The Cichowski Family

Going back home...

2012-02-04T22:05:00.000+09:00

Yep, that's CJ on the floor of the airport. Then there's me and Katie playing with the camera, trying to make the best of our time in the waiting room....because we're heading back to Japan!
One of my great friends, Laura, was having a baby shower that I DID NOT want to miss, so I decided to pack the kids up and get to Japan! I'm so thankful that there is a military flight available between Osan AB and Misawa AB and it's only about a two hour flight! All I have to do is sign us up in advance, show up on the day I want to fly out and hope, hope, hope there are seats available! Which, there were...thank goodness!
Then there's just the matter of where to stay, which worked out wonderfully this time! (at least for me, I won't speak for Laura!) Laura's husband isn't in Misawa at the moment, so she offered to let us stay with her during our time in Misawa and it's been great!


Laura, Katie and CJ enjoying fresh snow in Misawa

What a welcome we received too! I've been a tiny bit bummed that so far in Korea it's just been bitterly cold/windy with little snow, so I've really been looking forward to this trip for a while...and the day after we arrive Misawa gets an extra 19 INCHES of snow on top of what they already had waiting for us! It was beautiful! We've been playing in the snow, making snowmen, snow angels, sledding, having snowball fights and loving it!

The snow plow covering up our little snowman with our new sled hill!

While in Japan, we're trying our best to eat lots of great food, see lots of people we miss and just have a good time! Katie was able to have a sleep over with her friend Hannah Jane on Thursday. CJ also stayed for a bit so Laura and I would have a chance to go to one of my favorite Misawa restaurants. Unfortunately, they don't allow children, so Rick and Mary were kind enough to keep CJ for me. Thanks guys!!
Katie also had a sleepover with her friend Skyler last night! She has just been having a ball running into old friends and getting to have lots of playtime.
Last night, CJ also had his first sleepover! CJ was staying with Katie at her friend's house so I could attend a squadron event. I didn't originally plan to leave him all night, but after the meltdown he had when I dropped him off (for the second time in as many days,) my friend Joan and I decided it might be better to just let him stay the night since I would be dropping him off again the next morning for a baby shower we were going to. I'm sure that was a good decision...and THANKS SO MUCH Joan, for offering your home to BOTH of my kids last night!

Today was the baby shower that I've been looking forward to! A few of Laura's friends here in Misawa hosted a Mustache Bash Baby Shower and it was absolutely amazing! There were mustaches everywhere and the shower was a lot of fun. Great food, great friends and a great time. I'm so grateful that I was able to be here to share this day with my friend!! Happy Baby Shower, Laura!!

Jenny and Laura at the baby shower

Tomorrow will be a day filled with shopping! I have a list of things to buy for myself and some friends who also moved from Japan to Korea....and it's no short list! I'm so excited to get back to some of the stores I used to frequent during our time here and stock up! Then the kids and I will be heading back to Korea on Monday....hopefully...as long as there are seats available! :)

This is why Mommy says...

2012-01-26T14:23:00.000+09:00

R.I.P. my lovely Starbucks coffee cup that I just got for Christmas. I was so sad to have to say goodbye, but better you than my son's fingers.

Yep. I tell them all the time, "don't lean on the elevator door." "Don't touch the door!" "Yeah, you! Get your hands OFF the door!"

But, as I looked away and took the first sip of that perfectly blended coffee he put his hands on it anyway. Then, the next thing I knew, my cup was laying spilled and broken on the floor and I was pulling his fingers out of the teeny-tiny space in the elevator door.

It was horrible. The door wouldn't open and I was afraid I was going to pull his little fingers off if I pulled any harder to get his hand out. Katie was screaming. Full-on movie style. I glanced back at her for a second to see her screaming with her hands to her face and her little feet stomping. That's how I felt too, but I couldn't leave CJ with his hand stuck in the door. I was finally able to free his little fingers. Then I had to go back home to get a towel to clean up the big mess of coffee on the floor.

We finally get fixed up, get back on the elevator to go up three floors to a friend's house and the elevator doors only open about three inches. Seriously? So we go down one floor and walk up one flight of stairs to get where we started to go about half an hour before.

Luckily, CJ was fine. Favoring his hand a bit, but fine. We stay at our friend's house for a while to finalize some things for the Fiendette Show we'll be hosting in a couple of weeks (hopefully some amazing pictures will be shared soon after that and I can explain then...) We say goodbye and head to the elevators again and CJ pulls his hurt little hand to his chest and yells, "OUCH!" Yes, baby, it will hurt you if you don't listen to Mommy.

Run-down on the last 9 months

2012-01-25T18:07:00.000+09:00

Hi. My name is Jenny and it's been 9 months since my last "real" blog post.
And what a "Three Quarters of a Year" it has been!

May 2011-DADDY'S HOME! This may explain why my efforts to blog more last time failed. After Daddy got home from his deployment (nearly 8 MONTHS! ugh) the whirlwind began! CJ also turned ONE this month!

This was taken at around 4am. The SECOND time we went up to the hanger in the middle of the night to meet Daddy. The perfect ending to the longest deployment in the history of the world. (Please take no offense if you've actually experienced a longer deployment. This is just the way I felt about it!)

June 2011-Celebrating the end of the MOSC Board Year. This was a really great experience. I volunteered to be the Administrative Treasurer for the Misawa Officers' Spouses' Club. The timing probably wasn't the best (the board year started just days after CJ was born and shortly before Trevor deployed for 8 months.) But the experience was invaluable. Not always an easy job but it was great and I had great friends helping me along the way.

July 2011-Katie's last day at Misawa Daiichi Youchien. Katie started at this school when she was only 20 months old in Hiyoko Gumi, the Little Chick class. She had such a wonderful time, learned so much and was involved in many Japanese activities that made our time in Misawa that much more special.

Katie and Junko Sensei

August 2011- We said goodbye to the only home Katie remembers and the only one CJ has had. We said "see you later" to all the wonderful friends we made, because we KNOW we'll be seeing them again in the future....some of them very soon since the kids and I will be visiting Misawa, Japan next week!

Jenny, CJ, Meg, Cassidy, Katie, Mary and Hannah Jane having out last picnic together at the Air Plane Museum

September 2011- We visit Washington D. C. and Texas! Trevor had to do a TDY en route to Korea, so we had the chance to see family along the way! First, we flew into D.C. and were able to stay with Trevor's parents for nearly two weeks before Trevor had to leave for a school in Alabama. The kids and I stayed a bit longer, then hopped a flight to Texas to visit my family.

Trevor and Jenny at the Washington Monument. It was post-earthquake, so we were unable to get any closer.

The kids while visiting Texas. This is actually in Oklahoma while visiting the buffalo!

October 2011-Halloween on the ROK! We arrived in Korea mid-October and stayed in a TLF FOREVER, it seemed. The kids had a blast trick-or-treating with friends and had their first 'apartment living trick-or-treating' experience. Not quite the same as trudging door-to-door in the snow! :) We were also able to sign for the home we're now living in at the end of October. We're living in a tower on Osan AB on the 5th floor and trying not to stomp on the floor too much.

