Slices of Life

October 6, 2012

It seems like Andrew has already attended so many camping trips with the Boy Scouts this fall. On this particular camping trip they were camping near the track at Ikego so they could participate in the Relay for Life. During the day they hiked around the trails near the campground at the backside of Ikego and passed off some of their requirements. At night the Relay for Life started and Mike joined Andrew to run with him during his allotted times. They both ran for Mike's mom, Candace, who died of Ovarian cancer almost 10 years ago. It was a special time to remember her and to run for her. Everyone who participated each got to write on a bag who they were running for and then all the bags were placed around the track with a light in each one. Mike said it looked amazing. What a great event for them to be part of.

October 11, 2012

At the beginning of the school year while Peter's soccer practice conflicted with piano lessons we decided to let Abby take Peter's spot and try her hand at piano lessons. She did well for about two of the lessons but then it was just a challenge to keep her focused. Our piano teacher was so patient and so loving and although we decided to postpone piano lessons for another year I will still find our piano teacher challenging Abby with rhythm exercises between the other kid's lessons. Abby loves the attention and the challenge of copying the rhythms she hears Hiroko sensei play. I occasionally find Abby at the piano during the day playing her own made up songs on the piano. She will be a piano player like her siblings soon enough but until then I will just smile at her excitement of sitting down on the bench composing her own fun songs.

Octobe 14, 2012

One of the great things about General Conference weekend is the time we get to spend outside on Sunday. This fall we decided to take a hike along the Mt. Takatori trail close to our home. The weather was a bit gloomy and it looked as if it would rain but we really needed to get outside and do something between sessions. At the beginning of the trail at the top of Mt. Takatori we saw our friends, the Holleys, who were with the MWR on a rock climbing adventure up by all the boulders and great rock climbing peaks. We watched them climb and talked with them for awhile. One of the great things about Mt. Takatori which is literally only a mile from our house is the great rock climbing. We ended up hiking along the trail with our friends after they were finished with their rock climbing. The kids had so much fun on the trail with their friends that no one seemed to be bothered by the rain. We were a bit wet when we finally made it to the other side but everyone was still happy so it didn't seem to matter that it was raining. We will miss this great trail when we leave Japan.

October 17, 2012

Well the time finally came for Andrew to get started with braces. Today he got the top braces put on and will just have those for awhile in order to straighten his top teeth, correct his bite and bring his jaw forward a bit. Hopefully my days with braces not too long ago and my good attitude about them in front of the kids will pay off as I try and help him get through the hurdles of braces. It seems strange to already have one of the kids in braces!

October 20, 2012

I love watching the girls play together and I am always amazed when they can play not only with the girly toys but also with the boy toys like cars and dinosaurs. Today they wanted me to get out the car mat and all of the cars. I just sat in the hall out of view and watched them play together. It was cute to watch how well they played together and how much they enjoyed the cars. I love that my girls are entertained by a wide variety of things. In that aspect they are just like me. I remember playing with legos and the other boy toys growing up. He-Man, GI Joe, and Ninja Turtles were not uncommon things for me to play with, especially when I played with my brother Greg.

October 25, 2012

There is never a dull moment when Abby is around. Today she grabbed her goggles and the straw from her smoothie and pretended to be snorkling. She is seriously the funniest girl around. It made Mike and I laugh for quite some time to see her like this.   

Halloween

We didn't waste any time after getting home from our Kyoto trip. We rested for just a bit before getting everyone ready for our church's Halloween party. This year Andrew went as Jack Sparrow, Peter was one of the Ghostbusters, and the girls were dressed at girls from the 50's with their poodle skirts and all. Mike and I went as Danny and Sandy from Grease. It was so much fun to dress up with the kids this year. We had some fun taking pictures in our park and the kids really got into character. We got so much candy from the party that we had to ration out how much they could eat before Halloween night.

This year we went to the main base at Yokosuka to go trick or treating with our friends. Halloween night was a zoo because of all the local Japanese people that are allowed to come on base for Halloween. We weren't that stressed out, though, because we knew our kids already had plenty of candy at home. It was fun to walk around and see what all the other kids were wearing this year. We spent a good portion of our night with our good friends, The Holleys. We ate and ate and ate and had such a good time. All of our kids get along so well which made it even more fun for the adults because we could actually have great conversations while the kids played so nicely in the backyard or upstairs. The adult costumes were so funny this year. Sam and Josh dressed up in all 70's apparel and Dave and Nazare were dressed up as a milk carton, got milk, and their little girl was a cow. It was so stinkin cute. It was definitely a night to remember.

Kyoto Day 3 . Fushimi Inari Shrine

Fushimi Inari-taisha

Today was our last day in Kyoto and we couldn't leave without seeing our absolute favorite shrine in all of Kyoto. Fushimi Inari Shrine, or better known as the 1000 Tori Gate Shrine, is on the southern end of the city and is literally the site where 1000 tori gates are lined up one after another all the way up and down the mountainside.  It is one of the oldest Shinto shrines in Kyoto.  Each of the Torii is donated by a Japanese business and has the name of the business and their address on the backside of the Torii itself.  Inari is the god of rice and so merchants and manufacturers worship Inari for wealth.  It is the most remarkable thing to behold and so much fun to walk through.  We were here last year, almost to the day, to visit this shrine for the first time.  It was in the late afternoon and we were losing light fast so we weren't able to spend as much time walking through all the tori gates.  It was nice, though, to have been able to see the lanterns in the tori walkways lit up last year.  This year we got to see the tori gates in a whole new light.  It was still extremely crowded like last year but I was a lot more relaxed knowing that I already had some great shots from last year.  I enjoyed watching the people that were there and discovering more of what was up the mountainside.  Occasionally there would be little sections off the main tori gate path where there were little places of worship and family cemetery sites.  I had often wondered how they upkeep a place such as this.   We got to see men in action repainting some of the tori gates.  They actually painted over all of the black engraved writing and then I assume later when the orange paint dries they will come and fill in all the engravings with black paint.  We even saw a new tori gate being put in.  As we headed out of the main tori gate paths and back towards the entrance of the shrine we saw the cutest little girl all decked out in her kimono.  I quickly got out my camera and her grandparents who were holding her hands were proud to stop and let me snap a few photos.