There Should Be A Law...

......against any school vacation being more than two weeks long. Ariana has not been in school for about one month. Take away the ten days we were in Bali and that leaves over two weeks trying to keep a four year occupied and interested. We were sick for about a week (all TV all the time - I know, I'm bad, but I was feeling so lousy I didn't care) and the rest of the time I was emailing friends for ideas.

Her friend Yuto came over one day - his mom and I sat around chatting while they compared somersaulting techniques.

One day we went to a New Year's fair in Meguro, where Ariana spent a lot of time racing cars and sliding down the big inflatable slide. She won a bank, which she exchanged for a blow up sword, a plastic Mickey Mouse ball she lost on the way home and a water balloon, which is still around here somewhere, miraculously still filled with water.

We spent one day at the Toy Museum, a former elementary school turned into a place filled with wooden toys.


We both had a lot of fun, and if she hadn't been so tired (ok, I was the one who was tired) we would have gone to the Fire Museum down the street. We are planning on going there another day with Baba san, as I know he will enjoy it.

The Tama zoo was our destination a few days ago, where we saw more lions and even heard them roar as a few males faced off, while the females looked on nonchalantly as if to say "oh, here they go again". This one was either too old or too tired to join us, preferring to hang around with his mate.


We also saw a few Koala bears in the new Australian exhibit and many, many butterflies.


For the past few days, we have been spending a lot of time over Violette and Ulysses's house, where Ariana has been improving her french, learning how to kiss on both cheeks and riding Ulysses's scooter around the playroom, chasing him around shouting "roar, I am going to eat you!!!" Perhaps we are spending too much time around lions.

She goes back to school on Tuesday and I get to get back to my life - with a huge New Year's to-do list. Somehow I don't think it will be as much fun as as listening to Ariana sing the theme song to "Madagascar" though.