November 2011-Our first trip to Seoul, South Korea! This was such a good time! We hopped a train with our good friends, the Youngs, and headed for a festival in the city. The Youngs have two daughters who are just about our kiddos' ages and make the perfect traveling companions! We were able to walk along the river and check out the lantern festival where they had stationary floats similar to those at the Nebuta Festival in Aomori, Japan, but on a much smaller scale.

Seoul Lantern Festival

December 2011-The Nutcracker! Katie and I, along with my friend Anna and her daughter Clara, drove into Seoul to see our first ballet! Katie was so excited and had a really great time...aside from during intermission when she exclaimed, "I miss my brother!" It was really sweet! :) After the ballet, we managed to find a TGIFridays for dinner! I know most of you are cringing at the thought of Friday's after the ballet....but those of you who have been overseas for a few years know what was going through our minds when we found it!

Katie and The Nutcracker

January 2012-Katie's 5!!! Yep, our sweet baby girl is now five years old. I can't believe it's been five years already! Things have been a little crazy since arriving on the ROK and the holidays were nuts, so we just invited a couple of friends over (good friends from Misawa! Who also happen to be stationed at Osan now, too!) We enjoyed a little pizza and cake and lots of fun playtime!

Well, that about wraps up the time since my last post, and, hopefully, I can keep up with this and not have to post quite so much at a time!

Blogging..AAAHHHH!!!

2012-01-25T15:21:00.000+09:00

I love blogs.
Food blogs, bento blogs, craft blogs, travel blogs, random blogs I accidentally find while googling something really random.
But I especially love my friends' blogs!
Sometimes it feels a little "stalker-ish," but, even if I only live in the tower next door, I enjoy reading my friends' blogs. And....I admit....sometimes, when I'm alone at night and the kids are asleep, I get a little bummed out that there isn't anything new to read when you haven't posted in a few days. :)
With that said....I'm going to try again...TRY...to post more regularly. Because I can't very well insist that you post fun, entertaining things for me to read if I don't at least TRY to keep up with my own blog.

New Year's Resolution?
Maybe.
I'm just getting a late start.

Hirosaki Castle - Our 4th Spring!

2011-04-29T22:05:00.000+09:00

We woke up today to incredible weather with lots of sunshine, so I decided to load the kids up and head to Hirosaki Castle to check out all the cherry blossoms! We originally had plans to go with friends on Sunday, but I couldn't pass up a trip with the weather like this after so many days of rain...then, when I checked the forecast and saw rain all weekend, I knew this was a good decision! I felt a little bad at first because I would have to take Katie out of school today to go, but I decided it was a great "cultural field trip" and totally worth it...come to find out (and I didn't realize this until after our trip today) today is a Japanese holiday and Katie didn't have school anyway! No wonder the secretary wasn't answering the phone at school!! :)

Getting ready to walk around the grounds at Hirosaki Castle

Luckily, my friend Mary (who I was supposed to go with on Sunday) saw an email I sent this morning begging for directions to Hirosaki (the only ones I had are quite safe on the laptop that crashed recently...) and decided to hurriedly get her kids in the car and join us! I ended up following her to our destination and she lead us to the best parking spot EVER! It's right next to a beautiful park that I didn't even know existed until today. There's a huge pond with Koi fish, a beautiful red bridge in front of a big waterfall, and flowers just waiting to bloom everywhere (it will be even more beautiful here in the next couple of weeks.) We may have to go back again very soon and take more pictures like two below...can you imagine what these would look like with all those tulips in bloom?!

After checking out that hidden gem, we walked over to Hirosaki Castle.

We've seen the "insert your nugget here" photo ops here before, but this is the first time I've seen one for the WHOLE family! Too bad Daddy wasn't with us for this one, but the kids look cute!

It's been kind of a rough couple of days here...too much missing Daddy! It kind of carried over to our trip today. It was quite difficult to get smiles!

Poor CJ...being stuck in the stroller doesn't allow for very many photo opportunities! He was able to roam around a bit while we were having our lunch! And, as you can see below, he finally realized that if he looked up while in his stroller he could see me! :)

While the weather was beautiful, it was still quite windy. We didn't really notice the wind though, until we sat down in an open area for lunch. The ladies pictured below nearly blew away while trying to put their tarp down!

The blossoms were beautiful and I always enjoy going to Hirosaki Castle. I'm so glad Trevor was extended here and we are able to spend one more Spring and Summer in Japan. ....and I was able to capture a few smiles, we DID have a good time! :)

While there were quite a few trees that had blossoms, there were still many that hadn't bloomed yet....so there will probably be another installment of "Hirosaki Castle" ...if we can manage to get Trevor back home soon!

Sakura Yabusame April 24, 2011

2011-04-25T21:33:00.000+09:00

Happy Easter!
Holidays just aren't the same without Daddy around, so we've decided that it's much easier on everyone when we do something completely different than we would normally do...like take in a Japanese Archery Festival on Easter Sunday! So I packed a lunch, piled the kids in the car, met up with some friends and headed to Towada to check out the Sakura Yabusame.
At this festival, we watched Japanese women and girls in amazing 'costume' galloping fast down a lane shooting arrows at targets along the way. It's all beautiful. The horses, the riding gear the ladies wear, the bright red umbrella that is opened to show a hit target.

When we arrived at the festival, we happened to walk up to the end of the lane where the riders gathered after their run. The ladies were nice enough to let the kids pet the horses and take pictures.

Katie even got to dress up like a Samurai and ride a pony!

CJ...was not impressed with the Samurai.

Unfortunately, it's been raining quite a bit the last few days and the grounds at the festival were pretty muddy. There were plenty of places to walk though that weren't covered with many inches of water....however, Katie prefers to make a splash.

We thought this little girl was just adorable in her outfit. She was even cuter on her little pony!

After the competition was over, all the riders and horses lined up for photos.

Definitely a memorable Easter. I can't believe we've been here for three and a half years and this is the first time we've made it to this festival!

The Art of Karaoke

2011-04-25T20:16:00.004+09:00

Oh karaoke, how I'm going to miss you when I'm gone! I don't know if Koreans do karaoke the way the Japanese do, but I'm really going to have to find out....because it's one of my absolute favorite things to do here!! There is a very specific way to do things though, if you really want to have a good time. I'll explain...

First, you must gather up as many of your crazy girlfriends as the fire code in your favorite restaurant will allow. If your favorite restaurant also happens to have an "all you can drink" option, your night will be even better! The restaurant of choice for this evening out was Uotami Misawa. AMAZING Izakaya restaurant with traditional Japanese seating, and I must take Trevor here when he finally gets back home....he's going to love it!

We ate a family style dinner which started with this amazing soup-dish:

There's a little chicken, squid, scallops, shrimp, veggies (leeks, cabbage, onions,) tomatoes, and cheese. Heat it all up together while you start getting your money's worth from the "all you can drink" option and it's just amazing!
The dinner also included the edemame and some kind of fried something that you see at the top of the picture, chicken on a stick, cheese rolls, fried chicken, a sushi salad and japanese sausages.Above is a fresh grapefruit drink. Even though I had to juice the heck out of that grapefruit, it was worth it!I think after the waitresses got an idea of the types of drinks the customers tend to order, they just start bringing out what ever they thing you might like. And it was good. Above I have a White Russian and some kind of almond jelly drink. I wish I could remember the name, because it was like dessert in a glass.

