Backyard and visit to Inakadate

It is so good to be 9 months old. Alice is all over the place crawling, cruising, standing unaided with her "magic feather." I don't remember our other girls moving so fast or so quickly. Clearly she is trying to catch up.

Our neighbors have two swimming pools that we can borrow whenever we want. That seems to be every time we put our swimsuits on.

 We don't have air conditioning, so when it's hot I get inspired to harness the power of the sun. We made a solar cooker and successfully made mac & cheese - the granola didn't do so well.

 As part of out emergency prepardness plan Ryan got us poles and stakes for our tarp.

Last week we took a day trip to Inakadate, Japan to see the rice field art. I wore my John Deere shirt in honor of this agricultural event. After driving two hours to get there, Ryan and I decided that it reminded us of the Corn Palace. It's really too bad they don't sell geodes in Japan so that we can be sure when we have found a tourist trap.

Here is Ryan's favorite field. I asked him why and he said it was "an action movie in rice, complete with lightening, sword and fire." He even went so far as to say that most males would agree that it was the best one.

 My favorite field is in the background which consists of a bunch of people in a dragon boat.

 This is the close-up of said dragon head.

The girls loved the rice field art. Or maybe they just loved being on a short "vacation" and singing all the way across the width of Japan. 

Here is another picture that I couldn't resist throwing into the mix. Jane is in transition to giving up her naps. Some days she is more successful than others. Luckily her little bunny was able to tell her what happened in the story when she woke up.

Hokkaido Part 3

What is a good camping trip without a little rain? The girls were so excited to wear their raincoats. Don't worry about Alice there was no chance of her suffocating under the poncho.

As you can see, Alice was quick to get herself out from under any protective outerwear that we might try and put on her.

At the trail head we paid 200 yen to walk along this trail which was worth it when they gave us some colorful umbrellas to carry the whole way.

The real reason that trails are so well manicured on both sides is because Alice took care to pull off any leaves trying to to grow where they shouldn't. Ryan likes to call her a little tick with her arms waving in the air.

  Helen was so happy to have a picture with the three girls. Note the bear bell and neckerchiefs.

This is beautiful Lake Shikotsu in the background. I remembered how much Helen loves hiking, it is her favorite part of camping. She happily chit-chatted the whole way up the mountain.

Hokkaido Part 2

Tents have come a long way since I was a kid. instead of the poles running through sleeves, they get clipped on so that even a two year can do it. 

Here is a shot of the island in the middle of Lake Toya. This is Ryan's favorite picture. I took it, but I just don't appreciate wildfowl of any kind. I just assume that they are related to Canada geese and make the same amount of mess.

The girls embraced climbing up fallen trees on this trip. There are a lot of similarities between goats and kids. Behind the girls you can see little infant bamboo. We never saw any large bamboo growth.  I think that it all freezes in the winter and then has to grow as fast as it can up here in the north.

There are no picnic tables at campsites in Japan, so we had to make do with what we had. Note the child in the background that has learned to crawl and put small leaves/rocks/sticks in her mouth. Is there anything better than a tent for containing a child?

We hiked to this lovely waterfall.  Sadly the light wasn't so great for a picture, but note that everyone is looking at the camera.

 Here we are standing in front of a real live smoldering volcano. It had smoke billowing out of it and everything. Thrilling.

 The girls practiced their jumping along the boardwalk.

One of our goals while in Hokkaido was to try the local dish - Genghis Khan. After conferring at our campsite with the host through pantomime and short phrases we were directed to this restaurant. Actually he wrote the name of it down on a piece of paper. As a side note, the Japanese characters he wrote didn't match any of the phrases you see on any of the signs in the picture. We had to show our little piece of paper to people at neighboring locations until we finally "found" it.

Here is Ryan bravely cooking our tasty treat. Perhaps for our next trip we will learn the Japanese characters for "small portion".

Hokkaido Trip Part 1

Last week we took the 9 hour ferry from Hachinohe to Tomakomai, Hokkaido - the northernmost island in Japan. We had heard that Hokkaido is like the Alaska of Japan, complete with bears. Ryan enhanced the map below so that you will be able to find all the places we visited.

