Japan Tidbits

Life in Japan is just like normal life during the week.  We run kids around from activity to activity.  We cook and clean.  We hang out with friends.  We even get creative every once in awhile.  

Jonas took some creative license one day and put some paper towel (or something) inside his ear.  He tried to get it out on his own but eventually came to his dad and asked for help.

Ethan got right to work and dug in.

Jonas was trying to blow it out.

We had to use my long sewing tweezers, but the results were fruitful!

We were so happy to have our friend from Travis AFB come to see us!  He is a rockstar (literally) and was here to perform for our air show.  Interestingly, the air show was on Sunday and since we are a military ward and all the active duty military were required to work the air show, our church time was moved until Sunday evening so we could have priesthood leadership attend.  I bet that doesn't happy often!

I made a baby quilt for a gal that Ethan works with.  It didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, but hopefully she'll still like it.

The sky continues to impress us most nights.

I've been called to be the Activity Days leader and I created this fun little Get To Know You sheet for them to fill out during our first activity.

Flying to Japan isn't as expensive as we thought.  If you can get to LA, you can get to Tokyo for less than $600.  Pretty amazing, right?  We have a guest suite ready and waiting for you!

I have found that I love taking pictures of and drawing/painting mushrooms.  So, when I see them (everywhere) I have to snap some pictures. Abe encourages my habit.

 I spent the evening painting and sketching.  I'd really like to get more skills in these, as well as hand-lettering.

I thought this was a great sentiment to get me ready for General Conference.  I like how it turned out. Makes me smile whenever I look at it.

Ethan and I went to dinner for our date one night.  I was in the mood for sushi but we didn't have any near us (that we knew of, at least).  So, we ended up in this bakery/cafe and had sushi salad.

Plus all the breads we could eat!  It was so yummy!  They even had a guy walking around with extra fresh breads to offer at each table.

We're getting more and more settled into our home. We're not there yet, but its coming.  Funny enough, we got these (and a few other) pictures hung up one night and the very next day, we had our first earthquake that was big enough for us to really feel.  The pictures were all shaking on the walls, but none of them fell, thankfully.

Abraham and I have been walking a lot in the mornings that's where we usually see the mushrooms that we have to capture in pictures.

This one was so huge!

Produce is extremely expensive on base, so we venture out to a local produce market each week.  One day Abe asked if we could buy this so I said yes.  Once we got home I posted a picture of it to ask what it was and got lots of feed back.  Bitter melon.  It went bad really quickly, so we didn't get a chance to try it.

Eliza got to attend her very first Women's General Meeting.  It was a re-broadcast because we are 15 hours ahead of Utah time.  We all met together at the church on the Wednesday after.  As the Activity Days leader I had made a little note taking booklet for the girls.  We also had a "secret word" that I challenged them to keep track of how many times they heard it and I would give a treat to whoever got it at our next meeting.  Little did I know that our word (faith) would be said over 50 times!  But it was fun to watch the girls get excited every time they heard it said.  They were really trying to listen!

The first weekend of October was our base Far East Bazaar.  Ethan and I spent several hours looking at all the treasures and ended up going home with this awesome wood carving.  Its part of a door frame in traditional Japanese door styles.  We were happy we ended up with one with a crane on it.  The detail is amazing.

That Sunday one of our new friends was baptised.  Ethan took several of the kids to support her. I just love this pictures of all these little girls together.  She was baptised in the lake at the base beach, pretty darn cool.

Our Activity Days activity after the Women's broadcast we had a fun game.  I made this great Jeopardy type board.  The girls were so, excited and involved!  It was so rewarding.  If anyone is interested in the questions we used, I saved the files and you're welcome to them.  Each column was based on one of the talks, except the last one which was based on the music from the night.

The week after Conference was broadcast in the US we watched conference in Japan.  We watched the Saturday sessions in the evening during the week leading up to October 9.  We would've watched it like normal, but Levi was spending October 8 at International Scout Day.  It was an awesome event that hosted between 350-400 scouts (Boy scouts, cub scouts, and girl scouts from the Japan and the US).  

They played a game called Paper, Rock, Scissors (PRS) Train where they started out in pairs playing and whoever lost put their hands on the winners' shoulders (making a train).  Then the winner would find another leader of a train and play PRS again.  And whoever lost, their train would join the winner's train.  Levi ended up winning the Train and had all 350-400 scouts behind him.  Pretty darn awesome.

It was as amazing as ever.  And our kids enjoyed it a lot too.  What a blessing having a prophet is.

Sunday morning I decided to bring a bit of "home" to our viewing and followed my brother's tradition of making cinnamon rolls for everyone.  I added chopped apples and they were such a delicious treat!

And our after conference ice cream party was a big hit!  I may have to start asking for more from the big boys to earn their scoops and toppings, they made themselves sick this time they got so much!