After your time limit at the restaurant has expired (yes, it's all you can drink, but you only get 90 minutes!) you walk on over to La La La's to work everything off. I have found the the evenings are most fun when you start off walking like an Egyptian.Then you pick Sir Mix-a-lot and everyone shakes it all together to really get into the Karaoke mood.
A few duets are in order...Then you just pick what ever songs come to mind and dance until they kick you out!And they do kick you out. If you don't opt to pay the extra to stay for another hour they turn on all the lights, grab your microphone, take your drinks and just expect you to leave. It's really a bummer. But that's when I remember I have a babysitter waiting for me at home...I'm so glad I have a sitter that the kids love...it makes nights like this even better!

Sydney

2010-03-06T09:52:00.000+09:00

Once the ship made it back into port at Sydney, we had two days to explore the city before we headed back home to Katie. We ended up staying in a hotel called the Shangri La right on the waterfront area of Sydney called The Rocks with a view from the room of the Opera House.

Our view from the room.

We decided to do a bit of walking in the downtown area around the hotel and get some more up close picture of the Sydney Harbor bridge.

We decided to stop in and eat at Lowenbrau down on the Rocks on a friend’s recommendation. I know what you’re thinking – you’re in Australia, eat Australian food. I would challenge you to define to me what Australian food is, and you may not use the words “Shrimp” or “Barbi.” Go. Besides, the Weissbier was sensational, and worth the wait.

We also decided to walk around the bay and check out the Sydney observatory. It isn’t operational anymore as the city lights grew up around it and basically blocked out its ability to view the stars, but it had some pretty neat views of the harbor.

As a surprise for our pseudo-Christmas present, I got us tickets to go downtown in Sydney and see “Wicked” at the Capitol Theater. We ate in Chinatown before walking over to the theater, and then did a leisurely stroll over to get our tickets. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t allow cameras in the theater, so no pictures of the AMAZING sets they built. Great show too – the girl who played Elphaba had a sensational voice. Jenny loved the songs and the show as well, so it was the perfect end to a good first day in Sydney.

When we woke up the next morning, it was raining all over Sydney, and we found out that all the bus drivers had gone on strike overnight, so there were no cabs ANYWHERE. Not to be deterred, we trooped onward anyway. We had tickets to take a tour in the Sydney Opera House, and then we decided to wander around downtown Sydney some more.
The Opera House tour was definitely worth it. The pictures don’t do it justice. Getting up close lets you really see what a technical and architectural masterpiece it truly is. The whole seashell structure around it is just a shell, and the theaters within the buildings are separate cocoons within the building build entirely from Australian wood. The tour guides said some gobbeldy gook about it helping the acoustics, but I was too busy snapping pictures to really listen.

It was cold, early, rainy, and no coffee.

So we found out that the architect of the Opera House – Jorn Utzon – was actually fired from the project before he got to see it finished due to cost overruns. Three decades later, the city of Sydney realized that they probably came off as party poopers, and invited him back and had him redesign some additions to the buildings. Pretty neat that it ended amicably, but amazing that the building almost wasn’t finished to begin with.After the Opera House, we caught the subway down to the shopping district, and checked out the National Catholic Cathedral of Australia. Not being Catholic, I still think that church architecture is pretty neat, so we decided to stop and grab some pics of it as well.

Then it was off to a café for an ice cream mocha for Jenny and then off to the airport. Next time in Australia, we’re going to spend a week in Melbourne. What a great vacation though …

Hobart

2010-03-06T09:40:00.000+09:00

We finally made it around Tasmania to the capital of Tasmania – Hobart – and our cruise resumed being awesome. Hobart itself isn’t very large, but I had been waiting until this specific stop for my treat. I specifically booked the “chocoholic walking tour” in Melbourne so that I could spring my own surprise in Hobart – a tour through the Cascade brewery.

I know what you’re thinking. “Jeez, this guy dragged his pregnant wife on foot through a brewery on their vacation?” Yes, yes I did, and stop judging, this was my vacation too.

Anyway, the Cascade brewery is the oldest brewery in Australia, and the beer they make there was pretty dang good too. They had a “First Harvest” brew that was only available in Tasmania, and it was phenomenal, if not a little hoppy. Jenny stuck to the apple cider, I took all of her free tastings, and the result was a very happy, and slightly tipsy (OK, a bit more then slightly) Trevor. Then to cap it off, we decided to walk back to the ship from the brewery, which to buzzed Trevor sounded like a great idea, but to a pregnant Jenny was a BAD idea. Three miles later, Jenny pointed at the blisters on her feet and said, “I just want you to remember, when I complain later, it’s your fault.”

Maybe she shouldn’t have rubbed it in when she beat me at chess.

You only wish you could look this awesome in a neon yellow safety vest.

Mmmm, beer.

I’ll have one of each, thank you very much.

Port Arthur

2010-03-03T18:17:00.000+09:00

Ok, so if Burnie was tough, Port Arthur was shoe leather. Port Arthur sits on a small part of land in the southeast corner of Tasmania, and is connected to the mainland of Tasmania by a 39’ narrow isthmus of land. So imagine this – Australia was England’s penal colony. Tasmania was Australia’s penal colony. Port Arthur was Tasmania’s penal colony. Filter that down, and you get the most hardened criminals from England and Australia staying at Port Arthur. Thus, it should come as no surprise that the biggest attraction in Port Arthur is – you guessed it – an old prison.

Unfortunately, due to the ship’s late arrival into Port Arthur, the ship couldn’t get its tenders into the water until after a two-hour delay. Then, after waiting for three hours to get on the tender, we realized that it would take 45 minutes on the tender to get to shore, we’d have about 45 minutes to look around, and then we would have to get back in a 2 hour line to get back on the ship.

So what did we do to pass time waiting for the tender? Well, Jenny finally tricked me into playing some games with her, and I realized why I hate playing games with her. As a competitive alpha male, I love competition, especially when it’s something I can win. However, there has yet to be a game invented that I don’t habitually lose to my wife at. She crushes me at everything. It wouldn’t bug me except she‘s such a good winner. No gloating, no trash-talking – just pure, unadulterated dominance. I hate it.

Ok, I lost the first round of chess. I blame the mood lighting in this dimly lit, nautically themed bar. We change locales to better my odds. Best two out of three goes into effect immediately upon my loss. Silly – I should have recognized the futility of this venture based on previous performance against Jenny. But, like a small child, I apparently needed to relearn this lesson.

Did I say she didn’t gloat? I must have been wrong, because she insisted I take this picture to prove to everyone that I had lost the second of two games. Like a habitually gambler, I figure I gotta double up to catch up – best three out of five is out of my mouth before the king even gets tipped over.

I hate chess.

Once they finally call our tender number we made our way to shore and checked out the old prison that is Port Arthur. Pretty neat architecture, but to be honest, living out my life in a Tasmanian prison is NOT how I’d want to go out.

