Finally Pics of Our Home

Chase's Room and yes it is pink.

Master Bedroom and Bath(View of the Woods from our window)

Guest Bedroom and Hallway

My favorite part of the house. There are two types of Japanese toilets. They refer to this one as the western style. I will show you a picture later of the other style. But this toilet has a heated seat and different buttons to push to spray your bottom and you can adjust the water temperature of the spray. It is very cool. Although I am dreading that Chase will figure out the buttons and I will find him soaked. Especially since he loves to lift the toilet seat lid and throw things into it(wooden spoon and shower cap so far).

So the shower and bathtub are in the same room. And you can take the shower head on and off. It is actually a great shower, and our master is just like it. They have it this way so you can rinse off and get clean before entering the bathtub. But you have to be careful which way you turn the dial cause up turns on the shower head and down turns on the faucet. I had the my landlord in looking at the shower one day with me whose English isn't very good. But even she turned the knob the wrong way and soaked herself. She was flailing her arms and screaming and then started laughing. It was pretty funny, and Chase didn't know what to think.

Guest Bathroom

Kitchen and dining room and view from out our back windows. And apparently the Japanese think Americans are really tall cause our cabinets are so high I have to use a step stool in order to reach them.

Workout room and view from my treadmill.

Laundry Room and door going out to two car garage.

Family Room

So far all the Japanese homes have this type of entry. Because it is a must for everyone to take off their shoes before entering anyone's home. And we do have big shoe closets that you see to your left. Even the movers that brought all of our boxes and things into the house, took their shoes on and off every time they entered the house.

Everything is smaller in Japan. Everyone has these two dinky trash cans that fit one trash bag. But the trash guys do come twice a week and pick them up right from your house. I am waiting for the BX to stock some big size trash cans, which is what our American neighbors do since I guess we are just more of a trashy bunch. And our garage opens at a snail pace, you could read a book by the time it opens.

Front of our house

The Horse Park (Komakkoland)

After trying to go to the Horse Park on multiple attempts (and getting lost each time), we finally planned everything right. The Horse Park is in Towada City, in a large plot of land up in the hills. It has a large stable, huge fields, flowers, enormous playgrounds with lots of slides, and a couple of roller slides (see below). Here is Chase on his first horseback ride ever. The workers there were so nice and helpful.

Chase was a regular cowboy!

I couldn't make this up if I tried. For 200 yen ($2), they gave us the reigns to a mini-horse named Kirari and let us take her for a walk. When we asked them where we could take her, they said "wherever you want". It kind of felt like walking Brighton again, given the size of the horse. She was a sweet horse and so cute.

Bre and the mini-horse! Not sure what Chase is doing here.

Chase loved the Kirari. A little more on his level.

Roller Slide at the Horse Park

Here I am reading the instructions at the top of the roller slide (maybe not reading, but at least I could understand the pictures!)

View from the top. The roller slides went really fast and were so much fun.

Bre took Chase on his first roller slide ride. He looked a little petrified going down, but as soon as they stopped, he had a huge smile.

Carrot Time at the Horse Park

For 100 yen ($1), they give you a cup of carrots to feed the horses. Chase loved this (ok, so did Bre and I).

I am not sure this picture is going to do this horse justice, but trust me, this was the biggest horse I have ever seen (bigger than any Clydesdale I have seen). I could only imagine the Japanese emperor riding atop a horse like this He absolutely dwarfed all the other horses.

Playground Time at the Horse Park

Chase went down his first slide on his own...just the right size. He loved the playgrounds at the horse park.

If all goes well and we make it to Thailand in November, this won't be the last elephant ride for Chase.

The Trojan Horse Slide? Cole and Chase ready for a ride.

Bre's turn.

Chase is 13 Months

Chase finally made it in to the doctor this week for his one year checkup. So here our his stats for 13 months. He weighs 21.5 lbs (25th%) and is 30.5 inches long (50th%) and is head is 18.2 in (50th%). Chase saw Dr. Hollander who was really nice and he was amazed that Chase already had a swimmers build and couldn't get over his muscles. Cole was excited to hear that his boy already looked like an athlete. And the funny thing was we had just started the mom and me swim class that morning. And he was a stud. He had a perma grin on his face the whole time and was laughing, splashing, and kicking. His teacher Heroka wondered if we had already done a swim class cause she said he just looked so comfortable in the water and was just so happy.

