Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Our Little Superstars!

Fall has finally arrived here at Yokota.  The weather has cooled off and we wake to a beautiful blue sky every morning.  I absolutely love this time of year!

We were much more busy over the weekend than we had anticipated.  Ryan had to fly all day on Saturday, I took the kids to a birthday party that morning, and then we met up with some friends for a nice dinner at the Officers' Club later that night.  On Sunday, we decided to make a quick trip to the mall for some lunch, shopping at the Gap, and to let Matthew play in the kids play area.  I love that Japanese malls always have a play area for the kids.  You usually have to pay about 500 Yen (about $8), but it's a brilliant concept!  Matthew had a blast, so I took a quick picture while he was sitting still on the "merry-go-round".  Everything is padded, the area is contained so kids can't escape, parents are admitted for free, no shoes allowed so the area stays clean, and when you have a red headed child it makes him easy to spot in the sea of Japanese children!  I wish they had things like this in the malls in the US....

Can you spot Matthew riding the merry-go-round?  He's in a blue shirt.  :)

Monday proved to be very eventful for us too.  Ryan flew on Monday night, so he wasn't able to join us, but I took the kids downtown Tokyo for the day.  The purpose for the trip was to get them registered with a Japanese modeling agency.  We took the shuttle that leaves from the base at 9:30am and the trip took us about an hour and a half to get there.  The shuttle stops at the New Sanno hotel (a military run hotel), so we got off there and went inside to "freshen" up.  The office for Sugar and Spice modeling agency was only about 2-3 blocks away from the New Sanno, so it was an easy walk.  We met with the agency at 12pm, where they took measurements and a few photos of the kids.  This basically allows them to add Matthew and Catherine to their database.  When companies contact them with jobs, they are able to send out the pictures/measurements for them to select the child/children they want featured in their ad campaign.  I'm not sure how often Matthew and Catherine will be called for jobs -- especially since it seems like every child here at Yokota is registered with them -- but even if they only make a few hundred dollars while we're stationed here, it will be a little something to add to their college funds.  You'd think they would be popular with their red hair and blue eyes, but I can't tell you how many redheaded kids we have on base here.  It's crazy!  But, of course, I'm hopeful that my little redheads will be superstars!  After we met with the agency, we walked back to the New Sanno, had a nice lunch in their cafe, and took the 1:30pm shuttle back to Yokota Air Base.  Overall, it was a fun trip and Matthew was such a trooper on the bus ride! 

Watching a movie on my iPad.

My little world traveler  :)

I took this as we were walking to the agency.  It had started to drizzle a little, so it was a hazy day.  Not a very good photo, but it will give you an idea of what the area looked like.  We are headed downtown again this coming weekend for an overnight stay at the New Sanno and some exploring.  I'll take better pictures to post of that adventure.  :)

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