April with Yuriko~ and Sheon and Spring!

Yuriko and Sheon! We got Yuriko here for three months so it's been an easy time touring shops, restaurants, lovely places~ and the weather has been a little rainy, cloudy here you can see...however it's warming up and the girls have been getting their tanning in...

Me~ I'm going at the garden! No tomatoes...but lots of BLOSSOMS! I even found that the purple blossoms from the blooming red radishes are tasty! And the purple-pink blossoms from the daikon have a little daikon flavor. In the salad below, those white blossoms are from the arugula a.k.a.
rocket leaf lettuce.

We're getting whole salads from the garden. Little by little lettuces grow~ the yellow blossoms are from...ummmmm....some Japanese salad mix, and it still grows with tiny leaves~

Zen gets home from College perhaps every two weeks. He gets a dose of Sheon, food, and girlfriend~ gets laundry done and a good space to sleep too~


Sheon, Taka and I got out to the flea market one long Saturday morning a few weeks ago.

Sundays are the big days at the flea mrkt, but Saturday was so wonderfully CIVIL. People weren't as intense as on Sundays, and the weather was gorgeous! I found a great iron pot, Taka got wood for half the price the seller was asking. Taka ended up ma VERY cool shoebox for the entrance of our house.

And this woman carved a mango for us to eat! The tradition, apparently is to always sprinkle it with a read hot chili pepper. Talk about refreshing~tho it did get stuck in our teeth, SO I'm
   covering my mouth!

Santa Cruz~ Yuriko too is feeling it.  I'm wishing so many friends and family could be here already!

Finally!!! We can go back to our house in Santa Cruz!

We hadn't left Santa Cruz County~ but had to leave our house since the end of February.

Our housemate had planned to move by April 1st~ but four months hadn't been enough time to for him to get everything done. So for the month of March, Sheon, Taka and I moved all of our things into our one bedroom at our rental and "got out of the way" so his moving his things would be easier.

One of the worst parts was that Sheon had just begun this one English Class at the College down the road, and I felt so sorry to not be able to have her settled so she could concentrate on the one- very expensive- class. 

But now~ with a new lease, and some house cleaning and repairs, we're slowly but surely making a freshly, cozy home!

We stayed at hotels for the month too, and even camped out a few nights. For the most part Sheon, and sometimes Zen, were able to stay at the loft behind Uncle Lynn's and Lorraine's. Talk about feeling fortunate!

It really reminded us of Japan!!! Squeezing into the small space. Sheon and I could stand up upstairs~ But Zen really needed to crawl!

I did get to get some of my lettuces out of our garden over the month. Even some little carrots, and sweat peas are growing a few at a time~









For the most part we ate out though. We tried a number of different sushi restaurants so that Sheon could get an idea about kinds of restaurants she might like to work at.

Below is outside Pink Godzilla~ I love this picnic table of cacti in front of the shop.

We made dinner at Grandmom's a couple of nights. Zen visited us a few times from Monterey too.

Sheon's driving our purple Subaru now!
It took me a little bit of time to get used to her driving, I had to remind myself she's TWENTY TWO years old and she's BEEN driving. She is great great!

Taka and I got to plant lots of seeds, and leave them in a greenhouse at Uncle Lynn's yard SHUNGIKU, SHISO, BASIL, SPINACH....and more.

It's been raining a lot the month of March~and it's been cold~~

Where ever we are, Sheon's got to find her smoking areas outside, rain or shine.

Taka and I were at Whole Foods to do internet one day, sitting outside, this sign was there. 

Funny~ when Japanese read this sign- Taka told me he and Sheon were talking about it...that it sounds to Japanese that it's free to smoke here!

 

Sheon and I on another of our days out shopping, she found these Pockys from Japan...she laughed, seeing the ingredients all in English "Weird" she says.

And then I kept finding this "NISHO-MARK" around Santa Cruz...and the type...japanesey, and Sheon asks "Why do Americans like it so much?"

Speaking of Japan, at our school in Japan, Anita was having an Easter egg decorating party I got to skype for an hour with the class and the event from our hotel room~ I wish I had better pictures!

So~

 as I wrote at the start of this blog entry, lots of repairs are being made at our rental. The hole in the kitchen floor is finally getting filled! Walls and cabinets painted...

And the day we went to see some sofas in San Jose that were for sale (we bought them) That day we got to see this fantastic rainbow~ BOTH ends of it ! The place we went to see the sofa was somewhere right there under the middle of the rainbow! What a nice sign, wasn't it?!

Spring is coming with the rains, 

and jasmine is about to bloom outside our kitchen window.

Here's to hoping your days are good too!