Chase and I were playing tag, his new favorite game. He just gets so tickled when you sneak up behind him. I don't think anything is better in life than hearing him laugh.

He is excited that package is for him. Fall Clothes, Yea. And thanks Grammy for the super cute outfit he is wearing.

Chase loves to give hugs right now. It is the best. And he loves to hug his stuffed animals, especially this bear that I bought for him at Nitori (kind of like a bed, bath and beyond store in hachinohe). I also bought all of our curtains from there to block the sun that comes up at 4:30 in the morning. The store is only about 25 minutes from here, but Liz and I ended up taking the scenic route to get there and back a couple of weeks ago. And then we ended up taking 2 hours to get home. Needless to say we learned that you don't want to get lost in Japan, cause they don't have too many signs in English and good luck asking someone how to get home.
Glimpse of our front door and Chase still laughs to clap.
Got to love the shrimp color house we live in. And check out the forest that is to the side of our house. It is September and our grass is bright green.
He is so proud of his walking skills.

There was a photographer on base today taking professional Sepia shots. We got a couple cute pictures of Chase wearing a cabaret hat and holding a old school football to give the look of a 1930's shot. Will see how the pictures turn out.

Towadaka Lake Festival

I wish the zoom had worked a little better with this picture, but hopefully you get the gist. During the Labor Day Weekend we went to Towadaka Lake (about 1 1/2 hours from home) for another festival. Different regions/prefectures brought their floats, dancers, entertainers to one place for a grand parade. In this picture, these dancers had these poles with lanterns at the top. it kind of looked like a bunch of marshmallows being held over the fire. They would balance the poles on their chins, hands, and butts (as shown).
As is the case with every festival, the sounds of chanting "Yade, yade, yade" fills the air, mixed with the beating of drums and the playing of flutes. Behind this float are a bunch of guys with long sticks beating on these drums.
Towadaka Lake is known for their apples, and this was by far the best dessert I have had in Japan. It was a soft-serve apple ice cream. Needless to say, Chase loved it too. I couldn't keep his eyes off the ice cream. Even with his mom trying to get his attention, this was the best we could do.
Another large float. You can see all the men underneath carrying these floats down the street. Children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly all participate in these parades, from floats and dancing to flutes and drums. Our favorite dance was a reenactment of a fisherman catching a large fish. A bunch of dancers with fishing poles staged a huge fight with a fish before finally landing their catch. It was a lot of fun.
Whole fish on a stick. Don't knock it until you try it. So I assume this is some type of a lake trout. They basically catch these things, shove them on a stick, and roast them over a fire. My first bite was a little too adventurous and I caught a little bit too much of the fish's "insides". I had to pretend I was in a happy place while swallowing that one. After that, I stuck to the skin and fish meat and it was actually very good. I even gave Bre a taste and she agreed! She didn't get a bite with guts on it though!

End of Summer Sizzle

Here is Chase at the beach, about 10 minutes from our house. This was his first trip to the beach. I would say he liked it, but at this point, it appears he likes just about everything except getting his diaper changed. Chase is eating some teddy grahms and sand. Bre quickly learned that lunch on the beach with babies means that there will be sand in the food no matter how hard you try to prevent it from happening.
Here is Chase sporting "The Donald", also known as Donald Trump's haircut. He just got his first haircut this past week, which was quite nerve racking for Bre. He tends to get cement feet when the ground is uneven, but he is getting more adventurous every day.
This is a picture of the "Base Beach", which borders a large lake. They have water sports available and a nice little beach for barbecues and get togethers. They held an "End of Summer Sizzle" event, with music, food, and fires for s'mores and banana boats.
You can't tell here, but Chase loved the music at the Sizzle and would flail his arms around and dance. As you can see, "The Donald" haircut is a thing of the past.

Time for a haircut

Judging by these pics, you can see that it was finally time for Chase to get his first haircut. As you can see in the picture, it didn't go as well as planned. Bre actually had to leave early because she couldn't handle Chase crying and being so upset. We did our best to finish the job at home. Sutoka was the hairdresser who cut his hair. Bre tells me they were very nice. I guess Chase wasn't too thrilled with the experience.