Nesting & Nostalgia

My nesting instincts went into high gear last night. Lots of pictures are missing in my blog posts and it really bothered me and it needed to get fixed NOW. I spent my entire evening going through hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of pictures to figure out which ones fit inside the blog posts. Posts that I couldn't find pictures for were just deleted. That's kinda sad but I'd rather them be gone than picture-less.

A few posts in particular I wanted fixed were the ones related to our trip to Tokyo. That was such a big deal for us and we had such an amazing time I wanted to keep it documented. Luckily I got them all fixed and I wanted to re-share them with you guys.

■ Tokyo Recap #1 ~ all about the Kaminarimon temple we were a block from.
■ Tokyo Recap #2 ~ food, Akihabara, & friends.
■ Tokyo Recap #3 ~ Valentine's Day



It was so much fun pouring over all these pictures. It's crazy to think that just over two years ago Aaron and I were wandering the streets of Tokyo. It gave me butterflies seeing all the sites again (and I'm getting them again just thinking about it).

There is no doubt in our minds that we will go to Japan again. This time with Dean (and any other little ones we might have). This means we'll have to wait a few years, but we will take Dean to Japan. Teach him all about different cultures. Show him just how awesome and big this world of ours is.

I cannot encourage everyone enough to travel to a foreign country. Seriously. If you want to do it, do it! I know that the cost of traveling can be a scary big amount, but I recommend saving up and going through a website like Expedia months in advance so once the flight and hotel are paid for you have all that time to save up spending money. Our trips all varied in length (7-9-ish days), so flight & hotel for both of us was between $2900-$3400. Which seems like a lot, but in comparison, our three day trip to San Fransisco was a little over $1300 for flight & hotel for both of us.

Experiencing and being immersed in a different culture is worth every penny it takes to get you there. I guess that's a bit obvious since we've been to Japan four times. Definitely travel if you can. It may seem scary and impossible but it's not. Really it's not. If you can take a week off work to go on a local vacation, you can totally go abroad.

Anyways, enough of my rambling. I might be preaching to the choir here. Have you traveled to a foreign country before? Where have you gone? What cool things did you do while you were there? I know a couple of my blogging friends have been to Italy and Malaysia, which seem like awesome places to visit. If you haven't traveled, where would you go? ♥

Her + Him

Two days ago was me and Aaron's 147 month anniversary. That's right, we still celebrate our first date 12 years, three months and two days ago. I remember standing outside his car, in the light rain, holding hands, and him kissing me and me smiling up at him. While I don't remember where we went or what we did that night, I remember that kiss. It's the first thing that pops into my mind when I think of the 17th and wish him a happy anniversary.

The picture above is us in Tokyo two February's ago. I believe that's the night we arrived and in front of the kaminarimon, these beautiful gates that lead to the temple we stayed two blocks from. Anyways, in the spirit of our anniversary and Valentine's day which just happened, I thought I'd share some of the things that we love. Meaningful things and silly things. I got the idea from Cara who got the idea from Harley and Jane.

her: back rubs
him: back tickles

her: little spoon
him: big spoon

her: edges of brownies
him: brownies with ice cream

her: iced soy hazelnut macchiato
him: iced green tea not sweetened

her: American Apparel zip ups
him: American Apparel zip ups

her: toms
him: sneakers

her: laundry
him: vacuum

her: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
him: Two-headed Boy

her: Seattle Mariner's
him: Seattle Mariner's

her: oldest of three
him: youngest of two

her: Yui
him: Azunyan

her: black mage
him: dragoon

her: alphabetizing
him: straightening

her: cesar salad extra croutons
him: spinach no dressing

her: amber
him: IPA

her: raspberries
him: blueberries

her: Marie's Habenero
him: Dave's Insanity

her: cassette tapes
him: vinyl

Owari - The End

You guys, this year is finally over. I'm typically not one to wish for anything to just be over but this year- I'm so glad it's over. It wasn't a bad year by any means, no no no. It was a great year! So many wonderful, amazing, thrilling, life changing, and awesome things happened this year. It was in fact, probably one of my fave (if not my fave) year of all time!

