Mattie's birthday and Sumo Wrestling

Mattie turned 10 on September 4th. As happens more often than not Mattie started off pretty grumpy and then as she opened presents she got happier. I would love to post us singing happy birthday, but she might hate me the rest of her life (maybe I'll post it on Facebook).

 The kids are all playing soccer. It's very American and normal and keeps us pretty busy with practices and 3 games on Saturday. Mattie has especially blossomed as a goalie. She is a game changer when she's in.

 This is how the little preschoolers go on afternoon walks

Kamakura Mask Festival

Went with some fellow medical spouses up to Kamakura (home of the first Shogun) to watch the mask festival. Even after reading the plaque and stuff, I'm still not sure exactly what it's for except to honor a guy who left to war when he was 16, was brave and later became a town leader.

 This first picture is for my brother Mark who asked if the Japanese take as many pictures at home as they do abroad. If there is something out of the ordinary, then yes, they take pictures.

 

Tokyo and Sumo Wrestling

 Shibuya, I think it's in Cars 2, and it was ok, don't think I would take kids any later than we were there.

 We ate at Yakiniku. It was expensive, but good. Beef tongue and everything.

 The kids got very bored.

 Its hard to tell, but Emma is on the 1st floor, Sam on the 2nd, Mattie on the 3rd, and Hazel and Dad on the 4th floor.

 And of course the cheese pie It was very very good!

These next pictures are from the Meiji Shrine. It was beautiful there and many good things to see. Weddings every 30 min., old shrines, open grass fields, and lots of trees that were planted

  Here is Hazel in front of the Sumo wrestling statue.

 Emma as a Sumo with a Sumo.

Some very out of focus pics and a view of how far back we were, but we really enjoyed it and saw big Sumo wrestlers push each other off the stand. We may have to do it again.

Tokyo sky tower.

So far we don't have much planned in the future, but I'm sure we have a lot more things on our to do list. I love our house, love being here with my family and for the growth we have already have. I do miss family though, but have skyped and Facetimed and emailed and texted--love the modern age.

Moving in and First Week of School

We moved into our house recently and I wanted to share a bit about it. It is in the neighborhood of Shioiri (Shee-o-iri--except the "r" is said really fast so it sounds like idi--it's one of my most favorite Japanese words). We, like good neighbors took chocolates to those who live next to us to introduce ourselves and apologize for any additional dust we may have stirred up in the move. We even had a very nice note that our friends the Amakasus wrote up for us. We were received well or they were just very polite, as all Japanese are.

We just hope they were OK with our initial move in with temporary furniture, then our express shipment, and then our HHG (household goods) shipment. We stirred up a lot of dust I'm afraid, not to mention they may have learned that we are very loud Americans.

Here is a picture of our lease-- Foot wear is not allowed in the house, we signed a contract saying so, so it was easy to convince the kids to do this. And Japanese houses make it easy with a Genkan--a whole entrance with cubbies for shoes.

 Below is a picture of our landlord. He is the head Buddhist priest of the temple just down the street from us. He is very nice and had a board replaced the next day by his personal carpenter,  and had a small concrete wall knocked down so we can park our bikes. That is pretty big stuff and all we can say is Arigato Gozimas, which means thank you, which will just have to suffice.

Below is a meal of Tonkatsu which is fried pork cutlets, the kids especially loved this meal.

 These are two pictures of the tatami room. It is made to be a multi-purpose room for sleep, tea, summer reading, and ancestor worship. We made it Mattie's room with a futon and everything.

Shortly after our move in there was a little festival in our community Shioiri (its just so fun to say) and just Tom and I went out initially, headed out to do some shopping. We ate some of their food, and they tried repeatedly to buy us drinks, eventually just giving us some apple juice. They were all so nice and seemed excited to have us so we went and made the kids come. The stir fry people encouraged Tom to make up a batch and then they gave us the whole batch. Such nice people and Tom really gave them a show. Below is a picture, but it is out of focus b/c earlier that day.......

 We went on the roller slides and having my phone in my pocket knocked the camera out of focus. The next day a little girl threw my phone on the floor at church and it knocked it back into focus. Weird eh?

Church here is quite different, but we have already made some great friends and met some incredible people. Here we are walking for the first time from our house--in the much refreshing rain.

