Reagan's award ceremony

First quarter is over at school, and Reagan earned a spot on the All A honor roll.  Here we are at the school for the awards ceremony.   We are super proud of her and her hard work!  To celebrate, we went on the American village Ferris wheel ride, spent some time in the Japanese arcade and went out for ice cream.  

Neopark

Last weekend we drove up to the North part of the island to go to Neopark.  It was our first time there, and the reviews were mixed online.  Some people said it was awesome, others said never go there because the animals are treated poorly.  We decided to see for ourselves.

Once you enter, there are bags of food for sale, which we bought.  Here Reagan and Brock are checking out the birds.  It was really cool that they could come right up to you, but stepping in tons of bird poop, not so cool.  

Brock liked them, but didn't want them to get too close.  He also didn't like it when they quacked loudly.  


Reagan really liked feeding the birds, they would eat right out of her hand. 

They also had a walk through fish tank with some big fish.  

This is the closest I've ever gotten to a Turkey that wasn't on the table.  

Brock spent a good part of the day pushing the stroller. 

At the end of the park, we came upon this big panda ride.  We threw the kids on its back and dropped in our 200 yen.  Then, the thing took off!  Brandon and I expected it to rock back and forth in one spot, but that was not the case.  Reagan had to actually steer it and it went on and on.  Brandon kept trying to push the red button, thinking that would stop it, but it only put the panda in reverse.  

Notice our abandoned stroller in the background.  We left it behind to run and catch up with the panda.  

They also had a turtle pool.  

Brock is into truck, cars, trains, anything that moves.  So of course we had to ride the train.

While we had a good time, we probably will not go back.  There was a petting zoo, that we skipped, it looked sad.  They also had a pony that was available for rides, but he seemed worn down.  We enjoyed the birds at the beginning, but then the farther we went the sadder the place became.  

Halloween 2013

This year we invited some friends over to carve pumpkins at our house.  They had never done it before, and all the kids seemed to have a blast.  

Here is Brock on Halloween night.  He stayed home with Brandon to hand out candy, while Reagan and I went out with some friends.  

 In case you aren't familiar with Pokemon, Reagan is Pikachu.  

Tokyo Disney Resort Day 3

On Monday we headed out super early to get to Tokyo Disney Resort before park opening.    We were about a 1/2 hour early and were towards the front of the waiting line.  The store on the left is shaped like a suitcase.

Some of my photos are a bit blurry.  With the huge crowds always behind me, I never felt like I could stop to take a photo.  

This is one of the Disney hotels.  

A shot of the crowd before opening.  

Some Japanese people peeking in on Brock.  

This is the "main street" area.  Brandon and I had a plan...well, I had a plan, he was taking orders.  I sent him to the Monsters inc. ride immediately to get Fastpasses, while I took the kids to the Pooh ride.  No joke, the kids and I hustled straight to the ride immediately after opening and when we got there, the wait was already 45 minutes.  We skipped it.  So, we quickly went on the Tea cups,  Pinocchio's daring adventure and the Carousel without any waits.  Brandon showed up while we were riding the carousel and the lines were already getting long.  We decided to head over to toon town to see what we could get done over there.  

On the Tea Cups

Reagan doing a little "ear" shopping.  She ended up with Dumbo ears.

Here's a shot of Fantasyland. 

When we got to toontown, we were all starving.  Mind you, it's about 9:45 at this point.  Reagan and I went to a cart that had cream cheese stuffed pretzels and Brandon went to a different cart.  When we met up, he had this to show.  It was a sausage on a bone, a real bone.  They stuck a real bone into a hot dog.   For some reason, this fascinates me.  I just couldn't wrap my head around why.  Anyway, he had one bite and declared it bad.  Brandon is much more daring than I am, so if he doesn't like it, I'm not even trying it.   

You can see the pretzels in the bottom of this photo.  Reagan didn't like the cream cheese, so I got two pretzels.  Yes, I ate both of them.  Luckily, I packed a bunch of snacks for the kids in my backpack, so they didn't starve.  

Oh, I forgot Brandon also got a black pizza.  I'm not sure if it was black because it was Halloween or not.  The menu didn't explain.  He said it was just ok.  I stuck with the pretzels.  

So after our quick break, we decided to hit Minnie's house.  We had to wait about 5 minutes, which wasn't bad at all.  

Here Reagan and Brock are in Minnie's yard.

The tree is Chip and Dale's tree house.  We went in this, but it was lame.  It really amounted to walking up a narrow winding staircase and then down again.  I didn't get it. 

a photo of Goofy's house.  We didn't go in, as the line was 40 minutes or so.  Brock's max wait time is 20 minutes at best.  

Minnie's fireplace.

Trying to hold Brock down long enough for a photo on Minnie's couch.  

Brock and Reagan sleeping in Minnie's bed. 

Checking our her wheels.  

In one of the shops Brandon showed Brock a huge Pooh.  I don't even want to guess what it cost. 

Of course we had to get a picture at the dentist's office.   

Time for another snack.  We looked at the menus at several places and nothing sounded good to us.  We found a bakery on Main street and got a few things there.   Side Note - Egg Salad sandwiches from convenient stores are AMAZING here.  We love them, they are my "go to" meal when we are out.  So, this place had an egg salad and pastrami on a crescent roll.  Reagan picked out a chocolate muffin and and apple pie type thing.  Then we went across the street to get Brandon something.  

Brandon came back with a "Mike eye" kind of like the ones above.  This one had a bean paste filling and a strange outside.  I tasted it and it was ok.  Brock liked it.  

This is the one and only family photo we took the entire trip!  I'm so glad we at least got 1.  

A couple of the characters...not sure who.

You can go upstairs in this castle, so Reagan and I waited in line so that she could sit in the throne and try on the glass slipper.

Finally, our last ride of the day was our Monsters inc ride that Brandon had gotten fastpasses for about 5 hours before.    We had all reached the "lets get out of here" point, so there was no use in sticking around any longer.  We headed back to the hotel to swim and relax.   We are glad we did it and it's crossed off my bucket list.