Burnie

2010-03-03T17:54:00.000+09:00

Ok, so this is where the cruise took a sort of side trip down negative lane. I don’t blame the cruise line at all – well, OK, I do a little bit. The weather wasn’t as warm as a lot of people thought it was going to be (only about 14-15° C for most of the trip, so lots of pants and long sleeves being worn), so the pools were closed a lot of the time on the ship. Driven indoors, most of the over-60 set sat down in every char on the ship and promptly fell asleep. They fell asleep in the bars. They fell asleep in the theaters. Heck, they even fell asleep in the game room, where there are only about ten chairs to begin with.

Why so many sleepy seniors? Oh you haven’t been on a cruise before? Well allow me to explain. There are about four distinct demographics of people that will typically take a cruise.

1) The newlyweds. Harmless, they seldom come out of their rooms for air, and when they do, they are on the early-20s to early-30s age bracket and won’t look at you cross-eyed when you order your third scotch at dinner, probably because they are still so busy looking at each other and trying to figure out how to disengage from your conversation and head back to their room. Like I said – harmless. They make up roughly 10-15% of the people on the boat.

2) The couple that needs a break. Not a break from each other, but a break from whatever jobs/callings/responsibilities they have back home. No real age bracket on this one, but most of them are pretty cool to hang out with, engage in conversation, and have a drink with. However, they only make up about 5-10% of the people on the ship – I’d put Jenny and I squarely in this demographic.

3) The family with the obnoxious kids. You probably won’t see the parents, just the kids. What kids you ask? Oh, those would be the kids that run around doing cannon balls in the “Adults Only” spa, make loud obnoxious remarks during the shows at night, and generally tend to flock to each other around the “you-must-be-18-to-get-in-here-nightclub-but-maybe-if-we-loiter-around-the-entrance-the-bouncer-will-think-I’m-“cool”-and-let-me-in” place on the ship. You won’t see the parents because the parents are trying to enjoy their cruise like the couple from the second demographic, and thus have little desire or social wherewithal to corral their offspring. Did I mention obnoxious? Fortunately, these only make up about 10% of the passengers as well.

So where does the other 70-75% of the cruise passengers fit in on this scale?

4) The senior citizen. God bless ‘em. On a boat of 2,000 passengers, at least 1,300 of them will be AARP-card-carrying members. They have probably been on about 80 cruises by now during their retirement, and you can tell because they wear their “Platinum” and “Gold” member cruise cards around their necks on these tethers as if to scare other, lesser cruising passengers into submission through the sheer awesomeness of their metallic-colored cruise card. Most of them are extremely nice, polite, will fill up the early seating at dinner and be in bed by 8 pm. Thus, eat at the late dinner seating and go to the later shows, and you will, for the most part, not see most of them. Unless of course, the weather sucks, like it did on our cruise, and everyone is driven inside, where a great number of these members of the greatest generation will fall asleep in every public space on this ship. I love the senior citizens on the cruises, and I have no beef with them until they fall asleep at every table in the bar.

But I digress. Except for the falling asleep at the bar deal, my biggest beef with the rest of our cruise has to do with the city councils of Burnie and Port Arthur. I’ll explain.

After Melbourne, she ship sailed across the Tasman Sea to hit up three ports in Tasmania. Awesome right? Well our first stop was in Burnie, and tourist attraction it is NOT. I feel bad because they obviously do a lot of industrial shipping out of Burnie, but when you dock a cruise ship in an industrial ship yard and have to put all the passengers on a bus to guide them out of the wharf area, maybe your wharf isn’t conducive to your tourist industry.

I will also admit that we arrived in Burnie on a Sunday – hence almost NONE of the shops and sites in Burnie were open. I don’t blame the shop owners; I’d take my day off too. But a message to the Burnie Chamber of Commerce – if a cruise ship arrives and disgorges 2,000 tourists who all have money burning holes in their pockets, you might want to entice your shop owners to open up and let that money get pumped into your economy.

I’m just saying.

So Jenny and I took a nice leisurely stroll on the beach and ate Fish and chips and basically just enjoyed each other’s company. Which in the long run, was the whole point of our vacation.

A Target. The first one Jenny had seen in almost two years. She lost her mind. We did not go in, as doing so would have created a public spectacle I wasn’t prepared to make.

Fish and chips on the beach. Tasmania makes some pretty good beer too – Cascade. More to come on that later.

The Beach. It's only about 50 F out here and we are both freezing. Leonardo DiCaprio, eat your heart out.

Melbourne

2010-03-02T21:00:00.000+09:00

Jenny and I both agreed that the best stop/port/whatever you want to call it on our vacation was Melbourne. I could live there for the rest of my life and have no qualms about it. What an absolutely gorgeous city. Wide, clean streets with awesome colonial/Victorian style architecture in the downtown area, a seemingly endless supply of good restaurants and bars, shopping, and tourist attractions, and some of the nicest people we met on our travels made Melbourne a fantastic place to visit.

We spend the first part of the morning at the Queen Victoria Market, which is like five football fields of covered swap meet/outlet store stuff. Neat to look around, with an enormous produce section that made me envious.

I loved this sign so much I had to get a picture of it. So simplistic, and so true – you can’t get enough of it. Jenny did not understand my fascination with this sign.

Jenny thought this was hilarious, probably because, in Japan, it’s hard to find clothing that is larger than a child’s medium-ish on her.

The afternoon was Jenny’s treat – a chocolate tour of downtown Melbourne that took you through most of the high-end chocolate stores in the area. We started at Lindt, and then worked our way over to Haigh’s chocolate. Our guide was a wonderful woman named Carol who probably has the best job in the world – take tourist to chocolate stores and bring out massive trays of free samples. Ok, she’s not a fighter pilot, so second best job in the world. Anybody who is interested in this kind of tour and will be in Melbourne check out their tours at: www.chocoholictours.com.au

Dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and the round ones were Champagne Truffles and were easily the best ones there.

Then we walked up to another chocolate store/café called Koko Black where we had MORE chocolate and some chocolate-themed drinks. Jenny and I actually got sick of chocolate, which you would think would be physically impossible, but oh no, it is. After the three hours of chocolate, we decided to wander through downtown Melbourne to try to walk off some of the caloric assault we had just launched on our bodies.

On our way back to the ship, we got to see a lot of the old architecture that the Melbourne residents have been really careful to preserve. At the same time, we ducked down one alley and found a tour guide giving a group of tourists a walking tour of the graffiti walls downtown as well. The alley was covered on its entire length with some pretty awesome graffiti, but kind of like curling isn’t a sport, I have a hard time calling graffiti “art.” Not that I could do it, but the mental image I have of “art” doesn’t equal a painting on the side of a bar wall in an alley. But then again, maybe I’m just an art snob.

The graffiti walking tour o’ justice.

This awesome Episcopal church right in the middle of downtown Melbourne. There was a wedding going on, and Jenny and I surmised that, since it is summer in December in Australia, December weddings in Australia are like the June wedding sin America. The bride was DECKED OUT.

Once we were finally tuckered out, we hopped back on the train and headed back to the ship. We had dinner reservations at the steakhouse on the ship, one of the things that we always insist on doing because the steaks on the Princess cruise ships are usually amazing, and these didn’t disappoint. I am so glad I married a carnivore, because the Ribeye picture below is hers. I get hungry just looking at it.

