went to a hotel resort area called risonare designed by famous italian architect mario bellini. it is very modern and looked really cool. it has a little town with a main street with shops, huge indoor pool & spa, hotels, activity center etc. when we went, it was all lit up in halloween theme lighting and kids were walking around all dressed up!

happy halloween everyone!

we went to misogi shrine near second house. it's a pretty big and nice shrine than most of them around. it has lots of sectors and meaning to each building, they do certain events in certain ones (if you can read japanese, please look at the shrine map and descriptions). we went there towards the end of day so it was pretty cold and not many people were around.

flowers for lena, just 5 min. walk from the second house. they grow their own flowers in the field near by. also make lots of different kinds of dried flowers in the back, love the vivid colors!

called Gomphrena Globos, they come in white, red, light pink, purple. very cute circular flower (?), i don't think i've seen them back home, but i could be wrong...

looks kinda like a foxy-dog? her name is rose.

second house is located in a rural area so people do lots of farming around and my parents grow some veggies also. we can see mt. fuji from here when there's clear sky (i haven't got a chance to take a pic yet...), nice clean air, pretty scenery, you know all the good stuff you get to enjoy living in that kind of environment.

the water is so clean that people wash dishes sometimes in that little creek next to farming field. that's belle's her own little "dog house" when my parents are in the field working, and she knows to stay there, such a good girl!

we saw these crazy colorful fish at the pet shop, there's bunch of colors and different pattern on them. we asked how they got their interesting color, i guess some people color fish like that?!?! isn't that crazy?

we'll be here until tuesday at my parents second house in yatsugatake to relax, look around, and have my friend's over.

my parents dog, belle likes to be in the sun.

since our departure time got changed to 9 am, we got up at 4:30 and went to the SF airport, but our crazy plane situation wasn't the end today...here was quick list of what happened.

6:30 am arrive at SF airport, got in line for the ticket counter to re-check-in
7:30 am go to the gate, found out that plane is actually leaving @ 8:50 am, feeling lucky :)
8:20 am suppose to start pre-boarding but doesn't happen
8:40 am NW attendant announce that they are still working on the plane, more info in 30 min.
8:55 am change the pre-bording time to 9:00 am
9:15 am tell us that captain and mechanics are discussing if this plane should fly todday over the engine report from the maintenace
9:45 am announce that the this plane and all NW flights are cancelled today, we all pacnic!
10:30 am found out that only 60 people can ride JAL airline to go to tokyo today but suitcases are still in NW flight and not gonna have enough time to transfer suitcase to JAL flight
10:45 am i managed to put us on the list to take JAL to go to tokyo, yes finally...
11:20 am checked-in to JAL flight that leaves at 1:20 pm without any suitcases
11:25 am JAL attendant tell us that thiere might be a chance for us to get suitcases out of NW flight but we have to wait for a while to find out for more info
12:00 pm we went to go get our suitcases from baggage claim and re-check in to JAL flihgt
12:15 pm go thru the security for the 3rd time and go to the gate
1:00 pm pre-board to JAL flihgt to take off to tokyo
4:30 pm the next day arrive to narita airport!!!

i swear, this was the most crazy crazy plane situations like the movie or something and i never paniced that early in the morning before either. i hope this will never happen to us again, seriously! we were so happy when we finally arrived in tokyo.

when we were waiting around, kai was having fun pushing his stroller around at SF airport.

so we went and sat in the airplane to go to japan for about 1.5 hrs and they told us that there's leak in the right fuel tank and they need 8 hrs to fix the airplane, so that new departure time is 9 am the next day!?!?! so we came back home for the night and get to do that again tomorrow, great! the whole day is wasted and one less day to enjoy japan!! we were soooo mad...but i guess it's better plane crashing, huh? anyhoo, i thought i'll share that this is the stupid airplane that got delayed and screwed our schedule (when i was actually taking this picture, i was like"oh, this is kai's very first airplane" but forget that now)!

