Alert the Highway Patrol

Marielle got this Power Wheels from my parents for Christmas, and she’s been absolutely terrified of it since then. The very first time she tried to get into it at Christmas, she accidentally pressed the power button and it started moving out from under her. She got scared and has been traumatized since then. Each time we go up to my parents’ house, we try to make her comfortable with it. Over the passed two months, the progression has been as follows:

1) Got her to acknowledge the Dora the Explorer stickers (Dora = fun)

2) Played with the sound-only buttons from outside the car

3) Got her to touch the wheels while they were NOT moving

4) Let her watch the car move without her in it

Finally, this past weekend, she decided to climb in while holding Dad’s hand. This was a huge accomplishment. We then risked all of our progress by pressing the “go” button with her in it. We held our breath, and then watched her look of surprise melt into excitement.

Denver . . . Land of the Rising Sun??!

I have been excited all week about writing this post! Viv probably thinks I'm a weirdo since I've been taking notes and looking up web articles as background info all week, but I know she is also excited that I like the restaurant (to which this post is dedicated) almost as much as she does.

Folks, it appears as though we have our own authentic little slice of sovereign Japanese territory right here in South Denver. That's right, we have the only Oshima Ramen restaurant in the entire United States (as of 2005). "What is Oshima Ramen," you might ask? This is where I'm hoping are readers in Japan can pipe in. According to Westword Magazine, Oshima Ramen could possibly be categorized as the McDonald's of Japan (if, in fact, Japan didn't already have McDonald's), and I'm hoping that this alleged ubiquity means that the Drews or the Rocks have been to one of these establishments. Despite the McDonald's comparison, Westword goes on to say wonderful things about this little place; as does a Denver Post story, and a Rocky Mountain News blurb. We thought the food was awesome!

Viv had gone there for lunch last week with some coworkers and had Marielle and me try it with her this past weekend. I told her that it will most certainly become our food pit stop of choice whenever we head to Colorado Springs from now on because it's on the way. I couldn't shut up about it while we ate. I took pictures of us eating, pictures of the pictures of the chain's other stores, and I even got a picture of my very own poorly-translated English. I was in rare form (perhaps it was the MSG).

The restaurant was nice and simple. Their primary decoration was the photographs of the other franchise locations, Keiji Oshima's vision statement of what ramen should be, and posterized versions of the newspaper articles I linked to above. The Westword article mentions that this restaurant in the only U.S. location in the chain (and on closer reading, it looks like they are based around Tokyo, so never mind Drews and Rocks). This fact just blew me away. Can you imagine the frequent-flyer miles the "Western" Regional Manager is racking up? Knowing this did, however, make it a bit funny that they chose to locate their U.S. flagship store in a rundown strip mall on Hampden. But having had the noodles, all of this is OK. This place rocks. Lisa, PC, and Nathan, when the tour in Japan ends, you can always count on Oshima Ramen to take you right back.

BTW, the crazy looking guy shown in two of the articles. He was there. The "office" mentioned on the "sign" above ... it's his office.

The Japanese Care Package

Just yesterday, we received a care package from our overseas friends halfway around the world. These packages are always fun. Lisa, PC, and Nathan are always sending us back the best goodies. They often include some fun things for Marielle from the 100Yen store, Marielle's favorite potato crisps, sweets for me, and some sort of entree that Viv will like. Last time, the entree was Taco Rice (you all may remember that post). This time it was ramen. Did you all know that the Japanese are huge fans of ramen? Oh yes, it's not just popular in China. There's even a ramen museum and theme park in Tokyo ;)

Viv had been excited about the ramen since Lisa had mentioned it a few days ago. She anxiously checked the mailbox all week. On Thursday, we ate ramen! ... after a little bit of confusion.


As you can see on the box, there were no English directions. This wouldn't have been a problem if Vivian and I hadn't both failed to take Japanese during our time at CU.

Viv puzzled over the box's diagrams for a few minutes ...










I even tried checking the internet ...










In the end, it came down to taste and Lisa's guess at the directions. By the way Lisa, 1.8 liters is about 7.6 cups of water :)


All in all, the ramen was a success, and we had a lot of fun trying to decipher the packaging.

