I am Thankful for Birthdays!

Alex said that he is most thankful for Heavenly Father because He gave us everything. It totally tugged on my heartstrings and it was probably the best part of Thanksgiving. We had Thanksgiving with the neighbors. I spent most of the day baking and dinner was over too soon, but it was nice. The following day was my birthday and we had a great day. Pete fixed me breakfast in bed, we went to the beach,

hung out at home. Get this- PETE GOT ME A CAKE!!! I know, 12 years in the making, but he totally got me a cake. Somehow it ended up in Pete's face and then in my face... whoops ;)Pete also got a babysitter and took me out to dinner at this crocodile place where we watched a guy put on a fire show- pretty cool.


(Push Play on the Video right above this to watch part of the fire dancer show). Pete put a lot of thought and effort into my birthday and it was GREAT!

We also discovered some new parks this weekend. Large concrete (yes, a mothers nightmare- the kid's pants definitely get noticeable wear from this!) are not uncommon but this particular slide was really long.

There was also a Tarzan like Rope Hut among other things. The kids had a lot of fun. '

WE also saw this house while driving through the city. It had a tree growing in front of it and made it look like a tree house. We thought it was pretty cool especially cause it was in the middle of a bunch of concrete and roads.

Sams and Dams

November has really flown by for us. We've been enjoying the cooler weather and getting out a lot. We are still discovering new parks and there is so much to see and do. A week ago Lalee and I went to a mother-daughter activity days and made a pinata. We had a lot of fun. Last weekend we spent the morning at Kurashiki Dam. We skipped rocks, walked through some of the gardens/monuments, climbed along some of the slippery banks and played in the water.
We also went to Sam's By the Sea for dinner one night. The kids drinks were served in some great looking skeleton mugs, we had curry soup for the first time (yum!) and each of our meals were several courses- even the kids meals. Although it was a tad bit fancier then the kids would have liked (Alex ordered a hamburger which wasn't even served on a bun).
Each of the kids had Thanksgiving feast this past week at school. Lalee and Alex are getting ready for their Teiko performance coming up. I'm getting ready to start school again in January (teaching certificate) and Pete has been doing well at work. One of his friends (Jeremiah- orange shirt in the picture above) is staying with us for a couple of weeks as he is getting ready to PCS to Portugal. We are looking forward to a relaxing weekend. Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

J and Pete walking up the stairs. It was really peaceful. Becca and J crossing a stream (if you can call a couple inches of water a stream)

Becca was cold. Honestly, it wasn't cold- it was just kind of drizzling.

Alex and Becca both ordered Hamburgers off of the kids meals and this is what they got. A bit more gourmet than we had expected! Below is our dessert that we shared, it was as good as it looks!
Lalee got the chicken and it was probably the best thing I ate that night (she shared a little with me. It was done 'Chicken Cordon Bleu' style. Again, from the kids meal.
J with his drink. The cup is in the shape of a Shishi dog and he was able to take it home. Real cool!

Becca and Alex getting their bibs tied on.

Pete and J with their various drinks.

Besides outtings, not a lot has changed in our lives. I'm still volunteering although I think I am going to switch to substitute teaching soon. Pete has been trying to get his 3.25 mile run under 30 minutes which will probably happen sometime this week or next. Lalee has this economy project at school where she is making products (Personal information cards) and selling them. She's becoming quite the entrepreneur. I am looking forward to this weekend with a relaxing, quite Thanksgiving and Pete's supposed to be surprising us with a full day of fun on Friday. I'll let you know how that all goes.

Pineapples and Butterflies...

We recently took a drive up to Nago. While we were there we stopped at the Butterfly museum, the Pineapple park and a beach. We took L's friend, Vanessa, with us. I know I shouldn't have been surprised to learn there were so many different kinds of pineapple, or to see the fields of pineapple (I still envision a tree similar to a coconut tree when I think of pineapples even though I know they grow on the ground).
The butterfly park was a lot of fun. There is a pretty garden you can walk through with an incredible view of the ocean. In the butterfly exhibit area you basically try to get as many butterflies to land on you as possible. We were creative in this endeavor doing a variety of things including picking the butterflies up and putting them on each other, having someone stand really still and shake a bush with a lot of butterflies, running around trying to catch them, asking the worker to spray Alex's clothes with the sugar water :) I was fun. Becca loved them and they apparently loved her as she had no trouble attracting the butterflies. She was pretty sad when she couldn't take one with her. Lalee and Alex weren't quite as lucky at getting the butterflies to land on them but they were wearing silky type shirts... maybe this made a difference?

It was very tropical and very pretty.

Yah- this butterfly might have had a little help getting on Pete's nose ;)

Do you see the butterfly on Pete's camera?

At the pineapple park we were able to try all kinds of things made with pineapple. The first thing we tried, pineapple vinegar made the kids slightly hesitant to try all the other things but they did love the pineapple juice and variety of cookies and chocolaltes, the pickled pineapple- a was a different story!

Crab right before the waves came up and took him back out.

Pete and the kids playing around on a breaker.

Hanging out at the pineapple park.

Becca standing in front of a wall of pineapple wine.

Japanese people loved talking to the kids. The kids still aren't sure what to do when they aren't able to communicate with people who are excitedly talking and pointing at them.The further up North we go, the more fascinated the locals seem to be with the kids ;)

2009 Family Pics

This past weekend we went out and took some family pictures. I posted them on facebook so most of you have probably seen them but I thought I'd share with you non-facebookers ;)







We were wanting to hit the beach and take some beach pictures but we weren't able to. So, when we do get there, I'll post some more :)

Sushi Bar

One of the things we've enjoyed the most is the culture here. We usually go out to eat once a pay period and its taken a while to figure out what everything is. We've learned that if a dish has "tempura" in the title it means it will be deep-fried, soba is hugely popular and is kind of like a thick-noodle soup with various ingredients, Chanpuru is similar to stir-fry, goya is a bitter melon that looks like cucumbers and is put in a lot of things, etc. For the most part, we've learned this all through trial and error. Our latest eating out adventure was one of our favorite.
A couple of days ago we ended up in a Sushi bar in Chattan. If you will notice behind Pete there are a bunch of little plates on what looks to be a counter. This is actually a revolving belt that carries the plates along all the tables in the bar. You simply pick the plates up off of the conveyor belt and you pay by the plate. The sushi was very fresh and there was a great variety. We tried eel sushi for the first time- it was actually pretty good. The kids still aren't huge fish fans but they did like the tempura chicken. Hopefully I'll get Pete to post something next week.