Day At Sea

2010-03-02T18:00:00.000+09:00

Our first day of the cruise was spent “at sea” while the ship sailed around the southeastern end of Australia and headed for our first stop, Melbourne. So what did we do with our day?

Nothing. And it was everything I hoped it could be.

We bummed around, explored the ship, ate the first of what would prove to be several metric tons of food we would have on the trip, and basically discovered that, once again, the super-heated Jacuzzis in the “Adults Only” swimming part of the ship was where you want to be.

The ship had been decorated for the Christmas season, so we took a couple of pictures of the ship. It’s pretty hard to think of witty things to say about pictures taken of an endless expanse of water, so we didn’t take the pics. Formal night too – I did the traditional tux thing and Jenny looked great in her dress.

The flash made this shirt semi-tansparent. AWESOME.

Australia!

2010-03-02T17:53:00.000+09:00

AUSTRALIA!

Yes, Australia rocked, and yes, we are failures for taking so long to get these blogs and photos up about our trip. My parents came out and watched Katie for 10 days while Jenny and I whisked away to the Land Down Under for some fun in the sun. Fun fact – Australians think that the song “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” is idiotic, probably because none of them have had one before, as it was 38° C while we were there (that about 100° F for you non-metric folks reading this post).

The trip getting to Australia alone was a bit of an ordeal, as we had to take the train to Tokyo, fly to Bangkok, switch planes and fly to Sydney. On the upside, Thai Airways rocks – and should anyone in their publicity department want to view this as free advertising and reward me with a free upgrade the next time I fly with them, that’ll be OK by me.

Yep, a Rolls Royce engine. They’ve come a long way from putting engines in Spitfires …

Once we got into Sydney after about 36-hours of non-stop travel, it was about 8 AM. We couldn’t get on our ship, the Sun Princess, for a few hours, so we bummed around the harbor area until we could get into our room. I guess that since we were repeat customers on Princess Cruise lines we swung a free upgrade, because when we cracked into our room, we had gotten an upgrade to a balcony room. Pretty sweet for the views …

Ok, so I’ll admit that the view of an industrial wharf isn’t what most people would call “sweet”, but once we got underway, our room had a view of the Sydney Harbor Bridge and the Opera House as we headed out to sea. Totally worth the trip just for those pictures.

Christmas Arrives ... Sort of ...

2009-11-27T21:21:00.000+09:00

Did anybody else find themselves having to physically restrain their significant other from putting up Christmas decorations the day after Halloween. Oh you too? Good, then I'm not alone. I made Jenny wait until the day after Thanksgiving, and then it was like a Christmas bomb went off in our house.

Katie and Jenny start with the ornaments

The airplane tree. A Cichowski family tradition.

Couldn't find our gingerbread man cutout, so we made "Gingerbread man's feet" as Katie likes to call them.

Believe it or not, Jenny's is on the left, and Katie's is on the right.

Baking cookies is always easier when you taste test while you work.

Hachinohe Air Show

2009-11-27T21:07:00.000+09:00

Ok, just ask my wife, and she'll tell you she married a bonafide honest-to-god, American war-hero veteran. And if she denies it, ask me and I'll tell you. Anyway, part of the awesomeness of flying fighters (which is already "can't-stare-directly-at-it-because-it's-so-awesome" kind of awesome) is getting to go to airshows where the common masses stare at you like you are some kind of zipper-suited sun god (thanks to Uncyclopedia for that one: http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Fighter_pilot

So my buddy Dixon and I (his last name is Kuntz ...) flew a pair of Vipers down to the town of Hachinohe for their local airshow. I had heard that we would enjoy the celebrity status most commonly reserved for Rock Stars but I was skeptical. Upon landing however, I immediately understood why Rock Stars are so awesome - people treat them like they are awesome, and they respond accordingly. Again, I wasn't expecting the kind of reaction that we got. Several Japanese women handed us a Sharpie and asked us to sign their t-shirts. On their breasts. While they were wearing them. And being the "ambassadors in blue" that we are, how could we say no? To be fair, the women were all in wheelchairs, and had down syndrome, and our wives were standing ten feet away laughing at us the whole time, but I choose to gloss over those facts in this retelling.

In all seriousness, the Japanese LOVE airshows, and the cameras the average tourist was packing at this thing was easily 5 figures with all the lenses and tripods and other equipment. And the Japanese women were gorgeous. And they loved that real-life fighter pilots were taking pictures with them. My wife told me I wasn't allowed to sleep in bed with her that night because there wouldn't be enough room for my uber-inflated ego after all of it ...

Katie loved the F-16. Standard. Who wouldn't?

Katie wanted to know why this F-16 was green. I had to explain to her that is the far inferior version that the Japanese reverse-engineered and called the F-2. She said it was pretty. I died a little inside.

All day long people wanted their pictures taken with us.

World's finest pair of zipper-suited sun gods.

Last week we also got to head down to Komatsu and fight with some Japanese F-15s. The training was awesome, but I wanted to take a second and post a picture of the fleet's finest aircraft, 92-3895. Why the fleet's finest? For starters, it used to be the 5th Air Force flagship flown by Gen Wright. But now, it has my name on it ... yeah I'm biased, but it's a SWEET jet.

The fleet's finest. Detractors look on with jealousy.

895's crew chief, SrA Chris "Sweetfist" Cerrillo. 895 may have my name on her canopy, but there is no denying that she is Sweetfist's jet.

Aviation Museum

2009-11-27T20:42:00.000+09:00

Not to jump on the stereotype bandwagon, but the Japanese love science. I know, right? Like who couldn't figure that one out. But, they love science SO MUCH, that in every city we've traveled to so far, they've always had a Science Museum set up which is really like an enormous science lab for kids to play with all these giant toys and learn something about science too. Needless to say, these spots generally become our favorite spots to visit, and (let's be honest) it kind of helps me work out my inner MacGyver. Fortunately for us, Misawa boasts its own science museum, and it's a stone's throw away from the runway, so it is also an "aviation" museum that sports a bunch of static displays of jets like an F-16 (duh) and even a P-3. Katie, understandably, goes ape whenever we go to this place.

Halloween

2009-11-27T20:30:00.000+09:00

I have to admit, this is our second Halloween here at Misawa, and both of the costume parties rocked. Last year I was Mugatu, and although the Zoolander genre is a pretty easy one to pull costume ideas from, this year, the grownup Cichowski's decided to do a tag team outfit. Jenny and I both went for max comfort ... and we came up with The Dude and his Bowling Ball. I know, Jenny could have gone as Bunny, or even better, as a nihilist, but these worked out pretty well. If only I had the foresight to bring along a cooler of White Russians ...

Yes, the chest hair is real, not a part of the costume. I know what you're thinking ... awesome! Oh, that's not the word that came to your mind ...?

Turns out lots of the couples at the combined 13th / 14th Christmas party decided to do the joint costume idea ...

The boss and Janet

Vegas went as Sputnik and his wife, Anna, went as a solar system. Best (and most awkward to turn around in) costume of the night.

