Hanami, Anyone?

*** I am still having trouble with posting to my blog, so maybe this time it will work?

I wrote this over two weeks ago:).

After a busy morning full of making big kids’ lunches, sending them out of the door, trying to do exercises with my “injured leg” (that’s a story for another time), running to three different stores, feeding Mark lunch, blowing bubbles outside for Mark, talking to friends, blowing more bubbles, playing Candyland three times (!!!) with Mark and entertaining him in various ways (see below)…

…I decided that we should have an out of the ordinary Family Night tonight (it’s Monday night). It was not even 2 o’clock and big kids were still at school, so I had plenty of time to prepare. I figured since Robert was leaving for California on Tuesday and will be missing the peak of cherry blossoms, we should have a Hanami on our own, although the flowers on cherry trees are just barely starting to open.  If you remember,  hanami is a party beneath the sakura during daytime or at night. The one at night is called “yozakura”. People set up huge tarps and reserve their picnic spots early in the day, then enjoy their food under the blooming trees.

I made some yummy Crispy Caribbean Wraps, broccoli, carrots and salad, packed it all up and headed over to the clinic to pick up Robert. This is what Robert looked like when he walked out of the hospital. 

Pretty military looking. I had never seen him wearing gear before, and the kids loved it!

We drove for 5 minutes to Chuo park outside the main gate. We also call it “Train Park” because it has an old steam engine as part of the play equipment.

Everyone loved dinner. Mark was our broccoli dinosaur.

Katya barely managed to eat one piece of broccoli (washing it down with lots of water as always, since it’s so gross, according to her-haha).

Alex had to be told to STOP eating broccoli because he had to share with everyone else in the family (that was after he ate two huge raw carrots in the car).

Swinging was fun except this was the only kind of picture I was getting of Alex the whole time I was asking him to look at me. Seriously…

Okay, that’s a better one—Alex pushing Mark on the swing.

Katya was just walking around being pretty (well, running around, to be exact, but it sounds funny to be “running around being pretty”).

And here is my Captain W. Happy that he is going on a week-long vacation to California (i.e. dental conference) tomorrow.

It was a beautiful evening. Still chilly but beautiful. Spring is definitely in the air. A couple more days and sakura will be in full bloom! I’ll make sure to take some pictures.

Staying up way too late tonight…..Have a great Monday! It’s almost Tuesday here.