California Weekend in Review

For those of you who have made the rounds and perused our families' and friends' blogs, you've seen that we spent last weekend in Los Angeles. I had been out there all last week for work and Vivian and Marielle met me on Thursday for the actual weekend. We stayed with Viv's cousin Leah's family and got a chance to see Viv's Aunt, Uncle, Grandmother, and their respective families. In addition to rendering our likenesses in Wii gamespace, we also managed to have a nice dinner out with our entire extended LA family, visit Disneyland, and simply relax with family.


We had a lot of fun at dinner at one of Viv's Aunt's favorite restaurants. It was great seeing Marielle get to see everyone. Viv and I are always telling each other that we love the fact that on both sides of our family we are getting to see relatives more often. I love that Marielle's earlier memories will include so many people.

On Saturday, we went to a brunch buffet with Goofy and friends at Disneyland. Marielle got to meet quite a few Disney regulars such as: Goofy, Pluto, Mulan, Chip & Dale, Wendy, and Baloo. She recognized a few of them, and we were relieved to find that she wasn't terrified of any of them. In fact, she seemed to like the giant bobble-headed characters (like Goofy) even more than the people in wigs and costumes (like Wendy). We spent the rest of the day hitting up all the key attractions at Disneyland and California Adventures. The kids had an awesome day.

We had really been looking forward to this trip because we've been curious to see Marielle play with Lacy and Anjali. This visit was Marielle's first time meeting little Anjali, and the last two times she's seen Lacy, there was only time for them to sit next to each other while we all met for dinner. Marielle had fun tickling Anjali's feet and rocking her in her bouncy seat. Marielle and Lacy are similar in a lot of ways. They are both little balls of energy. Like Leah says in her latest post, they spent most of their time "parallel playing." This was probably a good thing because together they'd be a force to be reckoned with. Lacy introduced Marielle to her Disney Princess figurine set and they watched some Dora and Backyardigans together.

We Need a Wii

So I had been looking forward to last night for about a week or two now because last night was the night that I got to play Nintendo's new Wii game console. I have heard great things about it, and they are all true. I had a blast playing the various Wii Sports with Leah and Cliff. Who, by the way, I was also excited to see along with their to little girls. After experiencing my excitement first hand, I'm sure they'll forgive me for mentioning the Wii first :)

The system has gotten some negative comments abouts its graphics compared to the other new gaming platforms on the market, but it's really not all about the graphics (which I happen to think are still very nice looking). It's really all about the game play. It is so intuitive. We played golf by swinging the controller as if it were a club. This was disconcerting at first because I couldn't help but feel like I was going to knock things off their walls during my back swing. We played baseball by taking turns batting and pitching, and you guessed it ... the batter swings and the pitcher throws. It was funny to be standing in the living room next to cliff as one of us would throw and the other would swing. On the Wii, my pitching repertoire includes a rather mean sinker. The three of us bowled a round in which Leah thoroughly spanked us for most of the game. Although Cliff and I made a comeback, she held onto the victory. As you can guess, it's great fun.

There's so much more to say. I feel like I'm writing a review and nobody's paying me for it, so I'll stop. Also, let us know what you think of Cliff's rendition of me. You get to personalize your player in the games, and he designed this one of me.

Our Peanut Has Gone Granola

We apologize for the long delay in blogging. First we had our little census, and then we've been having Blogger issues over the last few days. Anyway ...

I can't say that this has been Marielle's very first time to Whole Foods, but it is probably the first time she's "shopped" there. We headed to Boulder last week for dinner and thought we'd swing in to the store and see if we could walk out feeling any healthier than when we had gone in. The truth is that we like some of the stuff Whole Foods has to offer (hormone-free beef,etc.), but we don't understand how it could ever be practical to do all of our shopping there. Knowing that my vegetables were treated humanely is just not that important to me.

All of that aside, Marielle had a great time cruising around the store. She helped me push the cart, picked out some treats for Sophie, and said "Hi" to everyone she could. At one point, we were standing near a health bar display while waiting for Viv and I couldn't keep Marielle away from the flax seed bars. I don't now what it was about the flax seed, but she couldn't leave 'em alone. What is a flax seed anyway? Why are flax seeds so great for us? or are they? I assume they are great for us because they are available at Whole Foods (I certainly can't think of a time I saw flax seed anywhere else).