Kodomo no Kuni (Children's Land)

On October 13th (monday) Shane had work off because of some Japanese holiday and so we decided to make the most of the beautiful fall day. We took the kids to a place in Yokohama called Kodomo no Kuni (Children's land). It is a place that is, well...a land completely dedicated to children. It is run by the government and acres and acres of land was set aside for it years ago. It is not like Disneyland, more like the biggest park you've ever seen.

Right after you go through the park entrance a huge black top surface goes up a hill. Sidewalk chalk is in basins for the kids to draw on it, and so EVERY inch is covered in pictures drawn by the kids.

This big blow up bounce house is "Anpanman". He is a very popular cartoon character among the kids here. Bryant had a great time jumping in it.

Isaac and dad hanging out.

Cailey is in something that you go in on one side and climb through it until you come out on the other side.

We lost Bryant inside this next one for about a half an hour. It is kind of like a maze inside. You can climb around and go on different levels. He was having a great time, but we couldn't fit inside to go look for him. Definitely a kid's paradise.

This next picture I took mostly for the benefit of my friend Katie Shepard...just one of those things you will only find in Japan, a spinning onigiri (rice ball with seaweed on it. It's like the peanut butter sandwich of Japan, a staple).

A big roller slide that looked way funner than it actually was.

The cat's out of the bag...

"Where will we be a year from now?" That is a conversation that Shane and I have had many times in our marriage. This past year the topic has come up quite a bit. Will we still be in Japan? Will we be back in Tucson? Michigan? Mexico? Right now it is looking like our next home will be in Los Mochis, Mexico. (Don't ask why I took a picture of my computer screen instead of just embedding the image...I tried and gave up, so do a google map search yourself if you want to see it better!)

Shane just got back from a long business trip and the last week of it he was in Los Mochis. His boss had brought up the possibility of us going there next a few months ago. This was a great opportunity for Shane to "feel it out" since he had never been there before. While he was there someone from HR took him around and showed him Los Mochis. The picture below is of Walmart and Sam's club. After being without those stores for this long, Shane was already sold on the living there.
Here is a private preschool that Bryant could attend.

This is the school that Cailey would go to. It is a private Catholic school that is bilingual. Half the day in English and half in Spanish. Our poor kids are going to be so confused...another language! (sorry kids)

A nice house in one of the communities we could live in (not the house, the community).

So if this really does pan out, we will probably be here in Japan until sometime in March. That is when the school year ends here and when our rental contract on the house we live in ends. We may be in Tucson for a month or two and then down to Los Mochis. How do I feel about this? I really have mixed emotions. I have absolutely loved living in Japan. It has been a great experience. I will be sad to leave, yet happy to at least be on the same continent (and the same time zone, no more jet lag Yeah!!) as our families. I am excited to be able to use the spanish that I learned on my mission again. I am a bit nervous about the crime, drugs and kidnappings. But, we feel good about going there, so everything will work out.

I'm back

on the blog...because we've been back in Japan for 3 weeks now, so that's old news. Where to start? Summer recap: We had a great time in Utah. My kids thoroughly enjoyed playing with their cousins, swimming, eating cereal (believe me, that is note worthy, and oh how we are going through withdrawls now), and being spoiled with attention from everyone. We got to see everyone from both of our families and that was wonderful. My only regret is that I didn't get to see more friends. I had great intentions, but time filled up so quickly. Next year I will have to go for 3 months instead of 6 weeks, that ought to do it!

Here are just a few pics at my brother Michael's wedding. (Pictures courtesty of my sis Emily, thanks Em!)

Cousins! Jacob, Sean and Isaac with dads

Emily, me and my friend Jodi Jensen (from my ward in Japan) after we ran the Provo river 1/2 marathon.

So what have we been up to since we got back? Week 1: miserable. rainy. way too hot. jet lag. kids not in school yet. stuck in a house with only mom to entertain. Week 2: Better. kids back in school (hey is there a correlation??) over jet lag, getting back into the swing of things. Week 3: Surprisingly busy. That was this past week. On Monday I had to go to the yochien (school) to learn a dance with Bryant. The moms are doing a dance with the kids for Undokai (a sports festival-this is a BIG huge deal in Japan) coming up in October. I am sure that I was quite the sight trying to follow along as they called out the next step. I wasn't sure what to do when they called "pa chin pa chin" or "kira kira" so I just did my best to do what others were doing.
On Tuesday I spent all day with the wife of Shane's boss. Shane's boss from Tucson, Jerry Kibby, was here on business and his wife, Wendy, came on this trip with him. She didn't want to spend the day in the hotel, so she met me in Yokohama and I showed her around. This was the first time that we had met, and we had a nice time together.
Wednesday was a lot of fun for me. I started teaching English again, this time to some of the moms in Cailey and Bryants school walking group. They are also interested in American cooking, so we decided to make it a cooking/English class. This time we made banana bread and had our lesson while it cooked. It really was a lot of fun. We will get together and do this once a month. I will try to remember to take a picture of everyone next time.
Yesterday we had a big ward activity. It was at a big park that is a 5 minute walk from our house. We were very excited about that because we normally have to go quite far to church and activities. Since it was so close, we decided to make an extra effort to invite our friends and neighbors. We ended up having 3 ladies and 8 kids join us. The party was a lot of fun too. We had a barbeque and they taught old time japanese games and then taught some group dances. Everyone seemed to have fun. Of course I forgot my camera.
Shane just left on a 2 week business trip. His first stop is Thailand (kind of scary right now, everyone pray he is safe!), then on to China and finally next week he will be in Mexico.
That's it for now. Have a great week everyone!!!