Of course, grownup Halloween quickly gave way to kids Halloween the following night, so we took Katie on the annual trek around the base for trick or treating. Misawa lets all kinds of Japanese kids come on base to take part in the insanity as well, although I don't think they really understand the concept, as most of them come on base in regular street clothes with a pillowcase and just thrust it (the pillowcase) towards you with an inquisitive stare that seems to ask "What the hell am I supposed to do now?"

Katie had a blast, and in keeping with her animal themed costumes, went this year as a bumble bee. Actually, once she saw the costume about two week out, we had a MAJOR tantrum when we told her she couldn't wear it until Halloween. She really, REALLY liked her costume.

Katie with her friends Hannah and Cassidy getting a head start on the candy consumption.

Dixon and Maggie with Katie. I don't remember if my Dad drank road sodas when he took my brother and me trick or treating, so I'm either a bad father, or he did a great job hiding it. Or I just don't remember that part of Halloween (and now I hope Katie won't either).

Catching up ... Tea Parties and Other Activities

2009-11-27T20:04:00.000+09:00

Man oh man, why does it seem like we can only catch up with the blog on a four-day weekend? Probably because there just isn't enough time in a normal two day weekend to do all of your catching up AND post on the blog. Something has to give ... so I guess it's the blog. Spare me your ridicule.

So on that uplifting note, let's catch up on the activities of the singing Family von Cichowski (minus the lederhosen and Alps). When I first came back to the fam after the Korea adventure, I wish I could say that I got knee deep in traveling around Japan, but really, I just wanted to hang out and see my family AT HOME (and get to work on my masters program ... thanks AF for cracking the whip on that one ...). And what sort of activities might we embark upon for family time? Pizza and Tea Parties! "Of course!" you say.

Jenny had a great idea for letting Katie make her own pizza and get her involved with the baking process, and maybe (just maybe) it would get her to actually EAT DINNER. But I digress.

Katie and Jenny make a Pizza

Yeah, she likes cheese.

Waiting for the Pizza to cook. Yep, that's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on over her shoulder. Am I the best Dad ever, or what? You gotta start with the classics ...

After dinner, we watched while Blondie blew up the bridge and shot Angel Eyes, but Katie admittedly got pretty bored with the final shootout sequence. What can I say, Sergio Leone isn't for everyone. We'll try again later with Once Upon a Time in the West. Maybe Peter Fonda and James Brolin will win her over.

A few days later we got to rock out to a killer tea party. It was THE event of the Misawa social Cichowski scene. I think even Katie's dragon got one of the exclusive invites. Of course, Mom and Dad were pulling labor for the night, but we got some photos of the glitterazzi ...

'09 Beef & Garlic Festival

2009-10-15T15:08:00.005+09:00

I love October in Japan...not only is the weather amazing, but there is a festival dedicated to two things that I absolutely love: Beef and Garlic! Another reason I may love it so much is because it's advertised as a "Texas Bar-B-Q deep in the heart of Aomori!"

This year the festival was on the first weekend of October and we headed to Takko Town with some friends to partake in some great food and fun! The set up is great, you roll in with your ticket and exchange it for boxes of sliced beef, garlic and veggies...then buy a couple more trays of beef...and head out to the grills. They toss a big lump of fat on a hot grill for you and everyone just dumps their trays of food, grabs some chopsticks and starts cookin'!

We got lucky and were able to catch a prime spot - a grill right next to the entertainment! We laid out a mat and brought out some chairs to make a day of it. We had a great time eating and hanging out with friends.

The local garlic queen and the garlic queen from their sister city of Gilroy, CA were also there. Katie had a great time dancing with them both! There were traditional Japanese dances, a line dancing team from Misawa, children's carnival rides and even a "Garlic Santa?" Well, I'm not sure exactly what he was, but it was an interesting costume!

We had a really great time and were sad to think that this may be our last Beef and Garlic Festival. Below are videos of a traditional dance...and a not-so-traditional dance. Enjoy!

Catching up!

2009-10-09T08:07:00.004+09:00

I know we've already got a "Back in Japan" post, but I need to take you back a couple of months now...

While Katie and I were in the states this summer we were lucky enough to be able to spend a week with Trevor's parents in Florida. We had such a great time shopping, going to the beach, playing at the park and just being tourists! Katie loved spending time with her Oma and Opa and talks about them all the time now.

One cute story of something that happened while we were there, was that Katie almost had Laura convinced that she could tell time! :) (I may get some details to this story wrong since it's been a little while, but on the whole the story remains unchanged...)

There's a clock in the living room that chimes on the hour and Katie really took notice of it. While eating breakfast one morning, the clock begins to chime and Katie says "it's 7 o'clock!" And, sure enough, it was. Later while sitting at the table again the clock begins to chime and Katie says "it's 10 o'clock!" And...sure enough....it was! By this time Laura looks at me and says, "are you sure this child can't tell time?" Even I was unsure at this point. Did she actually think to count the chimes? Could she really read the hands of the clock? Later that day the clock begins to chime again. Katie says "it's 6 o'clock!" Come to find out, the first two were just lucky guesses. This time it was not 6 o'clock. :)

Here are a few pictures of our time in Florida.

Back in Japan - at Children's Land!

2009-09-05T13:09:00.011+09:00

After 6 months gone for Trevor and 2 months gone for Jenny and Katie, the family is back together in Japan. I have about two weeks off from work for "reconstitution" with my family, which is basically a fancy Air Force way of saying "Hey, re-introduce yourself to your wife and kids." Not that I'm complaining, because it means two weeks of free leave for me.

So one of the things we decided to do was take Katie to the "Children's Land" in the nearby city of Hachinohe. They have a bunch of fancy rides, and a small petting zoo, so we thought we would share some pictures of the rides and animals that we saw.

We stopped at the Merry-Go-Round first, and Katie INSISTED on riding the red horse with Mommy. Got a video of it below as well -

Then we checked out this elevated bicycle/car contraption that went around part of the park. What you can't tell (or maybe you can) is that these "cars" are designed for either a) midgets or b) Asians, of which I am neither. Thus, I was basically kneeing myself in the face every time I tried to pedal this thing. The Asian moms in the cars behind me were NOT amused, but Katie got a kick out of it.

Mocking my peace sign? Then you've obviously never taken pictures in Asia ...

Then we decided to check out the monkey house, goats, pigs, rabbits, and turtles - in other words, all the animals in the farm kingdom that are kid friendly and don't mind being poked and prodded ad nauseum.

Getting to hold the rabbit and then walk around with the giant turtle were definitely the highlights of Katie's day, but we decided to check out the Ferris Wheel before we left. Overall, not a bad Saturday morning!

America Part 2 -- Messes are Bigger in Texas!

2009-08-09T23:44:00.003+09:00

We finally made it to the water park! We went to Castaway Cove with Shelby and Aunt Shannon and were so excited....until we realized Katie was scared to death of everything in the Kiddie Area. She preferred to float along in the lazy river and bounce along in the wave pool. I couldn't believe she didn't want anything to do with this:

We had already signed up to go again a few weeks later for Uncle Jack's company picnic and I was a little worried Katie wouldn't have a good time, but after a trip to Florida (which will be on the blog soon...) and playing in the Gulf and another smaller kiddie water park she was ready! Yesterday was the picnic and Katie went nuts! She was even going down the water slides head first! Sadly, I forgot to bring the camera with us on the second trip so there are no great slide shots.
Another thing Katie loves about being here is.....