Here are a few highlights for me:

First thing I did was release a super cute knitting cowl pattern~ Etna.


Aaron and I went to Osaka Japan for my birthday and and saw my fave Japanese wrestler live:


We found out we were having a baby!


I have enjoyed my growing belly:


Released another cowl pattern~ Mina:


Aaron and I celebrated our 12th anniversary and went to a Nine Inch Nails concert:


We found out we were going to have a baby boy in April:


And opened up an Etsy shop~ TheFoxShop:


Tons of things happened in between~ Rinoa turned 12, went to Bumbershoot Music Festival, worked a butt-ton, hosted lots of fun events at the store, got a bunch of knitting done... I mean it's been a great and full year! 2014 has a lot in store for us, and I'm excited to welcome and embrace it all.

Lastly, I want to say thank you to every single reader~ Thank you for stopping by and reading my blog. Thank you for taking time and leaving me comments. Your words and thoughts are super encouraging to me and I love reading them. ♥

Happy New Year everyone!!!

Man Hole Covers

Seriously. They are. In Japan, each district has it's own man hole cover. In addition to that, there are a lot of neat decorations on the sidewalks. I took lots of pictures of these that I'd like to share- BECAUSE THEY'RE SO COOL!



The first man hole cover we saw, just outside our hotel

This one was in Shinsaibashi-suji. It was pretty tricky taking this picture since that area is always crazy busy with foot traffic.

In Kyoto with Sam. I don't know what this was, but it was neat looking.

Kyoto again with Sam.

So! While we were in Kobe with Hiro, we found this off a main sidewalk~ it's a hot spring for soaking feet! HOW COOL!

In Kobe with Hiro.

With Hiro on the way to a bar named "Cheers" who is owned by this awesome Austrailian guy, where we watched this amazing Jazz band, and Hiro's girlfriend was our hostess. This was one of the best nights we had in Japan. We ended up loosing track of time and the three of us ran from Cheers to the subway station to make the LAST TRAIN of the night. We were totally inebriated and laughed the entire way to the subway. It's something you see in Japanese shows and movies but don't ever expect yourself to do. It was magical. *^_^*

These pictures make me really happy and nostalgic. It's a little thing, taking pictures of our feet on pieces of metal, but to me it's so much more! The sites, sounds, smells, and experiences that went along with it are big memories to me. *^_^*

Coffee Quest Osaka Edition

Anyone who knows me (or at least follows me in Instagram) knows of my love for fruffy coffees. It's just so yummy and pretty looking. It's also fun! So I decided to take the opportunity while on vacation to try as many coffees as possible.

As it stands right now, I have no idea how many different coffees I tried and am excited to see the number when I'm done writing this post. :3



Almond Caramel Latte from Excelsior (maybe? I forget).


Iced coffee at Doutor.


Iced Coffee with Caramel at KoHiKan.


Iced Chocolate Coffeee at MaiDreamin.


Maple Iced Latte from Anne Colors Coffee. This was one of my favorites of the trip.


Caramel Cream Milk Coffee at Precious Moment Cafe. It was dreamy and awesome as you are imagining.


Our first of many "conbini" (convenience store) meals. Convenience stores in Japan are infinitely more awesome than in America. They're legit places to buy food, groceries, games, toys. This was from Family Mart (which is our fave conbini). These little coffees remind me of juice boxes because they're solid containers with a little straw you poke through the top. This was a Starbucks "Seattle Latte".


Starbucks "Candied Orange Latte". Its was ok. There was crushed orange candy on top, and I'm not a big fan of candy. The orange latte part was super sweet. I definitely got a sugar rush from this one.


Iced Coffee from a curry restaurant. Basic but good.


This "Beauty Latte" from Pronto was the most mind blowing thing ever. I'm pretty sure it was made with 100% fat butter milk. It was good but I couldn't drink half of my medium size coffee because of the crazy thick milk. Not quite sure where the beauty part of the latte comes because you definitely aren't doing your figure any favors by having many of these... I must have missed something there?


