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We are a proud American family with our two kids and 11-year-old cat.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Weekend Trip to Sasebo

We decided to spend the weekend in Sasebo, where there is a small Navy base. I hear lots of people talk about it, and ITT offers trips down there, so we thought we would go check it out. We liked it, but as you will find out, it provided us a little more excitement than we intended.

As soon as Charlie got home from work on Friday, I had the car loaded and fueled up, and off we went. We weren't exactly loving the directions provided, but we did make it there so no worries. I couldn't stop myself from taking pictures of these girls walking home from school. They kept looking my way and smiling, so I snapped the picture. I love how the Japanese wear uniforms and those back traditional backpacks.
We stopped at a rest area on the way down to stretch our legs and get a snack. We opted for ice cream. I love how you see ice cream vending machines (all sorts of vending machines) all over the place.
You could also purchase it by the cone there, but we passed. Zach was quite interested in the display though.
As you can see, I had the camera out and was snapping away. Clara Grace was being a bit of a grumpy girl from time to time. I wanted to take a picture of her in that state, but she quickly put the book she is reading up. What a stinker! I did have fun messing with her though.
Once we made it there, we let the kids burn some energy at the playground of the Navy Lodge where we stayed.

After the kids played a bit, we went and ate at Popeye's Chicken at the bayside food court. Then we went back to the room where the kids got baths and we were gearing up for bed. The routine was running a little later than usual due to the trip and all so it was already after 7pm when I am getting ready to put Zach to bed. Clara and Zach started playing, which included her running to the bathroom. No sooner had I told them to stop, than Zach was trying to turn into the bathroom when his head made contact with the door frame which was made of metal and not rounded at all. He immediately started crying and I scooped him up. Clara Grace was all sorts of sorry at the time. I was trying to calm him when I turned him to see if he had a bump. That was when I saw all the blood. Then Clara Grace lost her composure so we were dealing with two extremely upset kiddos. Charlie took over with Zach and quickly determined stitches were needed. So, we tried to clean up Zach as good as possible by removing his pajama top and putting on a t-shirt, and had CG quickly put on some clothes and off we went to urgent care. We were there for a bit, and were given three options. Choice A: two staples which would be quick but painful B: stitches, which would be worse or C: clean the wound, shave the area and use glue. We opted for choice C, and doctor said that would be fine so long as Zach cooperated, otherwise he would go ahead and do the staples. Zach was quite the trooper, although he did cry a bit while they were cleaning and applying the glue. Charlie held him down for that while I had CG in the lobby. Luckily she was much calmer at this point. I think we finally got Zach to sleep a little after 10pm and of course he woke up super early. I snapped a picture of the bandage the next day.
We didn't do as much as I thought we might, but we still had a nice time. We did quite a bit of shopping at the NEX. The kids had a pretty good time and we were able to eat at Chile's which was great for me. Below are a few more pictures taken there during our stay. We were about ready to throw it in and return Saturday but decided to leave Sunday morning. Overall, Zach handled the 4 hour plus trip rather well. Saturday night I got very little sleep though. He took a nice nap today when we got back and I'm imagining he'll sleep really well tonight.


This ray (and many more) were right below us. The kids had a great time checking them out as well as the two jellyfish we saw right there at the harbor.

It was a great little weekend trip and makes me feel quite confident Zach will do well in a few weeks when we visit Tokyo! Hopefully we can avoid trips to the ER though.

1 comments:

Heather

Poor little guy. Jason had the same thing (with the glue) when his head collided with a concrete bird bath just about a year ago. I suppose it's a right of passage for a little boy...sigh.