Sheryn's visit continued

Anna lost her camera on Saturday, and we don't have a cord to hook mine up to the computer, so sadly for now, no more pictures. I am having a fabulous time in Japan though. It is a beautiful country, and the people are so friendly. We spent Saturday at Ueno park in Tokyo. It had several shrines, and beautiful scenery, as well as just an oportunity to observe a lot of people. We also ate in another Japanese restaurant. We sat on the floor in this one, which I am not very good at, but the food was great. We also rode the train, which is quite an experience for a small town girl. Monday, we went to lunch with some of the moms from Cailey and Bryant's yochien walking group. They are starting an English class, so I was their practice. They couldn't believe that I have five kids and five cars, but the thing they were most amazed by was our three horses. I guess my lifestyle is as foreign to them as theirs is to me. Today we went to Kamakura. What a beautiful place! We started in a bamboo forest, saw several temples and shrines and some beautiful gardens. I love the buildings, but it is just the whole landscape that impresses me most. The hills just covered with trees, vines and flowers. I hope I will be able to remember it, because I don't think any of my pictures do it justice. This has been a wonderful experience!

Sheryn's in Japan!!

Sheryn arrived safe and sound in Japan yesterday. I even drove to the airport alone to pick her up, which doesn't seem that impressive unless you've driven in Japan. We both made it just fine.
We thought we would keep you updated on Sheryn's impressions of Japan each day since Shane and I have forgotten what things we thought were weird at first. Sheryn has now spent her first full day here. This morning after getting Cailey and Bryant off to Yochien, we (Shane and Isaac too since Shane had the day off) walked to the Yokohama train station to show Sheryn around and go to lunch in a real Japanese restaurant. (The picture is for you Josh, to prove it.)
Sheryn: So far I am having a great time here. The biggest change for me is more from being in a big city than a different country. There are so many people here. The food is definitely interesting, but I did try everything at lunch today. It is interesting how everything is built up, and so close together. The people are very friendly though, and fortunately know more English than my two word vocabulary of Japanese words. I love how green it is, and how all the sounds and smells are different. I am definitely no master of the chopsticks, but I did manage to get my lunch into my mouth, and didn't drop too many things, and don't ask me what I ate, because other than the chicken and rice, I have no idea!
Back to me: We will try to post a few more blogs while Sheryn is here.

The Quarterback

...a.k.a. "little guy", "QB", or "cube," and every once in a while, "Isaac". Since we don't live close to family, whenever we visit home both of our families always seem interested in what we call our kids. Their nicknames always seem to start with a story and then they evolve, until we have a hard time remebering how we got the name. Isaac has been no exception. It started in the hospital after we had just decided on the name Isaac. We were saying the name and then Isaac turned to "I-sack" which then became "I-sack the quarterback" which then shortened to "quarterback", then "QB" and when that is too much to say, just "cube". And since he is the littlest member of our family, we often just call him "little guy." So, when we go home in a few weeks (yeah!!!) you may choose any of those names and at least Cailey and Bryant will know who you are talking to.

Little guy is now over 7 months old and he is doing great. He has been neglected on this blog lately so I thought I would post a few pics. At this age they change so much. It seems that each day he starts doing something new. Here are a few of the recent changes.

Crawling and climbing a few stairs (No...not the stairs!!)Clapping

and standing in the crib

We love our quarterback!!

Shigoto wa nan desu ka

...which translates to "What is your job (work)?" Lately I feel like my job has been full time yochien (kindergarten) mom. As I look at my calendar over the last month most of the days have been filled with something to do with yochien. Don't get me wrong, it's not all bad. Some of it has been really fun, like the lunches with the moms. There has been the walking group mom's lunch, the lunch for the moms in Bryant's class, then another one for Cailey's class. I have had fun getting together with some of the moms for language exchanges. One girl named Emiko is helping me with Japanese and in return I am helping her start running. But then there are other things, like going to observe them in class. It really is interesting to see what they do, but after 30 minutes I feel like I have seen enough. And then when every other mom stays for hours you feel obligated to stay so that your kid isn't the only one in the class whose mom isn't there. There have been two observation days in the past month. One was for PE (with a special PE teacher...now that was interesting, I couldn't believe some of the things they made them do, I swear there would be lawsuits if they did those things in the US) and another day to watch them during the day in the classroom. But times that by 2 kids and that is 4 observation days in the last month. I took a few videos and pictures so that you can see a day in the life of a yochien student in Japan.
This is Cailey's class singing a song together in the morning.

Here is Cailey working on an art project.

This is a video of Bryant singing the song that they sing right before they eat lunch. They sing about being happy about eating lunch."Obento, obento ureshii na..."Obento" is the lunch they bring to school in a lunch box (not that you can understand what they are saying...)



I was trying not to laugh while Bryant was doing this art project, because they gave them these pre-cut faces and they were supposed to draw on the eyes, nose, mouth, etc. Notice how nicely Bryant's class mates have done theirs and he was just happy to use every color in his marker set on his "face."

Oh yes...I do have a third child and Isaac has been a really good sport joining me for all of these Yochien activities. There have been a few days when it has just been Isaac and me at home, and oh how nice those days are.