Hi? Yes?
Hello, is this the Reutter's?
Yes.
Oh, can I come in?
Yes! Just a moment.
[Life in Japan Theme Song]
Hello!
Hello. Wow.
I have Sarah Reutter here, and Rebecca Reutter and Anna Reutter.
Oh my goodness.
Is this where you guys live?
Yes! We live in here.
You live in here?! A heart for you.
Whoa, oh my goodness. Can I come in?
Yes.
A number of you have asked how do we make our house work for so many people here in Japan.
Well, we are going to show you. Here we go.
So we have a very, very large genkan (entrance) which is great for all our kids,
However, I think I would prefer a smaller genkan that is closed off
so that I could heat or air condition the rest of this part during the summer and winter.
Because I would much prefer an extra room, than this huge genkan.
Right here, Anna can you show us the piano?
Play us something nice for a moment.
Very nice.
So we've wanted a piano for a while but in Japan they make these super skinny electric pianos,
That work perfect to put right here in our entrance where we had some space
And we weren't quite sure how to use it.
This has been a great way to use that space.
And I'm sure you've seen, we use it a lot.
Ok, now let's go see Sarah and Joshua's room.
Whoa! Here they are! The not so little, little Reutter kids.
How's it going here Sarah? Good.
Good? Yeah.
Joshua's working out. Very good.
Tell me, about this, one of our few big rooms.
This room has been everyone's room.
It started out as our bedroom,
And then we switched it because we needed it to be ... I don't know why we switched.
But anyway, then this room became Becca and Anna's room
And Sarah used to sleep in the office because she was tiny.
Then when she got bigger she moved in with them.
And then at one point we switched them to room - I mean we have switched this room a lot of times.
Now it's just Joshua and Sarah.
Oh yeah. But it used to be all four kids.
We're going to take you to Becca and Anna's room.
Oh my goodness.
This room used to be Nate's office.
Way back when...
And his desk was there and stuff.
And then it became my office.
With a bunch, like Joshua's clothes and everything was still in here.
We just had like storage and my office.
And all four kids lived in the other room.
What's the deal with the shape of this room?
We do not know about the shape of this room or why they have this dumb little sliding glass window here?
Who knows. This room is pretty much a not cool room.
But we made it look pretty cool. And it's your own room.
All right. Good bye.
Good bye. And then we have the tatami room as our bedroom.
And, Life in Japan studio and Nate's office.
And my office. It all happens here.
It's usually, my side is usually pretty messy, so we won't show mine too much.
I have way too much stuff and not enough storage space.
What do we do for storage with all of the stuff?
We put them in air vacuum bags and stuff them in the tatami closet and under the bed.
Very true! And we throw stuff away.
Here's a little part that maybe, people who watch don't really know.
There's a hole. There's a huge hole in our house.
Right up the middle there.
And while it's very nice for shouting.. Daddy come upstairs!
It's very nice for that, but it's a lot of space that is just there and not used.
There could be like a whole room right here.
There could be. It could be a closet.
Alright, let's go upstairs. Up these stairs - you have seen them before.
And here we go.
This is the most challenging room of the house.
Because it's the laundry, it's the sink.
And it's the entrance to the bath.
So, when it's teeth brushing time, all 4 kids are trying to fit in there and it's just a little bit tight.
The washing machine too.
And the washing machine.
It just all gets crammed in there. All in there. All 6 of us using that.
Usually not at the same time.
And then you come into my kitchen.
My very large kitchen. It's very nice.
You have to buy add-ins and just be very organized.
Although I have a very large kitchen for Japan.
So I'm very thankful for that and I got a large fridge.
You buy units that work for what you want.
And then here you go.
The living and dinning room.
So, since this has to be our dinning and living,
We have an expandable table so we can fit more people around it if we need to.
But most of the time we just leave 5 chairs around because we can hardly fit 6 chairs around.
And we have an air/heating unit up there,
But, we have to put a curtain between the kitchen and the living otherwise all the cold air just goes straight in there.
We tried putting in another air conditioner here.
But this wall will not support it, it's not made to hold another air so that was shut down.
And then we have a gas heater - it's Tokyo gas.
So it's much cheaper than those LP gases that a lot of houses have.
And that saves us a lot of money in the winter because you have a gas heater.
But it really ruins the feet of my furniture so this table is on it's last leg - literally.
There's only one outlet in this room and it's behind the sofa,
So you have to have all cables for the TV, for the switch, everything has to go all the way around there and plug in right there.
Every apartment and house in Japan has a patio because you have to dry your clothes out there.
So you buy these hangers, you wash your laundry in the laundry room,
And you hang them up outside. And you hope for sunny days!
And if not, you get way behind!
Our house in America, and especially Brazil,
Was much bigger, because we are used to the big western houses,
So coming here to Japan was a big adjustment.
To get used to a smaller house - where did the bug go?
Where did it go? Where'd it go?
Joshua get the bug.
Sarah, how crazy is this?
Your flowers are still alive!
It's alive forever.
How? Cause God made it and God made it not die.
It's the day before we travel.
Everyone is busy getting ready to travel, and that means I'm working on getting a lot of Life in Japan videos done.
The kids are busy as well.
Anna's working at the piano. Whatcha working on Anna?
Science.
How's it going?
Good, it's fun actually. It's fun? Wow.
You like it? I actually like it.
Oh, that's awesome.
I'm going to go upstairs and see what's happening up here now too.
Here we go.
This one didn't know how to draw "ro" so it went piru.
And what about the red one?
What are we working on here?
Summer break homework. Get it done, huh?
So go back to the story and see what does it say?
What's his name though?
Chiku's ribbon is...
Red.
Chiku goes to ...
Yep.
Ok now try the next one by yourself.
Tomorrow we are leaving on our big summer trip.
And if all goes well, by the time you see this we will have returned.
And we have some big news to share with you.
It's going to be an awesome video. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss it. It's coming up soon on Life in Japan.
You got it? Are they negative?
Negative. One of them is Becca's though.
A final confirmation before we can travel.
Ok, let me go check mine.
It is indeed there. And it is indeed negative.
We all want to travel and now celebrate. Celebrate!
Celebrate! We're going!
Hi. About our covid tests.
We are all negative!
Hey not so little little Reutter kids.
Do you know what?
Guess what?
Tomorrow we are going to Brazil.
That's right! And our covid tests came back all negative which means we can travel.
Hi!