Autumn in Oirase Gorge

Saturday, October 29 we had a Saturday almost available (only the ward trunk or treat in the evening) so we braved the cold and headed out to see the falls colours of Oirase Gorge with some friends!

The kids were all excited to play together in the leaves.  But we eventually managed to find a place to park and begin our little hike.

We started a little further out than our first trip to the gorge, so a lot of the terrain was new to us along with the fall colours.  The boys weren't looking forward to our trip because we'd been before and they thought it would be boring (not sure how we could be bored at a place like this, really), but they all informed me that it was awesome!

We saw a lot of orange and yellow.  But the little punches of red we saw really caught our eyes.

I should edit these photos to make them really amazing, but I'd rather get them posted and so I can keep this blog current than wait for a day when I might have time to edit photos again!

Ah.

The kids were ready to move in to this little hut.  It was used by highway robber, he would hide here and then jump out and steal from the people passing by.

The Japanese tourists got a kick out of these little boys on the rock.

I live here!

Levi worked hard to get that log up into his arms.  He was so proud of his accomplishment.

Those smiles say it all.  What a great way to spend a day!  We are so blessed!

Getting Ready for Halloween

Sometimes I wish that my family would all do a theme costume together, but then I remember that they have this guy for their dad and I realise that they are all too unique to try to fit one type of costume.

Ethan was able to go to the thrift store with me one day and couldn't resist this wig.  It totally suits him, don't you think?

After seeing a tutorial on one of my favourite sewing blogs for these giant butterfly wings I asked Eliza if she would like to be a butterfly and she said yes! So I got right to work and created these!  I am so happy with how they turned out!!!

They big boys bought a Legend of Zelda game for the wii and have been playing it a lot.  So, it was only natural that Bolton would want to be Link.  I love, love, love how his costume came together! The Hylian shield is my favourite.  His too, as you can see him block out the rest of his costume with it.  While we went around the hospital trick or treating it was my favourite hearing all the guys know who he was and the gals try to guess because they had no idea!

My little Ninja Turtle turned out so cute!  Obviously the shirt was already done, but I made the pants and shell along with the brown knee & elbow pads.  He also gets to carry around two swords since he's Leonardo!

At the hospital ready to get some candy!

The optometry clinic were all going to dress as different houses from Harry Potter so quickly crocheted this scarf for Ethan to be in Ravenclaw... but then they decided not to dress up as theme after all and Ethan felt guilty about all my work and went as a Ravenclaw anyway.

While we were in the hospital look what we found up on the wall!  He's so official in command!

Jonas is a Pokemon Trainer and we found our little buddy from church (also names Jonas) dressed as Pikachu, we had to get a picture of that!

The three oldest and Ethan went in the hospitals little haunted house while the rest of us waited for them.  I guess Jonas screamed "like a little girl" through the whole thing.  No surprise there, he is my screamer!

Hopefully I'll get a better shot of the shell tonight, but for now, COWABUNGA, dude!

Our ward did a trunk or treat with the Japanese branch as well.  Ethan's Ravenclaw costume evolved into Larry Snotter, Harry's highly allergic cousin in Ravenclaw.  He does spells like, "Sneeze-iculus" "Expectorate patronum" "Levimucus" "Snotulus repairo" and "Mucio!"  I have to say I loved seeing him so giddy about his own cleverness.

Bryant dressed as a character from his latest obsession, The Lord of the Rings.  He's Pippin, the hobbit.  He tried and tried to get one of his tall friends to be Treebeard, but no one agreed to it.  But I guess Wesley decided it wouldn't hurt to haul him around at the very least.  Even if he was dressed as a chicken.

Their loot from the night!

The balloon you see was awesome.  A gal in the ward dressed as Joy from Inside Out and handed out balloons saying, "Here's your memory!"  The balloons had candy in them.  Such a great idea!!!  The kids loved it!

It seems that at any trunk or treat the kids just keep going around until the candy is gone or the trunks are closed at the very least.  So when the kids started coming to me for a second or third time I told them they had to do a trick to earn their candy.  I had them doing ballerina twirls, singing happy birthday, doing the hokee-pokee, all sorts of silly stuff.  Some thought it was so funny and silly.  Others looked at me like I was crazy and walked away.  I wasn't having a lot of fun until I started it and then I laughed and laughed.  It was so much fun!

Now we only have tonight and Halloween will be over!  I can't believe that October is already over!!!

Parade, Pestering, Preschool, Pumpkins, Pins, and Produce

Parade:

This base does a really good job of providing lots and lots of things to keep up morale.  For Fire Prevention Week the fire department hosted a big event at one of the fire stations that we planned on going to, but we missed it.  Thankfully, we were outside playing at the playground when our friends and neighbours started showing up for the parade.  We didn't know it was coming, but we got to enjoy it thanks to our friends.  Here they come!

It wasn't much of a parade just several different types of fire trucks, but they threw candy and it was over really quickly... and they went around the whole base so the crowd was pretty much nonexistent!  All the makings for my kind of parade, I won't lie!

Pestering:
Family Home Evening is crazy at our house, are we the only ones?  On this particular evening I had had enough of Jonas pestering everyone and I said to him, "Can you please stop being annoying?!"

Bryant piped in, "Oh, can I not be annoying?"  To which I looked at him and replied, "I don't think so."  We all got a good laugh about that.

Preschool:
A lot of our friends have their kids signed up for Japanese preschool and I was eager to get on board with that for Abe...but its all day... everyday.  And he's three.  And its expensive.  So, I opted to keep him home and we would do preschool here.  Then we received word that the base was thinking about starting a preschool program and they were wondering if people were interested, so we filled out an interest survey.  And once they decided to go through with opening the school program they had us come fill out some paperwork so we could be included in a lottery to see if he got in.

The day of the drawing came and we didn't hear anything so we figured we were going to continue with our plans for schooling at home.  But, I got a call about a week later that he was in and I needed to come fill out papers to finalise his admission to the program.  He was so excited to hear it.  We were told there would be an orientation but never heard about it so when school was supposed to be starting I contacted them and learned that I hadn't been notified of that either.  Oh well!  He was too excited to dash his hopes and pull out now!

October 18 Abe started preschool!  He goes on Tuesday and Thursday and he has a Japanese teacher. She teaches them some new Japanese words each week and some culture as well.  She is so nice.  He is loving school!

His backpack is almost as big as he is, but he loves to wear it!

 That same night our Relief Society had an activity combined with the Japanese Branch sisters.  We taught them how to make pumpkin pie and carve pumpkins! These are the ladies I was helping.  I also helped them figure out how to roast the pumpkin seeds they took out of it!

One of our missionary translators for the evening being a good sport with his girly apron to protect his suit.

A great group of ladies!

Pins:
Physical Therapy continues for my elbow (and shoulder and wrist, really).  This last visit with the doc he poked me with some needles then attached some electrode things to them and left me for 10 minutes.  It was weird.

Produce:
Levi's class got to go on a field trip to the commissary (the grocery store on base).  We got to see in the inner workings of the produce department where they receive shipments and do some quality control.

We also visited the innards of the meat department which kind of freaked out a bunch of the girls. Ha!

His teacher had created a worksheet/scavenger hunt for them to explore the store and taught them how to read prices and nutrition labels.

Then the tour guide provided everyone with a goody bag!  We also got to go over to the BX for lunch!  It was such a fun little field trip!  I was glad I was able to go!