Chuck E. Cheese!

We have been to Chuck E. Cheese's twice since we arrived and Katie can't get enough! She loves to put coins in the games, and we have to make sure she waits until it's over before putting another coin in. I think we lost a handful of coins before realizing that!

Katie's favorite game of all was the telephone where she could call Chuck E. Cheese himself. She made quite a few phone calls while we were there!

And now we get to the messes....

So, there we were-

Gathered in the kitchen of my parents' house gabbing about who knows what.

When I realize that Katie hasn't made a sound in a few minutes.

I get up suspiciously and start the hunt.

Clue #1: Red footprints on the carpet.

Suspect: One Katie Cichowski covered in an entire tube of lipstick!

I was actually kind of amazed that she used a whole tube of lipstick and didn't put any of it on her lips! Katie was put directly into the tub which, after a little scrubbing, was soon full of pink bubbles. We also found that hairspray will help remove lipstick from your carpet....just FYI for all of our friends who may have this to look forward to in their future!

Visiting America - Part 1

2009-07-27T06:38:00.007+09:00

That's right! Katie and I have made our first trip back to the states. Been well over a year, and there's much catching up to do! I have quite a few pictures to show and events to write about....and still have a toddler to chase around... so It will probably take a few days to finally catch up. Here's just a few to get us going!

Katie and I made the trip to Tokyo Narita Airport with our friends Mary and Hannah Jane. Travelling with friends sure made the trip go by fast, and I'm sure it was much more enjoyable for the girls!

We made it to the airport and had to part ways with our friends who were taking a different flight. Below is Katie checking out the planes and finishing a little McDonald's.

After nearly 24 hours or travelling, we finally made it to Texas! First order of business: Get out of the HEAT and celebrate the 4th of July!

On July 3 we went to Shannon and Jack's for a little swimming with Shelby and fireworks with the family.

We were having such a great time (and Katie and I still didn't "really" know what time it was...) that we stayed out lighting fireworks until about midnight. Katie had a really great time with the sparklers and smoke bombs. She also loved watching Uncle Andy and Shelby light the "big stuff" and run off before the explosions!

On July 4th we went swimming and were planning on catching the big fireworks show in Burkburnett, but it was rained out. I sure am glad we lit all of ours a day early!

Baseball in Korea

2009-06-14T21:13:00.005+09:00

Anybody remember the Tom Selleck (sp?) movie "Mr. Baseball"? And do you remember watching it and thinking, "Surely Asians aren't that fanatic about their baseball teams?" You would be mistaken - unfortunately, I really think that Asians (in this case Koreans and Japanese) love baseball even more than your average American might. What a bummer, considering it's OUR national past time.

But I digress. We've been wandering our way up to Seoul in the last few months, and discovered the quickest way to get to see some "professional" baseball teams in Korea. The Doosan Bears and the LG Twins share a stadium in Jamsil, just on the east side of Seoul, so you're guaranteed to have a home game every weekend. Tall boys of Korean beer are $2 each, the fans have no idea what you're screaming in English (ops tested, to the dismay of any English-speaking Koreans in the stands), and the games are actually pretty exciting. What more can you ask for from a Saturday afternoon then to sit in an open-air stadium with 15,000 of your closest friends, get hammered, and watch baseball.

That's the other funny thing about Korean baseball - the teams are all named after their sponsors. The LG Twins for instance, are sponsored by the LG electronics company, and Twins fans chant "LG! LG! LG!" when stuff goes right. Imagine Derek Jeter hitting a home run and having the fans chant "Chrysler! Chrysler! Chrysler!" as their cheer. Weird.

Anyway, the pictures below are from the first game we went to go see, the Doosan Bears vs. the Hanwha Eagles.

This is just a picture of the field, but the video below shows how the stands divided out between the Eagles fans (orange) and the Bears fans (white). You can also hear the organized cheering that the Bears fans have started, with a little help from the Bears' cheerleaders. Yes, I said it. Korean baseball has CHEERLEADERS. MLB, stand up and take note.

Finally, we discovered that in Korea, they've never heard of the seventh-inning stretch, so we loudly led the charge on that one (the Koreans loved it - we got a standing ovation). They also apparently had never seen the "wave". How America has failed to export that sports fan maneuver, I'll never know, but we decided to try and teach them how it worked. Fortunately, Bodhi had had enough Korean beer to lead the charge, and after twelve tries, we finally got a wave that carried all the way around the stadium - in fact, it even reversed course and came back! I would be lying if I didn't feel like at least now I had made a contribution to the Korean culture (significance is still up for debate). The Korean kids liked it so much, they adopted Bodhi as their unofficial mascot and kept asking him to lead the wave again for the rest of the game.

Korean Adventures

2009-06-09T23:26:00.008+09:00

Well, since Jenny hadn't updated this in a while, I decided I would start blogging here as well (shout out to Hook for blogging on his and Laura's site) and share some of the wonderful sights that I've been seeing here in Korea. As most of you probably already know, the 13 FS is halfway through a six-month AEF deployment to Suwon AB, Korea. Not exactly what we had in mind when we were practicing our CAS procedures in the desert over Nellis, but things could be a LOT worse.

I thought to start I would post some of the pictures and video of some of the sights the bros have been checking out while here in Korea. The first set of pictures is from our trip up to the DMZ, or Demilitarized Zone, the 4 KM buffer zone between north Korea and the ROK. Seeing as how these two countries are still "technically" at war (which I'm sure if you've been reading the news, isn't that hard to believe), the place is pretty heavily guarded.

This first picture is of me looking across the Han River into North Korea. What can I say? Koreans are short ...

These second two pictures are from the Joint Security Area in Panmunjom. Over my left shoulder you can probably make out a NoDAK soldier giving us the squirrely eye. What you DON'T see is the other four or five guys hidden in the windows taking pictures of all of us. Creepy. The blue building over my right shoulder is where the North Koreans and the South Koreans/US have their meetings/conferences. No kidding, if you look, you can see the concrete slabs that run through the courtyard behind me that denote the border between the two countries. Inside the conference room, the conference table is also arranged so that the table is perfectly on the border between the two countries.

Here is the table I was talking about ... this big guys is one of two South Korean guards posted in the room. In order to qualify in the South Korean Army to be a guard in the JSA, you have to be at least 6'1". In a country full of midgets, these are the biggest Koreans I've seen.

Finally, this is the North Korean village across the border. The flag pole you can see, and the NK flag on it, are both in the Guinness Book of World Records as being the largest pole (gross) and flag, respectively. They blare propaganda music from loudspeakers trying to lure South Koreans to come over to the North. Funny thing is, most of the buildings are only building faces - no backs, just the facade. Anybody defecting is going to find himself mighty lonely, but then again, it's all a big show here on the ROK.

That's all for today, but tomorrow I will try to post some less weird, and significantly more "normal" activities to do in Korea. CP!

Split

Hanami!