 Our first order of business was the zoo north of Furano. After we got off the ferry at 1:30 in the morning, Ryan just drove us straight up to the farthest point we wanted to see. Then we slept in the zoo parking lot for 4 hours until it opened. We saw our first pink pelicans which were a hit for our pink loving girls.

I was so excited to see these Steller's sea eagles, and not just for their name. Ryan and I watched a nature video to get ourselves ready for the trip and these eagles look like cartoons, I had to confirm they were real.

Next stop, Furano which is famous for it's flowers in the summer. In fact, you can see this very field on the website I linked up. Just as a side note, this may not be the best destination for individuals with allergies (like myself).

Here we are at Flowerland and the excitement of hay bails won out as most thrilling over the 100s of flowers.

In retrospect, there may have been signs to the effect of "don't enter the fields," but in Japanese it may have been the names of the flowers.

On our way out of town we asked Helen if she would rather go to the cheesemaking factory or the grape juice factory. She chose the later, and she was glad she did once she laid eyes on these "bucking broncos."

Here is where we camped the first night. To set the record straight, Alice doesn't not weight 30 pounds, she is merely wearing 5 layers of cloths to stay warm.

Tanabata Festival

Last month our little town celebrated Tanabata by hanging these streamers from bamboo poles down main street. The girls loved going through the streamers. We went last year during the day and it was not nearly as exciting as it is at night with all of the decorations lit up.

After walking up and down the street we got what we thought was ice cream, but was really more like an icy. The man scooped up a white center of "ice cream" and then used his paddle to put 6 different colors and flavors around the outside. Yum, yum.

This is perhaps the largest Hydrangea that I have ever seen and it is right outside our door.

 Alice got 5 teeth last month and cloths pins are a fairly harmless teething option.

Summertime Fun

Ryan had a day off last week and so we went to  the beach. We've been here almost a year and this is the first time we ventured to the shoreline. It wasn't a perfect trip, as it did rain and cut short our fun a little.  This "time crunch" caused Ryan to pick up seashells willy-nilly (some would say mostly broken). I guess he felt that we needed a certain weight of seashells before we could go back home regardless of the quality of said shells. In the end, we liked visiting the shore so much that we explored another beach on Ryan's next afternoon off.

It was a very harrowing drive along a skinny, skinny road, with the bank of the river and sure death on one side and trees with branches through our windows on the other side. I realized that I don't know how to escape from a vehicle under water and proceeded to make emergency plans in my head. Here we are walking the last bit of the road to the ocean. My nerves couldn't handle the drive any more. 

The sun did brake through for a few moments, and if you look carefully you can see a rainbow behind the girls and me.

 I love the picture below. Particularly Alice's little head poking out the top.

Here we are at the other beach. As you can tell by our apparel, we've become regular beach bums.

The shells at our beaches aren't necessarily the most beautiful you will find, but they are perfect for digging and dumping.

Here are the girls washing off their sandy treasures.

Back at home, it was time to organize the treasures by size, color and shape. These shells are gifts that just keep giving. They are great for collecting rainwater too. As a side note . . . Ryan says he can't wait for the day when Helen is a ultra-cool teenager and he can pull out this picture of Helen in all her 4-year old fashion glory and show it to all her ultra-cool teenager friends.

I couldn't decide which of the following pictures I liked best, so I had to put them both in.

Everything is so green and beautiful right now.

Library day (Thursday) is the best day of the week. I've realized that we have to go once a week, otherwise the kids forget that they need to be quiet and walk instead of run in the library. As another side note, Jane is wearing the dress that I made for her out of one of Ryan's old shirts.

Happy 4th of July!

We sure love the 4th of July here. I will have you know that we all wore red, white and blue today - even those who had clothing changes halfway through the day for serious spills. 

 Can you believe that Alice is 7 months old and can sit? What a great picture to put in her baby book.

We got to go to the "state fair" on base and pet the chicks, bunnies (who were attempting to dig themselves an escape route) and guinea pigs.

We also got to go on pony rides. I was ready just to put the girls on and see them at the end of their loop, but the nice Japanese horsemen had Ryan and I climb right up behind each of the girls. 

All of us breathed a sigh of relief that they were not bucking broncos. Our girls learned about bucking broncos this week because Helen figured out how to pretend to be bucking broncos on the living room floor. Ryan felt it his duty to show them a video of real bucking broncos which have been the topic of all our dinner conversations.