So this weekend was a long weekend. Matt had Monday off since it was Marine Day, a national holiday. We had considered going camping but since this is the weekend to kick off summer the camp sites filled up really quickly so we decided a weekend in Tsukuba would be fun. Katie and I started our weekend off with swimming on Friday morning. There is a outdoor pool close to the house so we thought we would check it out. Reagan of course loved it and they have a great kiddy pool. The strange thing is that every 30 minutes everyone has to get out and rest for 5 minutes, for safety I guess. This "safety" break completely contradicts how the life guards conducted themselves. Most of the time they were nodding off, if not already asleep. So maybe this "safety break" was more for the life guards to do a quick check to make sure no one was on the bottom of the pool then back to relaxing. Either way not a big deal since Reagan is always swims right next to us.

Friday night we met some of Matt’s classmates from his Japanese Course for dinner at Takarajima. It is a place where you have a grill in front of you and you order different meats and cook them on the grill yourself. They are pretty cool restaurants. We had been to one in Hiroshima so we knew the drill. This restaurant had a set called “the viking“. It was all you can eat for 90 minutes then you get cutoff. We decided this was a good deal and tried it. By the way we ate for the whole 90 minutes. We had steak, chicken, corn, edaname, pork, potato salad, and I finished up with four different desserts. I wanted to try them all and so I did. Reagan did help me with them. It was a great start to the weekend.

The next day we had a lazy morning and then went to the pool. Reagan loves the pool and we love getting to lounge around in the water. Good family event. After the pool we came home and Reagan took a two and a half hour nap. Matt let me go shopping with Katie and he relaxed. It was pretty interesting and it's pretty fun shopping here. They definitely have different styles but it's still entertaining. Half the fun was just getting to have some girl time. After Reagan’s nap I talked Matt into taking me to dinner. I didn’t feel like cooking. We went to our favorite restaurant which in conveniently located right down from our apartment. We can actually see it from the balcony, I could throw a rock into the parking lot if we wanted to. They have great pad tai and even better naan and even better curry, well everything is great. Dinner was wonderful and after we went to a friend's house and played games. We got home late and since Reagan didn’t go to bed until after midnight we got to sleep in the next day which was really nice.

Sunday we didn’t have too much planned just check out some of the local festivities. We rode our bikes around Sunday afternoon, brought Reagan home for a nap while we watched a movie. Then that evening went to a Arts in the Park thing and it was a lot of fun. The music was good and so was the food.

Monday was Marine Day and the lake that is pretty close was a having a big festival. I got this great idea that we should ride our bikes even though Matt advised it was a pretty long ride. Well, yes, it was a very long ride. It took us about an hour each way. Matt has an odometer on his bike and the round-trip ended up being 22 miles. Nice ride in 90 degree weather with 90% humidity. I think I almost passed out a few times. Anyways, once arriving at the park and sitting in some shade to regain my composure I felt ready for some food. At first it ways a little confusing because none of the venders actually accepted any money. You first had to go buy some tickets then exchange the tickets for whatever you wanted. The festival was pretty overwhelming with all of the people, the loud Power Ranger skits, and the extreme heat/humidity. Yes I said Power Rangers, ok maybe they weren't exactly Power Rangers but it was something close. Of course the skits were way over the top with loud crackled/clipped sound coming out of the PA system. We  quickly moved out of the speaker woofer and down to the water front area. It was a small little cove, no not that cove, where kids could get in the water a play. As soon as Reagan spotted it she started taking her clothes off like they were on fire. We managed to get a swim suite on her before she jumped in. After playing in the murky water and watching a kid play with a dead fish we decided to go play inland.

Made our way to the large park to play on the Zeppelin. This large structure is perfect to let your kid's imagination go wild. It is a spaceship that you take to fight man-lizards, or a super-sonic aircraft that shoots down the enemy, or a submarine, or a fortress, well you see the list can go on for days. But for me, now, it's just a place for your kid to win a ticket to the ER and liquidate your disposable funds. That aside, I went and played on my spaceship and made sure I could be Reagan's parachute if need be. 

After circling the universe a few times we headed back home. Dehydrated and tired I made it back somehow and passed out for a nap.