The First Days of School - 2012

It's still about a billion degrees here, which is only truly felt in the hallways of our school or running errands on the weekends.  It's usually cool enough to and from school.

But, we have begun our tenth year of teaching...  Maximo has started KA (Kindergarten A - the four year old program) and Lola is still (LOVING) attending Yume Club (Japanese Daycare) across the street.

Day 1 (after three days of Teacher Days)
Morning Quote: "7:15 Family Photo, 7:30 Out-the-door".  And this was accomplished!
One of my favorites, but Max is now a clown during photos:

 Another one, with Lola playing coy.

 Our Funny Faces:

 Lola insisting on using a backpack - even though it is completely empty on her way to "school".

 Peeking at the bike barn.

 We had to tuck Mono into bed before we left for school.

Picking this little happy face up at the end of the day is one of my favorite things!  She's so happy to be dropped off and squeals and comes running when she sees us at the end of the day.

 Riding the train together for our annual check-ups today.

 Playing peek-a-boo with the pediatrician's rooster:

 Both of these kids took two shots each like champions!

Eating our Summer Away

Low Country Boil
Photo Credit: www.unclebubbas.com

As May comes every year, we start dreaming of all the things we can get in the US.  Things we miss from our childhood or just from the past few years.
Living in Japan is different than when we lived in Peru.  In Japan, we can get almost anything we want, at a price.  In Peru, there were things we just couldn't get and shipping was not reliable, even packages from our family.  Over the years, we have learned how to make many of our favorites from scratch - pork barbecue, Tex Mex, and many others.

Here are a few foods and dishes we crave from the US.  Most of them we've ate while we were home, some of them will have to wait another year.

In the South:

• Pork Barbecue at Johnny Harris, at Papas, Blowin' Smoke and anywhere else we could get our hands on it!
• Peaches!  Blueberries!  The kids ate their weight in fruit this summer.
• Boiled Peanuts
• Key Lime Pie
• Cuban Food at Rancho Alegre, specifically for me - Lechon Asada
• (Tex) Mexican - at Jalapeños and at Carlitos. 
• Shrimp - in a low country boil or peel and eat with hush puppies

In the North:

• Grinders (sub sandwiches, but somehow better)
• Sweet pizza from the Pizza Lady, although I miss it from Guilinos Bakery.
• Iced Coffees at Dunkin Donuts - I had at least one a day.  I miss Bess Eaton's crushed iced, but the iced coffee is still good.
• Soupy (local cured sausage - appropriately called Supri Soupressata)
• Portuguese Sweet Bread
• Lobster
• Fried Clam Strips
• Steamers
• Clam Chowder

Others:

• Mango salsa -spicy and sweet!
• Peanut Buster Parfait from Dairy Queen
• Rye toast

And a few of our new favorites...

We had a wonderful date night at the fairly (this means anything that opened in the past 7 years) Local restaurant near Forsyth Park, which was delicious! We then went to Lulu's Chocolate Bar for dessert and drinks.  Another night, we went to Sol which was a great treat too - we had a yummy dish of 4 different kinds of salsas and I had a great shrimp taco with Thai chili sauce. 

But, now we're back in Japan... luckily not too much heavier after eating all this food!  Soon enough we'll start dreaming about this food again, but for now, we're happy to be cooking more and eating great food here!

The Boy Can Swim!

 

Goodbye Water Wings!

Thanks to a couple of weeks of swim classes at the YMCA and being in the water, either the beach, lake or pool almost every day of the summer, Maximo can swim.  He struggles a bit swimming above water, but he can definitely swim underwater!  

Lola has gotten quite confident in her Puddle Hopper as well and tools around the pool without us right next to her too.

Connecticut Summer

 

The WHOLE Hinternhoff-Wood Clan...  
Next time we just need to get the Tylers there too!

 

Lola, Nana and Amanda 

As it shows from my lack of blog posts, our trip to Connecticut was a whirlwind trip.  It was jammed packed with family and eating our favorite foods and trying to catch up with a few friends.  Last summer I was there for over a month with the kids, since I was still on maternity leave, so I was able to do a lot more... see old friends and enjoy old haunts with the kids.  Unfortunately, with us purchasing a house in GA this summer, this time was shortened.  It was really hard squeezing in a year's worth of visits in ten days!

 

Fishing at the lake 

Even though we didn't do everything we wanted to, we had a great time.  The best being spending time with family.  John and I love seeing Max and Lola with their cousins.  The girls both love Lola and I'm glad Max had the opportunity to go over their house without Lola.  He now has all sorts of interesting "pool jumps" he learned from Jessica - like "The Waterfall" and "The Cake".

