Scantastic

On Saturday it was time for the second scan of the second monkey baby- about 15wks; we hoped to see a bit more this time. The appointment was at 10.30am and as this coincided with Archie's nap time John stayed home to look after him and do a few chores (Cat toilet, nappy bin). Despite waking Archie up early (11.30am) they still didn't make it to the clinic in time to see the scan but we do have it on video・but don't have a video player..... The baby was moving around a lot and Aiko can already feel a swimming sensation sometimes.

A day at the Zoo

The weather was meant to be good on Sunday so we thought we would have a day at Hiroshima (Asa) Zoo with Archie's grand parents. The first thing you can see when you go in is the Baboons and AJ ran over straight away He must have been able to smell his ancestry but it was quite stinky to be honest- AJ didn't want to leave there...
AJ's favourite animal are elephants at the moment . The Japanese for elephant is Zou and AJ calls them Zou-san. AJ was so happy to see a real zou-san and after that, every animal was called zou-san.... Archie also says peepo (Hippo) and also knows what a Giraffe looks like - although John thinks it has to be said 'Geee Raf' in an American accent.

Play spot the Elephant at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hV5JLgeroc can you see the Elephant like Archie can? Obviously his view was slighly less pixelated!!Up Up close and personal! See Archie is trying some groundbreaking communication with Elephants here! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1DNYIzldDI

AJ with some birds of the feathered variety http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKU1g27SVBg

AJ Weighing Day

It's been a while but this week Archie had his latest weigh-in at the local community 'room'

He's 1 yr 10 months and is:-

Height was 89.9cm
Weight was 13.6kg.

Of course John is sad enough to plot this 'data' onto growth charts as you can see

We also feel that it's time that he should learn how to drive. Give him a bit of independance.....

Picnic Birthday Party

We had a joint Birthday Party for Shota-kun & Harumi-chan. It was beautifully sunny day so we decided to have it in the Chuo Koen (Central Park). They've just turned one. Harumi-chan is already walking and Shota-kun still likes crawling but he is a big strong boy and he can go down a slide on his own. (AJ could still not do this when he was one.)















The Birthday Boy and Girl
They don't seem to be interested in the camera- they are more interested in having some cake.

The Cake was Berry Tart so the children could eat the fruit and the Mothers could eat everything else- nothing left for the Fathers!!!



























and...we thought you might want to know how much AJ likes Lin-chan!! ....Ahhhhhhhh .....how sweet!

Korean Restaurant

A 4 way family night out- All young couples with one child....yes we still consider ourselves young....well Aiko is!
There are two two-year olds (Lin-chan and Archie) and two one-year olds (Shota-kun and Harumi-chan). I don't know how the owners had the patience not to throw us out as the 4 kids ran around shouting whilst others (including some older folks) sat having dinner.
Food was Korean and at times a bit spicy but we like it that way.

As usual Archie and John each have their priorities. By this stage Archie was getting a bit tired but was still able to force in the ice cream. Meanwhile John was really struggling to fit in the beer....

Photo exhibition of AJ

Posing for cheeky chappy face contest Hiroshima 2007.

Do my legs look short or what.......?

Here are the most aggressive bikers in Hakushima !

Gooooooooooooooal !!!


















Bye bye Anpanman!!! .....he is only SweetBeanBreadMan though...













You know I sometimes want to be alone....and think about my future....

Kaita Sogo Koen

We went to Kaita Sogo Koen which has tennis courts, a baseball ground, a football pitch and other areas but the highlight was the kids play area which had loads of slides, climbing nets and other stuff to keep kids amused for a long time. It was a certainly brilliant place for families and one of the best place we’ve ever been to!! Archie was really happy and didn't want to leave (we had to carry him)but there did seem to be someone who may have been enjoying it more……The Henington Head Master!!! ….as you can imagine!! See the linked videos for some slide action. On the long slide it would be possible (if we were trying to be competitive) to get a fair bit of speed up but it would have resulted in a lot of heat generation in the posterior!

After we had such good fun we all needed something healthy to recharge our energy... instead we settled on a nice & very creamy ice cream!

