their yards as we walked. 

Before bed we watched some home movies from when Athena was a baby. So many things mommy had forgotten...like how Athena learned how to climb out of her high chair and would sit on the tray and refuse to sit in the seat itself. How she could climb onto and into everything even if you wondered how it was possible. How she would climb up onto the fireplace and into the rabbit cage if we had the rabbits out of it for any reason.
We discovered that Tiberias was so cute even when he was mad and difficult back then. I had recorded it on video to show him his actions because he saw things differently than they actually were and he did not believe his parents. So I would record it to play back for him.. He hated that though. And now that we watch it...it's so funny and cute. But back then it was frustrating.
Watching all of these home videos made the kids excited to have new home videos recorded of themselves.

I made a calendar schedule for the week of Christmas so spread out the fun and make sure the children at our house watch Christmas movies I want them to experience. Sunday the movie was The Nutcracker (the newer one).

Monday the kids played outside with friends all day. The day prior they had pretty much done the same thing. But Monday evening Sterling and I had a trip planned. A treat for the family.

I had seen amazing photos from a member of my PTO board where she had taken her family to an amazing lights park. It was the closest good light up park to us but it was almost 2 hours away. Winter Illumination at Ashikaga Flower Park.

I packed gloves, hats, coats, waters and snacks. We watched Frozen 2 on the drive up there. We stopped at McDonald's ten minutes out from our destination. We had tried McDonald's in Japan before. The food at that location was very Japanese. The patties were spongey and bazar with sauce that I didn't recognize. The fries and nuggets were "normal" though. Overall I did not like the food experience.

Athena has wished to go to McDonald's ever since and I always say "no." But, we gave it another try. The kids loooved being able to experience McDonald's again. And there wasn't even a play place...but they didn't care. They didn't even seem to notice.
The food we ordered was American! The patties were normal hamburger patties! I was so happy.
Ster ordered a small salad in his meal and it came with a Japanese tasting dressing. And we tried to ask for ketchup but received a different sauce in a red container. haha

We then went to the park, found a parking place near the front entrance even though it was a busy place. Yay! We bought our tickets and walked inside. Wear your mask and sanitize your hands.

The park was pretty big. It was gorgeous! There was a hill covered in lights and down below, where we were, flower gardens made of lights. Trees and structures, paths and benches, castles, walls, gazebos, boat, train and carriage. So many things decorated in lights! We felt blessed not to have to wait in long lines until...the castle. Athena wanted so much to go up onto the castle and have her picture taken. But there was a line. A half an hour wait. I tried to convince her she didn't want to stand and wait half an hour but she really wanted to. I convinced Sterling to deal with it and the boys had no choice. 

 

 The castle was beautiful and white. When we finally got to the castle it turned out Athena was too short. Sterling was down below to take our picture but he couldn't see Athena. I lifted her up but it was not easy. She's almost 7! We did our best. And when we went down from the castle it was easy to get a great shot of us in front of the castle, which looked much better than up on the castle. But Athena, didn't care. She wanted to the experience and the photo from up there. She doesn't know yet what it looks like:

 

 

Under the castle was a room of flowery walls and mirrors. It was a fun little room.

 

Sterling used a real camera to get all of our amazing photos. I used my phone and got poor quality videos. It was cold but we had fun anyway. We loved the light reflections in the water. Athena absolutely loved getting on her hands and knees to search for little fish in the water. And they were there.

 

When we left the park we were ready to warm up in the car and watch a movie. We had an amazing family time and nothing had gone wrong.
We watched most of the movie Home Alone after we made a quick stop for snacks at a corner 7eleven.
It was almost 10pm when we arrived home. We all slept well that night.

Tuesday at 1pm Santa Clause came through our neighborhood on a firetruck! And riding behind the truck was a PTO Christmas car tossing out toys and treats for the children. Who was in the front seat ? Tiffany.
Being PTO President here is how this event came about: A parent asked on Facebook if we could put together a Santa and Firetruck event. Because of social distancing and germ prevention we could not do a photo opp event in one location and have a huge group gather. I assigned one of my PTO board members to this task. She got the fire department (military) on board and they were happy to do it. Then we decided to use the leftover oriental trading co toys that we sold in our online holiday shop fundraiser, and some candies, to make this event more fun. We made festive signs to hang on the little car we drove in. Jessica, who was in charge of this event, drove her car with a Christmas tree atop. She blared festive music and brought her two oldest children to toss the candy. All in the car wore masks and the children tossing the candy wore gloves.

Santa stood on the firetruck and one of the firefighter's daughter (age 5) sat in the truck waving at everyone as well. It was super cute.
The children in our neighborhood had a great time. They loved seeing the firetruck then Santa on the firetruck (whom was played by my vice president's husband who was so happy to be Santa).
Then after they couldn't see Santa any longer they would notice our car and we would throw prizes to them and wave. That was a lot of fun.

 

Later that afternoon our family had Christmas games. We played bounce the mini tree bulbs on the table to try and land them in a big bowl game. That was a practicing and learning game. We played until everyone successfully made it into the bowl (without bouncing back out).

We played the suran wrap ball game. Where I wrapped prizes and treats inside a suran wrap ball I made. One person who unwrap the ball trying to get the prizes while the next in line rolls the dice trying to get a seven. As soon as a seven was rolled the person with the ball had to stop unwrapping and pass it on. We all played until the ball was unraveled then we traded prizes with each other.

 

After dinner the children watched Beauty and the Beast The Enchanted Christmas. We don't own it but it is on Disney Plus!
As we finished the movie we did some Christmas crafts. I pulled out leftovers crafts from last year (paper gingerbread people, Christmas cards and Christmas trees). As well as some plastic fish bowls and stones, jewels an foam dough for making fish.

Wednesday Sterling went to the BX and the post office in the morning. When he came home he had a surprise. He told me his secret. "I need your car and you need to go with me to the BX. I bought something large!" It was a trampoline!

This is huge! Why? #1 Ster has always been against trampolines. He thinks they are not safe.
#2 when we gets trampolines in stock at the store on base they sell out within 2 hours and they don't restock for maybe 6 months. So, you have to be in the right place at the right time to be able to get one here. They don't seem to sell them off base here in Japan.
I had given up on us getting one here because of the previous stated reasons.
But, Sterling wanted to spoil his family and he was there at the right place at the right time! I was so excited! Since it is Christmas Eve EVE we decided to wait one day before telling the kids and setting it up. It's suppose to be a nice warm day tomorrow so we can set up the trampoline.
The kids are going to flip out! They only have one friend with a trampoline that allows our kids to play with them on it...and that trampoline is no longer safe. It has no net and it breaking. It's so old and warn! Now, we will have a brand new trampoline! I can't believe it!!

For festivities on Christmas Eve EVE we played UNO as a family. We had Christmas storytime.The kids watched Home Alone 2 for the first time ever.