Today, we went to JapanFest. It's an annual festival that my company sponsors. It takes place at the Gwinnett Center, which is around 40 minutes north from our house. We went last year and we enjoyed it. This year, was a lot of fun too. I had free tickets that my company gave out to all of its employees. I saw only two people from my company and they were manning a balloon fishing booth that Cleo and Sidney enjoyed doing. I don't have pictures this year from them doing it.
We took pictures with a shogun warrior.
Cleo played a ring toss and got cotton candy.
Sidney found a booth selling an inflated shinkansen train car which he is in love with. He wants to sleep with it. He took such good care of it during the festival. He would look back to make sure it was still on its wheels. Shinkansen is what the Japanese bullet trains are called. And an action shot of Cleo about to enjoy her cotton candy. One of the American attorneys in my department brought back a mini motorized shinkansen train from Japan. She was there for 5 weeks last Fall. Sidney still occasionally plays with it.
Cleo the Brave posed for pictures on an ATV and speed boat.
Sidney drove his train on the back of the speedboat - you can see him in the above picture and more clearly in the below picture.
Cleo and Sidney sat in a little jeep with two rows of seating. There are other kids in the front row.
Sidney posed with a large inflated lucky cat.
We repeatedly and successfully steered the kids away from the face painting booth since we intended to go immediately home afterward for naps. The last time they had face painting done, it was earlier in the day.
The last thing we did at the festival was look at the the koi show. It's amazing how large those goldfish type fish can get. Some were really pretty. There was a white one with a red oblong circle on the top of its head; someone commented that it resembled the Japanese flag. Cleo selected a purple goldfish keychain that lights up; we bought it from one of the koi vendors. She presses one side of its gills to get it to light up.
Cleo, Sidney and I fell asleep in the car on the way home. When we got home, the kids did not nap. Around 2:15 pm when it was clear they were not falling asleep, I took them to the library to pick up some books that I had put on hold and that were finally in. Prior to going, I packed the kids some lunch - ham sandwiches, chips and water. Cleo had a ham and cheese sandwich on a wheat pita.
Cleo has discovered that she likes pita bread. I am going to get larger pita bread because it's hard to fit a whole sandwich in a mini pita bread, which is the size that I had bought to make my sandwiches. Sidney had just ham on wheat - I only have him half a sandwich. Cleo had Skittles for dessert and Sidney had a Tropical Tie Dye fruit roll-up. I promise you they eat much better during the week. :-)
Cleo enjoyed her first week of healthy lunches. I learned to not give her a ton of vegetables to dip in the ranch dressing. She cannot finish a whole lot of vegetables in the time she is allotted at school for lunch. She enjoyed the tofu and asparagus wrap. And she really liked the spinach and turkey wraps, I put in a lot of fresh spinach. Roger found packaged fruit slices and we gave her those each day. She also really likes baby carrots and steamed broccoli. She did not care for the yellow or orange bell peppers. We will steam the green beans we got last week and she can take them this week and dip them in ranch dressing.
Today, at the library, I returned all of Sidney's library books. I found out later that he liked one of them a lot and he burst into real tears when he discovered I had returned it. I discovered that he like the book when I was putting him to bed for the night and he asked for it. I will try to loan it again tomorrow or Monday. It was a Berenstein's Bear book title Nothing Happens at the Aquarium. He hasn't shown any interest in any of the library books I have gotten him lately but he must have read the book with Roger one night. I felt terrible.
Cleo selected some new books and Sidney selected a book about train sounds titled, "A Train goes Clickity Clack" or something like that. Cleo and Sidney looking for books:
Cleo and Sidney sharing the rocking chair in the kids section of the library.
We left the library around 3:30pm and headed home. At home, I played Hungry Hungry Hippos with Sidney while Cleo read one of her new library books, "I Like Me" to Roger. Then, Cleo, Sidney and I played an interactive, silly Dr. Seuss game. Then, Cleo, Sidney and I played hide and seek. Roger was on the couch watching college football but he was instrumental during our hide and seek game in getting the kids to count to 10. Sidney would stop at 5 and sometimes Cleo stopped at 7. Cleo and I enjoy hide and seek but Sidney LOVES it. Then, we all played Memory with Sidney's Thomas the Train memory game. That was fun and Cleo won.
We gave the kids baths, ate dinner, a decent frozen margarita pizza we got weeks ago from Trader Joe's. Roger didn't eat it because he likes meat on his pizza, he ate leftovers. The kids and I had broccoli with our pizza. Cleo and I had fresh basil leaves on ours; the basil was from our basil plant on the deck. We are also growing Thai basil and it's awesome. It smells so good and adds such great flavor to food. I stuff a pita pocket with avocado, hummus, spinach, splash of soy sauce, and a generous amount of Thai basil. It's one of my favorite weekend lunches.
Tomorrow, we are going to church, doing some food shopping, and Cleo and Roger are starting one of her school projects. She has to create an "all about me" cube. Roger got a styrofoam cube on which they will past pictures and drawings.
I almost forgot to provide an update on my 5K race! On Thursday, Sept. 13, 2012 at 7pm, I participated in the Kaiser Permanente 5K race. It starts and ends near Turner Field where the Braves play. The course runs through Georgia State University and by some big hotels. I ran the first mile with my training partner, Val, but she got a stitch in her side a mile in so I apologetically abandoned her. I ran for most of it and walked for around 5 minutes of it. I even jogged up the hills, there seemed like there were a lot of them. I found out later that Val finished the run in 41 minutes which is great because she got another stitch later on. She's one of the attorneys in my department, there are only 4 of us total counting my boss. My boss, Jim, did the run too and he did it in 27 minutes. He ran in those crazy looking skeletoes sneaker type shoes. Val is 30 and Jim is 45. Val, Jim, and I were the only 3 from the YKK group to run it.
I finished the 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) in 38 minutes! I cannot believe I did it in such a short time. I was sure I was jogging super, crazy slow but I was doing around a 13 minute mile. I felt amazing afterward. I was so proud of myself. I had not been exercising for the 2 weeks prior because of my banged knee then my stubbed right pinky toe. The pinky toe still looks crazy bad but my primary physician saw it on Monday, Sept. 10 during my annual physical and said it was suffering from a contusion and was not broken. I wore sneakers to work all day so as not to squeeze the toe. It was smart that I didn't exercise for the past two weeks because I am sure I would have hurt more during the run on Thursday. After the race, I picked up my race t-shirt, grabbed some water and bananas, got a free sample of McDonald's strawberry/banana smoothie, walked slowly to my car, and drove home. I drove separately from the other 25-30 YKK employees who came in their own cars or the company van. They all live north of Turner Field and I live south. I wish my knees were in better shape or I would train for a longer run because it's such an exhilarating feeling during the run, I don't want to stop! But then my knees hurt a lot after and the day after. When I was training, I could never run more than two times a week. If I ran more, my knees would hurt really bad.
I don't have any pictures of myself from the race. I may have access to a group shot at some point and will be sure to post it at a later time.
Have a great week!
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