Andrea's Rambling Notes - once from Japan, now from Canada

::Andrea's Rambling Notes - once from Japan, now from Canada::

My notes and my memories: sometimes about a mom - sometimes about a wife - sometimes about a woman - sometimes about our life

::Author::

Name::Andrea
From::Small city/town, B.C., Canada
I am a short girl from the west cost of BC, Canada and I am a proud Canadian. I went to Japan in 2000 because my Dad told me I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn't. He was right. I lived a good life found my husband from the other side of the world and have a beautiful daughter. Basically we lead a pretty normal life filled with normal ups and downs. We both come from different cultures: me Canadian, him Chinese. Living in Japan was a real eye opener about who I am and about the people I associate myself with. I lived and loved in Japan but the time to move on came upon us and in May of 2006 we left and moved to Canada: a huge move for us all. We are now trying to start up again, remodel our lives and create our future for our family. I now feel like a tourist in the country of my birth, my eyes see different and my life will be forever changed. This blog is my notes and observations of our life, our changes, our adventures and new beginnings. Welcome.
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::Recent Entries::

::Personal Links::

My Japanese Culture Teaching Notes

::My Family's Sites::

Alisha - a site set up by friends and family of my little sis

Phrax - my step-brother

Blue Mountain Stable

::Index::

An Index of past posts - the Japan Years

::Archives::

::Image Event Album::

My Image Event Photo Album

::My FlickR Photos::

www.flickr.com

::Tech Sites::

Tech2all

Blog Flak

::Extra Internet Info::

Canadian Atlas

National Geographic

Wikipedia

World TimesZones - please check this BEFORE calling me!

Currency Converter

eigoNavi - a pretty good language converter

The Samurai Appliance Repair Man - a funny repair site for N

::World News::

Generation Woman

Japan Times

Counter Punch

Japanese General Union - a must! read before working in Japan

::RSS Feed::

Blogarama

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Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Catching up for the last month

Hmm
Where to begin. We had a very busy August.
In July we got the very exciting news confirming the visit of two friends that we grew to love while in Japan – KELLY AND ABBY!!!! YAA!!! They left for New Zealand a few months before us left so it had been almost 2 years since we had seen them. I was excited and planed my whole vacation around their visit. They also spurred Li and me to pull out the credit card and get our basement room done.
YAA!!!
It took a long week and one full weekend to prime, paint and clean the main basement room but it looks amazing. I need to get a photo for you.
Honey Mustard Yellow with a bronze brown trim. I kid you not people – it looks great!!!
We love that room now and are always down there. It is so comfortable and family feeling. No glare. Love it.
We even washed the window for them. Hehehe
We had a wonderful visit that week and it was made doubly better by our amazing friend and well one of our bestest friends – JANET!!!! – drove all the way up from California in a 24 hour over night run to spend two nights with us and Kelly (Abby had flown back east by then to visit her parents) and totally cool Will. It was a brilliant Japan reunion. And we had so much fun it still makes me smile and cry all in the same breath.
I love all of them it was such a gift and blessing to see them all. We need to continue these reunions. What a blast!!!

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Then what happened umm, a little here and a little there. Brought Lil’Miss Ji to a Children’s Day at Kilby museum. She had a blast! Even played “hit the piñata” and smacked er good!

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Then it was leading into the craziness called Island 22 and our 20th Anniversary. Prep work for that was exhausting. I spent one day out there weed eating in the heat and every muscle in my body hurt after that for a whole week.
But we had an amazing event and I am starting to finally add the photos on the web site now. Check it out. I am proud – we had an exceptional event!

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THEN
On Saturday last weekend Lil’Miss Ji was invited to a birthday party. Going to the party I noticed a garage sale right around the corner but didn’t think too much about it. When we left the sale was finished and sitting on the front lawn was a three seat sofa and sofa chair. I stopped. They were clean, smell free and tear free AND the colouring wasn’t really that bad. They were worn but there was nothing wrong with them. I may have had paint on my basement walls but we were still sitting on the floor. I asked the ladies that were standing there how much they were:
“Free, we are moving and just need to get rid of the.”
Il’ll have a truck here in a few minutes!
Dad showed up with the truck and they fit through our stupidly narrow front door perfectly and fit into our basement PERFECT!!!
We went out and bought cheap oh slip covers to make them work a bit better in the basement but DAMN was that a lucky find!

THEN last weekend I dragged Li and Lil’Miss Ji to the Harrison Sand castles on Sunday and got to actually see the castle makers at work. VERY COOL!! We even arrived with enough time to vote. Awesome. I haven’t uploaded the photos yet but I will work on that tonight.
Maybe. Lol.

Oh and a Lil’Miss Ji update.
I cant call her Toddler as she really is a little miss. She is speaking in full sentences now, has figured out how to count all the way to eleven and likes to invite the entire neighbourhood over to “her” house to watch Dora and Diego.
She is a little social butterfly already and has been invited to two birthday parties already and had a blast at the both. And TALL!! The girl is going through a growth spirt right now that complete strangers are noticing. She is getting tall.