 Maximo on the "bungee jump" at the North Stonington Fair

Lola and Dad having a kiss on the beach

Family, Friends and the Fair

We've been in Connecticut for about a week and John just arrived a few days ago.  The kids had a couple of rocky days as we navigated around Nana's house and being without Daddy, but it seems like we've found our groove.

The best part about being home (both CT and GA) is being around family.  But, the bestest is to watch Max and Lola hang with their cousins, Jessica and Amanda.  Max and Amanda are only a month apart in age, so they are easy friends.  Sometimes I worry about Jess getting bored or frustrated with all the little kids, but NO! Jess has been great with Lola.  She wants to hang out with her all the time and she is really helpful!  Even in the water, Jess is really good about keeping an eye on Lola.

We've been playing a lot, eating a lot and we even went to a local agricultural fair, which Maximo LOVED!

Here's the beginnings of the Connecticut photos:

Connecticut Summer 2012

A Fun Filled Weekend

We started our weekend by going under contract on our new summer home!  Really it's the only home we pay for, so it's not like we're rolling in the dough so much as to have a summer home, but it just sounds more decadent as a "summer home".  I'll post more details about this later.  I don't want to curse anything.

Friday, Gigi (John's mom) took the day off, so we headed to Tybee Island.  Although it was a hot day, we had a lot of fun at the beach.

Saturday morning, Papa came over and we went to the Artzeum (Children's Interactive) show at the Telfair Art Museum.  Although it was a bit pricey, the kids had a good time.  Then we finished the morning off with lunch at Rancho Allegre - the awesome Cuban restaurant downtown, which just so happens to be a block away from our newly contracted home (extra perk!)

Hugo, Sarah and Charlie came into town on Saturday afternoon, so we went down to Tybee to check out the pool at their condo and had dinner with them.

Sunday, we went back down to the beach to hang with the Alfaros.  Then they came into town for dinner with Gigi... a perfect Southern summer dinner - pork barbecue, steamed shrimp, cucumber salad and orzo salad.

Today, John, Maximo and the Alfaros went out with Uncle Joe on a boat.  Max had a blast while Lola and I did a little shopping around.

Summer is good.


(As always there are more pictures... here.)

Summer Vacation - Week 1

I can't believe that we've been in the US for about a week now.  It's gone by so fast.  We had a few rough days of jetlag when we started our days at 2:00 am, but one did lead to an impromptu trip to watch the sunrise at the beach and an early morning trip to the 24-hour WalMart.


We've had a great time so far.  Savannah has been remarkably cool (for Savannah), although that's about to change.  We've gone house hunting and placed an offer on a house, and are dealing with that right now.

We've been to the new Children's Museum in Savannah.

Hung out with Gigi, Grandpa Jim and Papa and have spent a lot of time at the pool.

And already checked off some of our "must eats".

We're off to the beach in the next hour and we're excited for some friends to visit us next week.

Father's Day 2012

This is a little late to write a sweet little message to John about how great he is as a dad.  And now that Maximo is SO vocal, it's better to get it straight from the mouths of his babes.

We're keeping up with the Father's Day book, with the exception of when I forgot last year because I went to the US early with the kids.

 "I love to play legos with Daddy" and a picture of Maximo and John playing legos at the table.

 With the exception of Lola, it looks just like when they play legos together:

Maximo's lego creation, "Look, Mommy.  It's all of us, and Lola is bowing".  (She does bow for konnichiwas and thank yous!)

Today we're off to the US for our summer vacation.  We can't wait.  It will truly begin after our 24 hours of travel.  Let's hope we survive with Lola on our laps!

At last, Summer is here!

It has been a hectic month, actually year.  Going back to work full time, in a demanding job as a mother of two has been rough, but we made it!

The past few weeks has been a whirlwind... It's always exciting to be able to end a school year, have an extended vacation with the kids, then start fresh in the fall, but the end of the school year as an International teacher, well, kind of stinks...   There are always a lots of goodbyes (despedidas, sayonaras, depending on our locale), there are always report cards and those time consuming comments.  We have to clean up our classrooms... there are a lot of end of year parties for different things.  I never think I'll get everything done, but it all gets done...  although I have a to-do list to tackle over the next two weeks while we're in Japan and then other things to finish over the summer... like cleaning up my work email inbox!

Anyhow, the highlights of the last few weeks have been:
Maximo's end of BBP party at the River Mall with his teachers and friends.


Our family trip to the zoo.

Maximo's end of year BBP Play (where he played the headmaster).

Our trip today to Arashiyama - I can't believe we hadn't been there before!

I've put a lot of photos in the May-June Picasa Folder:

May - June 2012

Practicing for the Summer

I should be totally working on my report cards right now.  T-minus 1 week for school and 3 weeks until we head to Savannah.

We have the kids on a rigid practice schedule so they will be ready for our summer adventures:

Lola:

Maximo:

Maximo @ Swim Class