2009-04-24T21:30:00.004+09:00

Hanami is the Japanese custom of viewing flowers, most often associated with Cherry Blossoms or Sakura. There's a big festival held at Hirosaki Castle every year during this time and it's only about a 2 1/2 hour drive from home. Katie and I made the drive with a few friends this year and had a great time on the grounds of the former castle. Above, you can see Katie smelling some low hanging blossoms and below she's watching a swan float by the bridge.

All that remains of the castle is the building below. It's so beautiful surrounded by the cherry trees.

Below is a lovely view from the top of the remaining building at Hirosaki Castle. I was so busy trying to keep Katie away from the extremely steep stairs inside the building (they were so steep that I was only a couple inches away from sitting on every step on the way down!) I almost missed the mountain!

We wondered around the grounds checking out the scenery for hours and had a picnic lunch in a grassy area surrounded by the cherry blossoms- it was great! The weather was really great too. I was a little worried we'd be pretty soggy that day, but the rain held off until just as we were about to leave. We couldn't have been luckier!

Above is Katie with her friends Noah and Jacob. Below Katie's making eyes at her friend Jacob. I really wish I had my camera ready for that photo a bit earlier. Just before I snapped this one, she actually had her head on his shoulder looking up at him and it was just too cute!

Easter!

2009-04-24T20:25:00.002+09:00

I know...Easter was nearly three weeks ago...but here it is!
Katie and I had a wonderful Easter weekend! We really missed Daddy, but Katie kept her "Daddy Doll" close by :)
We started Saturday by giving Katie her new Easter basket. You can see her modeling it for the camera below!
She loved her new Easter basket, and we spent Saturday playing with her new toys. I'm still not sure exactly what happened while I was out of the room though... I came back to the living room after being in another room for not more than a couple of minutes and she handed me several pieces of her new basket...which turned out to be the handle. Needless to say, she was no longer going to be able to hunt eggs with that basket so we made a quick trip to the 100 Yen store and found her a cute little metal bucket to use instead!

Katie also enjoyed her Easter outfit, complete with coat and hat! Below is one of only a few pictures I was able to snap of her without the hat on. She's also trying to get out of the house wearing my shoes....

On Sunday morning the Easter Bunny dropped by to leave some eggs scattered across the front yard for Katie to hunt. She had a great time once she figured out they were all for her. She ran all across the yard and found every egg!

After her own personal egg hunt, Katie and I met up with some friends at the club for Easter Brunch. There was also a big egg hunt for the kids afterward. After her practice round that morning, Katie was ready to go for the big hunt! As soon as the organizers said "Go!" Katie was running away from me to find her some eggs! Can you find her below?
(notice the other kids with Mom or Dad close by....Katie's the only one running around by herself!)

At Easter brunch there was a display on the stage with a large blow-up Easter Bunny and lots of smaller blow-up eggs. It was extremely difficult to keep any of the kids in their seat long enough to eat. They all kept heading for the stage! Eventually, everyone was able to corral them enough for some of us to take a quick picture.

We finished the day at a dinner with our Bible study group (yep, lots of eating going on.) Some friends invited everyone over for a potluck dinner and an adult egg hunt! We did let the kids help us find the eggs...or at least hold on to the eggs after we found them! It was a lot of fun with lots of great food, great prizes and great company!

A day at the park with friends!

2009-04-08T20:49:00.004+09:00

Today we packed a lunch, met up with some friends and headed to the Towada Horse Park. It's the first time we've been there, and definitely won't be the last! It's only about a half hour drive from the house and it's amazing! It's spread out over a large area for the kiddos to run around and they have great toys to play on. Below is a huge horse you can climb into and slide down the back side. There are also horses there that you can feed, pet and even ride. Katie LOVED petting the horses, but wasn't too keen on riding one! Actually I'm not sure that it was the horse that was the problem....more the fact that I let a stranger lead her off while I stood watching.

There's also a roller slide at this park, which is tons of fun! There are many tiny rollers on the bottom and you take a pad with you to the top to ride down on. There's a short, covered one that the kids really enjoyed and went down too many times to count. But there's also a BIG one...I thought it looked pretty cool, so I grabbed Katie (she knew what was going on and refused to walk), two pads and began my hike to the top. About halfway there, I realized why Katie didn't want to walk up...but, being the stubborn girl I am, I had to continue. Out of breath and overheated, I made it to the top with all my luggage! It was a fun, fast ride down....and the only ride we took on the big slide.

I think everyone had a blast today...I know Katie and I did! When Daddy gets back home, this is definitely going to be on our list of things to do with him!

Spring!

2009-04-06T20:29:00.007+09:00

Spring has finally made it to Misawa, Japan! Yes, there are still some very small piles of snow at the end of our road....but I'm sure they'll be gone in a matter of days!
Today was such a beautiful day that Katie and I decided to go for a walk/ride--I walked while she rode her bike, sort of. She doesn't know it yet, but she could ride that bike all by herself. She just gets upset when she realizes she's having to push harder on the pedals to get anywhere, or if she glances back and sees that I'm not pushing her.
We also took a little time just to run around the front yard and finally get some use out of those slides that have been hibernating under the snow all winter. Yes, Katie's still wearing her bike helmet. I've found that it's easier to make her take it off just before we go in the house. It has Dora the Explorer on it, so she loves it and refuses to take it off.

Katie also loves the new "blooms" in the front yard and brought me the beautiful bouquet pictured below. Believe it or not, she picked at least eight bunches of "flowers" to make it especially for me!

Easter is also near, so I thought I'd post a picture of Katie's Easter creation. She loved making this bunny! She carefully colored each piece (although she did it so lightly you can hardly tell in the picture) and glued them into place all by herself. She especially loved the cotton tail we added...she loved it so much that it was the first piece she tore off! Sadly, this is all we have to remember our little Easter Bunny by ...

Quack, quack!

2009-03-28T20:48:00.005+09:00

So a couple of weeks ago Katie fell into our side table and scratched her nose up pretty good. It looks pretty painful and I just can't get her to keep her fingers off it...she just keeps making it worse. Just the other day, I found some little square bandages (well, they looked little until I used them on Katie's little face) and thought I'd see how long I could get her to keep one of those on. She thought the idea sounded okay, so I placed the bandage on her nose then lifted her up to the vanity mirror so she could check it out for herself. A big grin appeared on her face, and she began flapping her "wings" and quacking like a duck! After her little show, I could kind of see the resemblance....but I'll let you see for yourself!

Katie's web page

2009-03-26T20:48:00.002+09:00

I realized, after sending the invites to this blog, that not everyone has the information on Katie's web page. If you'd like to check it out, just visit: http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/b/babyc
And use the password: babycichowski

There are at least 4 different albums full of pictures under the "My Photo Gallery" link. Hopefully, this will catch everyone up. I'll still keep that page open, but probably won't be updating it any longer.

Something else to do online...

2009-03-26T19:43:00.002+09:00

Well, we've had this blog for quite a while now and never actually used it. However, I think that might be changing. It's getting harder to use the website we've set up for Katie because that's really a "look at how I'm growing" site and we're really wanting to post more about our family and what we've been up to. So...we're going to give this a try!
Please be kind while we figure out all there is to do on this site, and we'll promise to try and keep this more updated than Katie's page has been lately!