Weekend (and Monday) Shenanigans

Saturday : 6am left house and took the "Aqua line" (now reduced to 800yen, rather than 2300yen each way) out to Chiba Boso Peninsular for a bit of surfing. Well, J did the surfing. K and I dug up sand, made mud pies, buried ourselves in sand.....basically got sand in every orephous possible. I made the mistake of taking off my t-shirt and going to paddle in togs for about 30mins. I thought I had put sunscreen all over my back, but turns out I just put it at the top...so the middle of my back is RED RAW. Ouchy ouchy. And the front of my legs too, where I also forgot to sunscreen. Silly mummy. Lucky K was dolled up in her full uv-protection togs with matching hat.

We were going to try to find a last minute dot com type accommodation, but nothing too exciting came up Fri night so we decided to make a day trip out of it. So after a morning of beach fun, we ate lunch at a local Hawaiian restaurant, then headed back via a 道の駅 where we picked up 5 eggplant for 110yen and about a dozen potatoes for 150yen, as well as some huge 冬瓜togan (winter melon or wax gourd) for 100yen each.

I have no idea what to do with the togan, but a cookpad search should help that out. They are sort of like squash, I think, so shouldn't be too difficult to cook up.

We got home about 4pm, crazy to think we had been to Chiba and back by that time!! We were home for 2 seconds, when J suggested we head to Sushi-Ro for an early dinner, trying to beat the crowds (that place is CRAZY by about 5pm!) So we jumped back in the car and were super surprised to see the place empty, like literally one lane was not even in use. We then realised that people were probably out at the fireworks instead. so we had a leisurely dinner (rather than trying to avoid eye contact with all the people waiting in line for seat, boring holes into our backs!!)Came home and watched Red Carpet for the first time in ages, definately the first time since it switched to 7pm on Sat night. Then we all hit the sack pretty early as we were all buggered from our day out at the beach.

Sunday : quiet day at home, it rained all morning. We walked down the street (50m down the street) to local joint for 定食 lunch, stock standard stuff. Got some supplies from supermarket and came home for a nap. After K woke up, we went to Nishimatsuya to buy her some real girl pants, since she had spent the whole weekend dry in her nappy and training pants, even doing No2s in the toilet!! yay! Of course as soon as we put her in regular pants, she wets them (sigh) but we are going to stay away from nappies now - no ponit in going back, right?! J made dinner last night - pork chops in mushroom sauce, with roast potato and pumpkin. It was his choice. Did a quick run around last night as PIL were to be arriving at 9am this morning to bring back R (and their 9 am usually ends up being 8:15am! aaarrggh) then crashed.

Monday : ok, no longer weekend, but since I am on a roll I may as well post about this too. PILs arrived at 9am on the dot - I reckon this time they were hiding around the corner, as I have caught them when they arrive early before sitting downstairs in the car!! We all piled in to go out to a small beach near here where you can collect asari (like we did last weekend). PIL and K spent about an hour on the beach collecting clams while R and I rested in shade. Then FIL's back started to hurt so I went down to the beach to grab some clams too. Looks like we will be having another week of clam-related food!! We all had conbini noodles for lunch then came home, and K crashed after another big day by the sea. Is nice to have R back after her week away, but it also now means we have to take her for her walk in the summer heat. If I was more organised, I would do it before K woke up, but, bugger that. We will just ALL suffer lol!

Not sure what we are gonna have for dinner tonight, but rest assured there will be clams involved.