Next time, we'll definitely have a picnic there!



Video of Archie on curly slide http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joAEokxjalw
Video of Big slide http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC2AdVagoVk

Henington Posse New Member!!!

Well it’s about time we had something a bit more exciting to announce. Here is the first picture of our number two offspring. It’s all too early to get too excited or confident but we’re at 12 wks and the attached is the result of a 2hour wait. For John this meant a 1 hour stint at the local park trying to ensure Archie didn’t injure himself (not 100% successful) and then a 1 hour period in superheated conditions at the hospital chasing Archie around.

It’s not stomach ultra sound so the angle is a bit strange (don’t ask) and it's quite hard to make out what's what but so far nothing unusual has been found so it’s a case of so far so good.. We’re back in 3 weeks for another scan and hopefully we will be able to get a better look at the blighter!

Also as you can see Aiko is also showing a bump already ! And for those who are reading everything this has nothing to do with the 4 plates of food she ate in a previous entry!

James Birthday- A Night out!

Not a lot to report on this one but just for the record we do go out sometimes. This night was at a reasonable place where you can eat all you can AND drink all you can for about 15 quid!! I think they lost out that night- with John and Co consuming a lot of wine and Aiko having 4 plates of food (yes 4 plates) it was a win-win for us and a lose lose for them!!

Museums we visited in Jan

Yamato Museum














The Yamato was a huge battleship made by the Japanese during the second world war. I don’t know all the history but in summary by the time it was built Japan was struggling with a lack of materials so weren’t able to use it, or protect it with air cover so it stayed in port. That was until the US were really closing in on the homeland when it was sent out on what was ultimately a suicide mission (and everyone knew it) and it was sunk by US bombers and torpedo planes. It was built in Kure which is just down the road (ish) and there has been a film made recently about it (not seen it yet) so we thought we should head down and see the museum. All in all it was a bit of a let down- few old planes, suicide torpedoes and an accurate scale model of the Yamato…yawn. Anyway here’s the result of us trying to film Archie jumping- a recent skill he picked up which is handy for the park!


Transportation Museum














In recent years John has become a bit of a history bore (OK so a lot) and in particular trains are a favourite…..trainspotter! Given this (sad) fact it seems strange that it has taken us so long to go to the Hiroshima transportation museum. This was a lot better than the Yamoto museum and had loads of things to look at and Archie to play with. As with most things in Japan they do things thoroughly so even though it doesn’t look it does a roaring trade it still runs and has spent money on producing a model ‘city’. Outside was a track with an array of weird bikes although John committed himself to one that was so small (so you can imagine it was tiny) that his knees were squeezed in between the handle grips so steering was limited and aggressive pedalling was done at the risk of chin injury!

Sunlive

This is another place that Aiko, Archie and Archie’s Gran went to. It was good fun and really kid friendly and Archie enjoyed playing with the balloons. Importantly this meant that Archie would tire himself out which is a good idea to ensure a peaceful night!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTetHC0vgvk

Anpanman and Anpanman slippers

You may not know this but there is a cartoon that is really big in Japan called Anpanman. Like most super heroes there is a theme and in this case the theme is food- So Anpanman is actually a superhero made from SweetBeanBread. Archie knows him as 'banban' and is a bit of a fan so his grandparents bought him some lovely slippers as a present.- as you can see.
In each episode Anpanman has many different side kicks from a whole list of bread , foodstuff such as shokupanman (slicedbreadman), currypanman (friedcurrybreadman)...who do battle against evil Bikingman which is a germ….what next!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anpanman














Also there was a Anpanman event in town which we went to. Lots of things to do, see and sometimes get huffy about ( I want to go on the train) but generally good fun. You can’t beat a ball pool can you?- John ’bravely’ went on the bouncy castle type of things with Archie although it’s unclear who had more fun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkcCFP0qeIc

January- where did it go?...

Well, the last post we made referred to New Year and here we are already in February! we have a lot of catching up to do- not that we did a lot of exciting things in January....

Well here goes- here's a quick refesher of what was hot and what was not in January!