Mt. Rainier Double Ice Coffee. Another conbini coffee. Nothing special but a solid coffee non the less.


Cafe au lait with Brown Sugar. So. Good. Mmm!


This little guy was my #1 coffee of the trip, as silly as that might sound. The Mt. Rainier brand knows how to make tasty lattes! I might have had, like, 6 of them over the remainder of the trip lol!


This iced chocolate latte was a conbini coffee from 7&I (an affiliate of 7/11).


Iced Caramel Cappuccino and the best breakfast egg bun thing evar.


Penny came out and traveled around Osaka with us of the days we were there. I'll post about her day out some other time. Here she's being sneaky and trying to snag of my Olo Olo caramel ice coffee. She's a smart girl because that was one tasty coffee! This one was a common one in vending machines so I had a couple of these.


A Mango Something Frap from Starbucks while at the airport ready to head home. It was mango-y and good~ nothing crazy special though. This was my last fancy drink while in Japan.


Soy Hazelnut Macchiato from Starbucks outside of Seattle. The long drive home from the airport needed a little something something.

That is 18 different coffee drinks! I'm going to call my quest a success! I learned that latte's aren't as common in Japan as I thought. Cafe au laits and ice coffees are the most common drinks. "Maple" was a big thing as far as food and drink flavors go, which was cool. Also, on a side note: Starbucks in Japan don't have green tea. They have Passion Tea and Black Tea. Crazy, huh?

Well, thanks for checking out my quest. I hope you enjoyed it! *waves*

Osaka Japan 2013

When we came back from Japan last month and started going through all the pictures we took, we found that we took over 1,000 pictures between Aaron's camera and my iPod. I'm actually not very surprised, there were so many amazing places, foods, drinks, people, and things to remember.

That being the case, I've decided to split up the trip in to a couple of different posts. My Coffee Quest will be it's own, same with all the food & drinks we had, all the man hole covers we stood on, and then all the places we went and people we saw. *^_^* OH YEAH! And photobooth pics! I think we did something like 8 of them lol!

Today I'll start with a quick run down of the trip and a bunch of other fun things.

We went to Osaka Japan for two weeks this last March for vacation and for my birthday. This was the best trip overseas we've had. We did so many things, talked to so many people, ate/drank so many yummy things, and rediscovered our love for this city. Aaron and I have talked about how we miss Osaka on a scale of almost "home sick" like. It's such an incredible city!



Us at SeaTac before our flight.


Us is Osaka about 13 hours later.


Shinsaibashi-suji shopping district at night. This is a side part of it. The main part is a covered shopping area that feels like it's 2 miles long. I <3 it very very much!
A random side street near our hotel.


Us at at the big junction between the Shinsaibashi-suji and Ebibashi-suji shopping arcades.


Dotonbori (a main side street to Shinsaibashi) is full of amazing places to eat.


Batting at Round 1 (a sports and entertainment center). I'm so hardcore lol! We went here quite a few times for the crane game machines and darts.


It turns out that playing darts is a lot of fun! Quite a few nights ended here. The environment is chill, crisp & clean, and welcoming. Lots of business men come here after work and get their serious darts on. We mostly had drinks and laughed the whole time.


For my birthday Aaron, Sam, and I went to a Japanese wrestling live event. We got to see my favorite Japanese wrestler Shinsuke Nakamura among other super cool wrestlers. While we were there I picked up a Nakamura tshirt. *^__^*


Our new friend Hiro took us on a day trip to his hometown of Nishinomiya (of Haruhi fame) and to Kobe.

I can't gush enough about how amazing this trip was! These pictures are just a fraction of the fun we had. I can't wait to show you guys more! If you have any questions about our trip- let me know! I'm pretty passionate about Japan, the culture, the food, the locations so I'm more than happy to share what I know. d^__^b

That's all for today. Happy Monday everyone! <3