 There is no free parking by the church so most people park on base and walk the 10 minutes to the eight story building. We live about a 15 min. walk so it's just as fast to walk. Sacrament and priesthood are on the 3rd floor. Nursery and Relief Society are on the 6th floor and Primary is on the 7th. We have learned to cram a lot of people into some very small elevators or you just walk up the un-aircontioned stairs.

The beginning of school was a "just one more thing to do" type of first day. This is as close as we got to pictures. I'm glad Sam was willing to pose.

 We were initially going to put Hazel in a Japanese kindergarten but we decided the Sam needed a change of scenes and Hazel is going to join him at Hayama International. It will be super good for Sam because the class size is 8-10 students.

Below is a picture of a demonstration that disturbed our routine for a couple of days. We think it was a teachers' union thing this time rather than an anti-American or anti-nuclear demonstration, but the demonstration still rings louder if it's by the American Base. Mostly it was a hundred or so police standing around with batons and their buses blocking lanes and every once in a while you'd see a car with a speaker on it drive by. This picture has a few people stopping to see the truck and taking pictures--everyone else is police.

Octopus Balls or Takoyaki- lunch one day!

The kids went to an class on Japan one day. They got to wear kimonos and samurai kimonos.

We are enjoying Japan and our loving our house. There has been some adjustment, but I think its mostly for mom, the kids truly seem unphased.

Our second full week here has been great. We are mostly just getting more settled in. 

We got our drivers licenses and bought a car - a 1998 Nissan Serena minivan. $1200. It is a little old and beaten. 

As all Japanese cars, it has the steering wheel on the right, since you drive here on the left. We have both made all the rookie mistakes -- trying to get in on the wrong side of the car, pulling into the oncoming lane, and turning on the windshield wipers instead of turn signals. I think we are getting the hang of it now though.

We also found the house that we plan to live in. We sacrificed spaciousness of home and yard for the convenience of living close to school and work. We can all walk or ride bikes if want to. We should be signing the lease and moving in within the next week. 

For now, we are still living the hotel lifestyle: "Sam, stop jumping. Hazel, no screaming... Kids, please be quiet or we will get another call from the front desk...Sam, you know you aren't supposed to jump on the beds...Mattie. Don't make Sam scream, Sam, be quiet...Kids, stop tapping the walls." We can't wait to get into a house without shared walls. 

Heat and humidity are serious here. On the day before we got the car, Keriann, Hazel, and Sam went for a walk, just to get out of the hotel. They got a little warm.

Fortunately, they were saved from heat injury by ice cream

 

Yesterday was "Yokosuka Friendship Day", when local Japanese people are welcomed onto our base for a celebration. It was in the classic style of a local American carnival, with tickets that you could trade for games or cotton candy. Hot Dogs and Nachos for sale, and lots of tank tops showing off tattoos and sunburns. 

The highlight for us was a huge fireworks display over the bay for 37 minutes straight (Emma timed it), some even in the shape of Hello Kitty, complete with shooting-star whiskers. (not pictured here)

We miss everyone at home, but we are having a really great time too. We have started to develop our list of necessary trips before we leave the area. Who would like to come join us for any of these?

Kyoto

Sapporo

Hike Mt. Fuji

Hiroshima/Nagasaki

Philippines - (With Mark and Marianne for Christmas 2014?)

Australia/New Zealand - (With Miriam in 3 years?)

Singapore

Thailand

Korea if Nathan has anything to do with it

What else do we need to add?

Japan Beginning

We arrived in Japan on July 18th, 2013. We flew out on July 17th from San Diego to LA. Lucky for us we were able to drop of our car right at the San Diego airport b/c the next day Jordan (my brother) was going to fly in and take it for us. (Unfortunately for him we were not able to communicate to him that the key to start the car was inside the van, the key we left would only open the door--sorry Jordan!)

The kids did great on the flight. Every seat had a tv connected to it where you could  watch movies, play games etc. Kept the kids entertained for about 10 of the 12 hours. I'll have to post pics of the train ride later (the cord to the camera is MIA).

We arrived at the airport at 3:15pm Japan time, which was about 11:15 pm our time. We were met by our sponsor Doug Cragin and we will always be grateful to him. He had a van for our luggage and his own van for us to drive in. We tried to keep the kids awake, but we oursleves were having a tough time staying awake.

We arrived in to the Navy Lodge (our home for possibly the next month) around 5:30 or 6:00. Doug's wife Rose was there with some groceries and snacks for the kids for when they woke up at 2;00 in the morning. Also a whole basket full of activities, snacks and useful Japan items from the Oakleaf club (medical spouse club). It was a welcome gift and we were very grateful for it when the kids woke up at 12:00 midnight. It got better, the next night was 2:00, then 4:00, now they wake up pretty regular around 7:00. We are adjusted! Yeah!!!

