our new house

In mid december we moved about 10 minutes down the road to Oyamacho. Our 4 year lease was up, and the owner was planning on moving back to Tokyo (from London) so this is our house for the next 6 months or so.
a new move means another trip to Ikea for a few random things. Trent was a great helper and actually put this chair together all by himself.

This is the first time we've lived in a house and this is what we love about it:

• heated toilet seats--the fancy Japanese kind with tons of buttons.
• stairs! the kids have made up all sorts of games climbing up and sliding down. really entertaining.
• a closer walk to the train station for Ryan--about 5 minutes shorter.
• a closer walk to the bus stop for the kids (by just a few minutes)
• we can leave 10 minutes later for the bus--the kids still ride the same bus, but we are 2 stops further down the road.
• more space!
• we don't have to be quiet "because we have neighbors" the kids can jump around all they want.

and one thing I'm still getting used to is the upkeep of the porch/front of the house. It's really important for the Japanese to not have any leaves or anything in front of your house. so little Japanese women sweep their street/porch area at least once, and sometimes a couple times a day. even if there is only 1 leaf on the ground, you're expected to sweep it up. and since we have little elderly Japanese couples living on each side of us, I feel like they are watching me to make sure I'm sweeping up my leaves. I've even seen people sweeping their leaves in the rain or a windstorm. It's so funny.

and here are our first house guests. the 5th grade turtles, Fred, John and Smarty Pants stayed over Christmas vacation. The kids had a lot of fun playing with them.