Home Sweet Home

We live on base with all our closest friends here. I can't complain at all since there are sidewalks everywhere for the girls and I to go for long walks. We also live a 30 second dash from arguably the best park on base. It is 4:30 in the following picture, how do I know, we have stopped to listen to the Japanese followed by the United States national anthem. Our neighbor Sophie helped concrete the hand over heart learning for our girls. Now Jane stops whatever she is doing, puts her right hand over her heart, sways back and forth and hums along with the anthems.

Here is the front of our house with the plants before the slugs started munching on them. We have since bought a potent pesticide with lots of dead bugs on the label. There is nothing like being illiterate to increase one's appreciation for pictures.

Here is our side/backyard. We didn't get a picture of the girls favorite parts of the yard -- the storm drains and the great sledding hill.

What are my favorite parts of the day? In the morning when the girls wake-up and giggle with each other, when the girls read by themselves, when we go for walks and Helen skips the whole way, when Jane talks about umbrellas, Daddy and word (I think she must have seen him taking an umbrella to work), when everyone eats dinner and says thank you. I have the best job in the world. Clearly the weather has improved and caused a dramatic increase in my feelings of well-being.

Misawa Festival

I realized today that we are about a month behind on our pictures and updates. These picture come from a parade we went to last month. We found some sweet seats along the road where there was not another American to be seen. It's fun to really feel like you live in another country, but is often hard to capture when living on base. From what I learned beforehand, this parade was the dance parade. Groups like this one below danced in unison to Japanese or American pop music while walking down the street. It was like being in a musical or perhaps watching a boys band.

Helen and I were lucky enough to meet this large headed person. Jane was really excited, as you can see from her lunging position in her stroller.

Here is a group of boys eating street food that were across the street. They had a ton of fun eating their street food and cat-calling to all the people in the parade. I had initially felt guilty about taking people's pictures here, but at the air show a couple weeks ago we had our pictures taken enough that I was curious as to what we had done to deserve the paparazzi treatment. Had Ryan started a successful singing career? maybe acting? some sort of night job with lots of hype?

Here is another dancing group, most of the groups we made up of children. This was probably my favorite one.

I love these hats! It's like carrying your umbrella with you all the time.

This float, one of only four that I remember seeing, carried a bunch of big white root vegetables. The man at the back handed them out to spectators. I guess that we didn't look like we would know what to do with such a gift, so we didn't get one. I think that it would be really great if in the US they had floats where they handed out vegetables, you know, like eggplant, or turnips. Probably it would just end up a giant food fight though.

This float was the loudest float. There were people banging on big drums and a wild man with a sort of tambourine setting the rhythm for them.

Here is one of the other floats. You may not know it, but Miss Veedol, the red plane you see in replica was the first plane to cross the Pacific Ocean non-stop back in 1931.

Tours Around Town

Last month when we arrived in Japan we got to go on a couple of tours around the area. Here the girls and I are in front of an old Samurai home.

Helen demonstrates how to cook fish inside the Samurai house. This is part of a Shinto Temple that we visited. Here are Helen and I in front of the Shinto Temple. Did the girls appreciate the fine architecture, lovely paintings, impressive bell or beautiful woods? No, they were most impressed by the fish. Yep, they would have jumped in with said fish along the gate if we had let go of their hands for even a second.

This is a Buddhist Temple we visited in Misawa. Luckily we practice being reverent every Sunday at church so the girls happily folded their arms instead of touching momentos that families keep in the temple.
We got to go to the indoor fish market in Hacinohe. I have never seen such varied fruits of the sea. Jane and I took a quick turn down the fruit and vegetable aisle instead of exploring the fish. I couldn't handle the though of Jane grabbing on to the various squids right at her eye level (we hadn't brought a stroller) and the smell did not agree with me. Ryan and Helen happily volunteered to explore and take pictures for us.

What are these? I don't know. Will they bite Helen's finger? She doesn't know. It's always better to err on the side of caution.

Helen found more octopus! They always bring a smile to her face.

These fish heads were particularly exciting because Ryan taught her to look inside and see what was in there. It also appears from this picture that Helen has her eyes peeled for flying fish as well.

Festival in Misawa, Japan

On our first day in Japan they celebrated our arrival with a festival in Misawa. Okay, they had it planned all along.We walked up and down the main street and enjoyed these pinata-like creations which had been hoisted over the street using bamboo shoots.

Here is a picture of one of the street food booths. I would consider this one of the more "safe" options because everything has been deep fat fried. Jane is a big fan of the cheese balls at the far right end.