The day after we got here we went into the housing office to see what they had to offer us. It was a four bedroom townhouse in Ikego (20 min drive) a housing base. Tom put that we need a 5 bedroom b/c of the ages and sexes of our kids. Luckily the housing office agreed and so we got to look off base. We have decided on a house and are waiting for the inspection and housing papers to go through. Hopefully we will be in it in two weeks at the longest. It has a tatami room and no oven or dishwasher, but we are excited to live in a truly Japanese house. I have tried to add a link to the house and cant figure it out--sorry, but try to map Japan, Kanagawa prefecture, Yokosuka,  shioirichio, 3 We are next to a shrine (marked by a swastika) and a community center, across from a hospital (marked by cross).  

The first week in Japan you take a class everyday on base rules, traffic safety, japanese culture etc. The kids go to child care and had their own adventures. They went to the Nissan factory, swimming and movies. It was nice to spend a week with Tom all day every day, I didn't even get tired of him. Part of our Japanese culture class was to take a train ride up to Kamakura (the old capital of Japan during the Shogun era). We took Emma and Mattie with us. This is them at the first gate. We have more pics, that we will post later, but we had a great time.

 The other most amazing thing here in Japan is the food. We love it! Even our picky kids are finding great things. We have the video of the go around sushi, the kids love that. Below is a picture of Mattie eating yakiniku. It is Korean bbq and you really do cook it right in front of you. We all enjoyed it, even vegetarian Tom who had the sauce with rice. We had some excellent indian food with nan bread bigger than  the plate, Ramen is also excellent here. There is still a lot we want to try and are looking forward to our time here and all the great stuff we get to try.

One of our other favorite finds is the 100 Yen store. It is awesome! It is much like the dollar store except the stuff is actually good quality. We are excited to get a house to set it up with some of the 100 yen stuff. 

We are quite a sight walking around with the six of us. We stick out A LOT! Not only b/c of our size, but because we are loud foreigners. The Japanese people continue to be so nice and polite.

We have met so many great people here. Church has been super! So many great people who have reached out to us and helped us get around (we have no car, just the base shuttle which is a huge pain) and fed us. Emma and Mattie already went to a birthday party! It is so multicultural here too. People have moved here from Bahrain, Spain all over, and are moving to those locations as well. It truly has been so fun and eye opening.

That is all I have for now. I really will post soon once we find the camera cord. There are some great pics. IF you want to call or contact us, your afternoons are our mornings, also iphones can facetime and text for free, Awesome!!!! 

Visitors

Mark (my brother) and Marianne and kids came and visited San Diego and then went up to Disneyland, where we met up with Kelli (my sister). We had a super fun time and can't wait to be with them again in the summer. Thank you so much for coming and entertaining us for a week.

Mark and family with my kids

We went to La Jolla Beach and even though it was cold and overcast Holland and Mattie still got in the water....clothed.

Sam and Caleb at the beach.

In Old Town, San Diego.

At the zoo.

Kelli's girls had the best reactions to meeting the Disney characters. There were fascinated. So fun to meet the princesses with them.

Taylor and Hazel mapping out where we will go. This was a common scene in both Disneyland and the zoo.

 Teacups: Holland, Cate, Emma and Mattie

Caleb and Sam, always together.

Getting sprayed on Grand Rapids in California Adventure Park.

A New Camera

So for Christmas I got a new camera, a nice one. It has been great fun learning how to use it and trying my best to delve into the very large and intimidating world of photography. I happen to have a super nice nieghbor who gave me a few old lenses and is also giving me small challenges to help me learn some of the fundamentals. So here are some of my challenges and the pictures that go with them.

1st Challenge: Take a picture of bananas

2nd Challenge: Take a picture of our blooming rose with the rose being the brightest object.

3rd Challenge: Decide beforehand what I want in focus and then take the picture. Here are a couple of examples. And, as a bonus, you get to see Tom's moustache.

This was an accident lesson on frontal light, but if I ever take some before and after pictures or Tom, I know how to make the after picture look really good--no blemishes anywhere.

These next four I just liked.

I really am enjoying what I'm learning, and if you are a photographer and have suggestions (hint hint J), please do so I'd love to hear them.