valentine's day, date nights, and a video

For our last date night, Chad and I went out to a Japanese restaurant on Blue Street. Not sure why it's called that, but it's a pretty happening street in downtown Yokosuka.
We sat in a room with a curtain and you had to take off your shoes and sit on the cushions. The cool thing was that there was space under the table for your legs unlike other Japanese restaurants that simply have a table about 12" off the floor. This way my legs did not go to sleep! There were two other tables in the room but no one wanted to sit with the Americans so we got the room all to ourselves :)
the sushi platter with raw fish, which I actually tried (but still could not get over the fact it was raw). I am however, warming up to the rolled sushi without raw fish, which previously I did not even like.
Sake jug (didn't particularly like this, though just like wine, there are many varieties to try).
Yaki-tori (literally grilled-chicken, are you amazed at my Japanese skills???) These were my favorite. Or maybe I should say the apple chu-hi was my favorite. Can't go wrong with those!
Chad also took Abby out on a date last week, they went to Daiei for dinner at Mister Donut and some shopping (Abby's pick)



A few days before Valentine's Day, I helped the kids make Valentine's mailboxes. Abby had seen this idea at library storytime and wanted to make one. The problem was that they weren't going to be getting many Valentine's to fill it up with! So the day before I went shopping and bought all sorts of treats and made them cards and filled up their mailboxes and left them out for them to see in the morning. Abby was very excited, Jamie was a bit more coy...

Abby is so proud of her "fancy" bag:
This is what Jamie put on the back of his (a big frown face with the words "I AM MAD"), just to make sure that everyone knew he was NOT excited about Valentine's Day!
But I think he enjoyed it, and he even put some red heart stickers on the front...
And Chad brought home flowers for both Abby and I, and again, she was SUPER excited!

Here is a cute video of Tristan playing with Abby while she's in the shower and he's outside the door, nevermind the fact that at one point Abby is literally eating the soap-scum off the shower door, ew...