Here is Helen's favorite vendor. Those are bananas dipped in chocolate and then decorated. The pink sprinkles taste the best if you are three and your name is Helen.

At a grocery store near our home we found these treasures. Helen loves finding octopuses, as you will see in future posts.

Hawaii Part 2

Above you can see the hotel where we stayed. In order to help Ryan with his slight apprehension (fear) of heights we were lucky enough to be in the very top corner room. Perhaps if you blow the picture up really big you will be able to see the girls and I waving.

Helen really enjoyed playing on the beach with her little bucket and shovel.

In the last blog post we went to the perhaps one of the least visited spots in Hawaii (The foster Botanical Gardens) and here we visited Pearl Harbor, one of the most visited locations. As you can tell by Helen's smile, the heavy artillery gun was one of the highlights from this spot.

Jane and I check out the periscope.

The Battleship Missouri as well as the Arizona Memorial are visible in the water. Helen was really disappointed that we couldn't visit any of those sites.

This action shot is from the Polynesian Culture Center, also among the most visited sites in Hawaii. Here Ryan's teaching the girls a native New Zealand game in which you throw and hit sticks together.

That little palm leaf fish provided hours of entertainment for all of us, but for some reason Ryan was ready to throw it away after the first 30 minutes.

We walked over the the Laie Hawaii Temple from the Polynesian Cultural Center.

We even stopped by BYU Hawaii on our way. As it inspires no nostalgic memories in us, we didn't stay long.

The girls on the beach of Waikiki at sunset. I have decided that Waikiki may single handedly supply oncologists with all their skin cancer cases in any number of places that probably should never see the sun.

Ryan had us walk barefoot on the beach for a little ways, in memory of his favorite poem that goes something like this . . .

Footsteps in the Sand, adapted by Ryan

As I looked back at my journey over the metaphoric sandy beach of family life,

I noticed that in the most difficult portions there was only one set of footprints.

So I asked my father, "Is that where you carried me to keep me safe?"

My father replied, "No, that's where you wanted to pick up a jellyfish and threw a tantrum when I told you no, so I carried you under my arm and sat you on a rock for a 2 minute time-out."

A week before we came to Hawaii, one of the speakers at church told a story about a child being washed out to the sea. Why such a story should come up in Iowa is beyond me, but it does explain the extremely suspicious look I am giving those "friendly" waves.

Here's a clip of the girls trying to imitate the Hawaiian dancers at the Polynesian Culture Center.

Hawaii Part 1

On our way to Japan we stopped in Hawaii for a week, strictly because it was less expensive for the Air Force to fly us to Japan on this route . It turned out to be an even more brilliant idea than anticipated, because it allowed us to adjust to the time change half-way to Japan. Here is a picture of Helen's favorite flowering tree at the Hale Koa hotel where we stayed.This was the chapel that we attended in Honolulu. Actually, I think that they called it a tabernacle. I think it's always a good idea to go to church in locations that have the 'hallways' outside. That's a pretty good sign that the weather never warrants air conditioning or central heat.

The best place that we visited was the Foster Botanical Garden in Honolulu. If you have not heard of this particular tourist destination, it is probably because tourists don't go there often. We nearly had the whole park to ourselves. We made Helen part with all the treasures that she had picked up off the ground before we left.

Sometimes at the end of a long morning it's hard to smile, even when you are next to some lovely orchids.

Helen was willing to smell all the flowers right at her height. Please note the treasure clutched in her hand.

This is a famous cannonball tree. Lucky for you all, they haven't invented smell-o-net yet. This was the worst smelling tree of the whole place.

This palm tree made me feel like we were back in the Jurassic Period. I have seen the much, much smaller cousins of this palm, but never anything this enormous.

This was Ryan's favorite gigantic tree. He and Helen could even take a rest in the roots.

Helen and I were really excited to find this tamarind tree. I love tamarind!

Jane got really good at smelling all the flowers while we were in Hawaii.

Here is the fruit from the blue marble tree. So exciting!

Ryan and I were both impressed by the variety of these plants, whose names have currently escaped me.

I am not sure if there is anything as fun as making sand castles early in the morning before anyone comes to the beach. We only had to share the sand with the birds and they merely added to the excitement. I hope Grandma Johnson notices how these two girls look like the Sunbonnet Sue's from the quilt she got for Christmas. Helen is putting the flowers in for eyes on the butterfly sand sculpture for the finishing touch - she thought of that detail herself.

Jane was really good at monitoring Ryan's work on the gigantic sandcastle.