Skiing at Fujiten

We didn't want to leave Japan without experiencing at least some time on  the slopes.  For our first round of skiing we decided to just take the boys and leave the girls with a sitter.  We went with our good friends the Holley's. It had been almost 4 years since we had been skiing with the kids so we were a little rusty.  This was Mike's first time on downhill skis and so we knew there would be a lot of learning going on.  Luckily I was pretty confident that I could pick it back up quickly.  We started on the bunny hill with the boys.  Andrew just took off with his friends Sean and Morgan while I hung back to help Peter.  I always find it interesting how the easiest run tends to have the steepest pitch at the beginning.  Peter could not seem to stay up on his skis and I had a hard time managing to teach him how to go without falling.  After too many times of picking him back up we decided to head over to the practice hill to teach Peter how to snow plow and turn.  After 30 minutes of practice Josh came to my rescue to help out.  I went off to ski with Mike and to look for Andrew who didn't seem to have any problems keeping up with his friends Sean and Morgan.    Mike didn't really need my help as he quickly picked it up.  There weren't too many places to go at this ski resort as there were only 3 ski lifts with one of those designated for the snow park and the other one for the bunny hill.  Most everyone used the middle ski lift so that is where we all converged.  Eventually we grabbed Peter and took him on the real ski lift with us.  It's amazing how a little practice can do wonders for a kid like Peter.  I don't know what Josh told him but Peter was a master turner and snow plower by his next real run. We ended up having a great time skiing with our friends.  By the end of the day the kids were getting pretty good.  Andrew could definitely go down the mountain at speed but didn't turn quite enough.  That will be something we have to work on in the future.  Peter went down, knew how to turn, but went a little slower than Andrew.  Mike was able to keep up with me by the end of the day and I was happy that for the first time in my life I actually felt like a good skiier.  Something finally clicked with me and skiing.  It was a fantastic feeling.

New Year's Day Hike to Kamakura

For New Year's Day we decided to head out to our favorite local hiking trail.  We took the train up to Kanazawa Bunko and then a taxi to one of the entrances to the trail leading into Kamakura.  Parts of this six mile trail reminded us of hiking in Washington and maybe that is why we are drawn to hiking it so much.  There are lots of ups and downs and it is by no means an easy task with a four year old.  We made time for plenty of snack and water stops along the way to break up the distance.  There were lots of times when we could barely see Andrew, Peter, and Emma ahead of us.  They were super hikers and didn't want to be slowed down but were good about keeping within eye distance from us.

Once in Kamakura we were able to be amongst the masses of people going to the big shrine in Kamakura to pay their respects.  We did not wait in the big mass of people to get up to the shrine but rather enjoyed eating chocolate covered bananas, steam buns, candy coated grapes, yakisoba and even cotton candy from the various vendors.  There were many other interesting food items that we saw but did not eat.  I do love most Japanese food but there are just some things I am not willing to try.  The kids had fun on our adventure today but were excited to head back home while sitting down on the train and then taking a taxi from the station back to our house.  It was a great start to the New Year!

Slices of Life . December

December 5, 2012

One of Andrew's elective classes this year is band. His band teacher reminds me a lot of my old band teacher when I first started playing the flute in 4th grade. Andrew's band teacher, Phil Stonebarger, spent the first two weeks of school talking to the students about all of the instruments and then having them try the different mouth pieces so they could find not only what they liked but what they would be good at. Apparently Andrew has a great trumpet sound so Andrew choose to play the trombone. At first we thought to ourselves, "How is this kid going to take that big instrument back and forth between home and school?" Somehow it didn't seem to bother him and after starting to learn how to play the instrument we realized that he truly had a gift for playing this brass instrument. Today was Andrew's first band concert and it was so much fun to see how he and all the other beginning players picked up playing their instruments in only 2 months. 

December 6, 2012

Dr. Shupe, who is one of the Orthopedic Surgeons at the hospital and a good friend, went to Peter's classroom to do a cast demonstration.  Peter got to be the one to get the cast put on his arm.  He was so excited about it and was proud of his fake cast for most of the day.  Eventually it started to itch and he realized it wasn't that great afterall.  Nevertheless, he was a good sport about it and slept with it one night before getting it taken off.    

December 6, 2012

Since most of the Christmas gifts were already purchased by the beginning of December I wanted to try something new that would encourage family togetherness during the entire month.  So, a new tradition was born with the 24 Days of Gifts in a Bucket.  Of course this was not my idea and I am pretty sure I found it off of Pinterest but I did come up with my own list of items for the gifts.  We ended up starting a week late because I wasn't quite ready by the first of December and some of the items had to be rearranged but here is my list:

6.   Christmas movie - Kung Fu Panda Holiday DVD (new) 

7.   Pick names for family gift exchange

8.   Christmas book - new one

9.   New board game

10. Hot chocolate and toast before bed

11. Christmas book - old one

12. Christmas movie - Home Alone

13.  Board game

14. Make gingerbread houses

15. Playdoh

16. Christmas movie and popcorn - The Santa clause

17. Make yummy holiday rice Krispy treat balls for FHE

18. Hot chocolate and toast before bed

19. Christmas movie and popcorn - Miracle on 34th street

20. Christmas book

21. Family ice skating

22. Missionary lunch with Murata family and Hiroko

23. Sing Christmas hymns and watch movie - It's a wonderful life

24. Decorate sugar cookies and Nativity program

  



December 8, 2012

This year we attended the Festival of Trees to see the tree that our church put together.  Most of the trees were from the different military units on base so to have a tree from a religious organization was pretty spectacular.  We were so happy that we got approved to put up a tree.  Our tree's theme was, "Christmas is Family."  The Relief Society got pictures of each of the families and put them into frames to hang on the tree.  They also put together paper ornaments with written Christmas traditions from several of the families in our ward.  It was pretty awesome.   

December 17, 2012

One of our gifts in the bucket had ingredients for decorating gingerbread houses.  This year I used graham crackers to create the houses hoping that it would be easier than baking gingerbread.  It was a huge time saver but trying to cut out the peaked sides of the house proved to be challenging.  Let's just say that I went through many crackers and the ones that did end up working weren't perfect.  The kids still had fun decorating their not so perfect houses and eating some of the candy along the way.   

December 18, 2012

Andrew achieved his first rank of Tenderfoot in Boy Scouts as well as his Family Life merit badge. We are so proud of all that he has accomplished as a first year Boy Scout.  It has been fun to see Mike and Andrew working together in Scouts this year.  

December 31, 2012

Just after Christmas we all got a new surprise... the new WiiU.  Mike had wanted to get it for Christmas for everyone but the NEX was out so he waited until they had more after Christmas.  It was a huge hit as 5 people could play at one time in all new and fun Wii games.