camping

We had a great weekend up in Ooari and although it wasn't sunny at least we didn't have a thunderstorm like the ones we have been having here the last few days. We left early and arrived at the campsite about 10am, so we had a look around the went down to a small beach to find some shells and stones. Once we had a bucketful we went to get some lunch. We met up with 3 other families at the aquarium, all the children are half Japanese half something else and as parents we feel that it is important to have this group so that they don't grow up feeling like they are 'different' or 'strange'. We spend a good couple of hours in the aquarium, BabyEbi loves it in there

They had a 30 minute dolphin show, last time BabyEbi saw one he didn't move the whole time, he was mesmerized, this time he was so excited he couldn't sit still and kept asking me to make the dolphin jump up one more time - I don't know why he thought I was controlling the dolphins!

I had to take a picture of this, it was an interactive exhibit about  fish, under the pictures of the fish are sashimi, sushi and the such like! Only in Japan, LOL. You actually hear people walking round the aquarium going 'hmm oishi-sooo' (looks delicious)

After the aquarium we all headed to the supermarket then the campsite to meet everyone else, we had booked 6 of the 7 cabins and then one family had a tent. The men folk set up the BBQ's, I had made pinata football (I will show you how I made it in another post) but then forgot to take pictures as the kids were playing with it, hopefully one of the other campers with have some pictures. here it is half done...

So everyone would get a prize I had put them in party bags, one for each child. Inside with glo sticks, balloon and a mini frisbe or ball plus some candy, the kids loved kicking it around and it kept going for quite a while, luckily we have a couple of bigger boys who could give it a good boot to break it. I should have put them in teams so or devised a way for them to take turns as some of the little ones didn't get much of a look in, I will know for next time. It was a much better idea than letting kids beat it with a large stick!

After the BBQ we had a cake decorating competition, boys Vs girls. Each team got two sponges, some creamie whip and lots of sweets to decorate. The creamie whip wouldn't actually whip so it was more like creamie mess hahaha, quite possibly the most unhealthy cake ever but they seemed to enjoy it and the sugar rush kept most of them going for a couple of hours longer so we could watch the fireworks down by the beach.

Japanese fireworks shows are fantastic and free, which is all the better. This one certainly wasn't the biggest one I have been to but very pretty all the same.


BabyEbi didn't make it through the fireworks and fell asleep on the way back to the campsite. We just put him to bed as he was, he is usually in bed by 7.30pm and he isn't good at staying up late, usually by 8.30pm his eyes are going by 9.00pm he is out. Once all the kids were in bed us adults had some downtime, had a few beers...

The trouble with BabyEbi is that it doesn't matter if he is up late, he is still awake at the crack of dawn the next day and this weekend was no exception. So, we had a great breakfast of eggs, beans and bacon before packing up and heading out to Sun Beach, which should have been called extremly overcast beach. It was very much like a beach in England, cloudy and cold sea with lots of people determinded to enjoy it, even if they are covered in goose-bumps because they are on holiday, all that was missing were the egg sandwiches dipped in sand! BabyEbi loved it though I doubt he remembers the last time we went to the beach, he didn't want to get out of the sea even though he was shivering like mad.

We left around lunch time and went for lunch before the drive home, BabyEbi slept almost all the way back. We nipped to the supermarket before getting home and managed to unload the car just before we had another massive thunder and rainstorm, lucky. It was a fun filled weekend, we were all tired when we got back, the only bad thing was that BabyEbi was having poo problems all weekend and ended up with a super sore bum and I ended up with a big pile of pooey pants - lovely!

Well, tomorrow is the big day, BabyEbi turns Three, doesn't time fly? I'm not sure I can keep calling him BabyEbi now he is a big 3 year old, I don't like to use his real name on the blog but haven't come up with a better nick-name yet, any suggestions?

Right, lots to do....