ok, we are leaving to go to japan tomorrow, so i might not be able to blog for a few days until we settle down a bit. just letting you know, but i'll try to update on our trip tho ;)

kai sits like that a lot, and see all those bruises on his legs? the number of bruises increased since he started walking around crazy in the house at the age of 9.5 months!

i saw this chair for the first time when i was on a walk with michelle few months ago. the chair says "our family rocks!" kinda cheesy, cute, and fun, no?

walking back home, it was only 6:30 but it was getting pretty dark already. i know it's gonna get even darker faster when the summer time ends and i'm not gonna like it! but the color and the contrail looks pretty in the sky tonight.

i've been starting to pack for japan on and off but i really need to start doing it now since we are leaving on tuesday. i know, i really have this many suitcases to pack, or bring i should say, so that we can bring lots of cool stuff back home (actually i have a big black duffle bag that is not in this picture too). yes, mr. kai's been "over seeing" what i do and making sure all the suitcase wheels work as smoothes as they should ;P

made scones this morning for breakfast (i was craving to eat one with my morning coffee). daniel wanted chocolate chips in them so i made those and some plain buttery ones for myself. i tried to make the "scone" shape but didn't turn out so well :P oh well, i'll do it better next time!

kai is another a month older today. seems like at this point, it is easier to make him stand than sit still...he started walking now so he is getting in trouble left and right. i guess i have to be really careful what i wish for ;P

cont. reading for old pics.

9 months

8 months

7 months

6 months

5 months

4 months

3 months

2 months

1 month

wow, how did he get that crazy hair-do today?

he is still waking up.

we decided to go to ikea and bought this storage box from the odda seris for kai's toy box (yes, we kinda got lazy and didn't make one on our own). it comes with casters but we decided not to put them for now since kai moves stuff around and could be dangerous. it is practical with an economical price compare to ones i wanted on the previous post. this will do for now ;)

i thought his face was just so cute + precious...pink rosy cheeks and sucking the bottom lip in as he naps this afternoon.

daniel brought home a pumpkin from work last night. having this orange pumpkin in the house makes it very "fall" feeling. it makes me think that halloween and holiday seasons are coming all over again (didn't we just have that not too long ago? geez, time flies!). this pumpkin is a bit funky tho, sits kinda slanted like the leaning tower of pissa!

i made kai play with it, he had a good time rolling the pumpkin on the floor :)

yes, cucumbers are still growing in the backyard. i picked 67 of them to be exact so far (my goal is to pick 100 but i don't think that will happen since the fall is coming now). i saw this wired circular looking one with what looks like a mouth (kinda looks like a spore creature?) at the bottom! isn't that a little creepy? i don't think we'll be eating this one for sure. ewwww...

made a baked cheese cake tart to bring to our neighbor's bbq we went today. this time, i got a deep tart baking pan (about 1.5" deep) so it looks better and totally looks like what my mom used to make for me! since it's a "tart" looks a lot better with those ridges than the last one i baked in the regular round cake pan (look at the last one on cont. reading).

tickle attack on the floor! we found out that he has 3 top teeth coming out, totally surprised!

another one of my weekly baking item. i thought it was gonna be cookie like treats but turned out to be cake-y kinda stuff. i also substituted 1 cup of sugar (out of 2 cups) to 1 cup of apple sauce to cut the sweetness and some calorie. i actually gave some to kai for snack (i picked the chocolate chips tho) and he liked it :) maybe i'll try to put some oatmeal next time and see...stay tuned!

+++ INGREDIENTS +++

1/2 cup butter or margarine
2 cups brown sugar (or substitute 1 cup apple sauce)
2 eggs
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

+++ HOW TO +++

1. place butter, brown sugar (apple sauce), eggs, and vanilla in a medium size bowl and mix.
2. add flour, baking powder, and salt. mix. when it's well mixed, add chocolate chips.
3. put dough into a 9x9 inch greased and floured pan. bake at 350F for 20 to 25 min. cool in pan, cut them up, and enjoy!

he was such a good boy today and played by himself for a while.