It's 4:30pm

We hope you enjoy this as much as we did. 

Hirosaki Castle

On Saturday we went to Hirosaki Castle to enjoy the cherry blossom festival. We were a little bit nervous about going because it was Golden Week, but we went nice and early and the crowds hadn't started pouring in yet. If you were fast you could get a picture without too many additional people in it.

I had no idea that there were so many types of cherry blossom trees. Many of the trees had already lost their blossoms, as evident by the pinkish ground. Here are Ryan and the girls above the moat to the "castle."

Here is the tower through the cherry blossoms.

Ryan got this great picture of Alice enjoying our outing.

Our kids were getting tired of having there picture taken at this point. I tried singing a song for them to make the smile, but I chose one that had hand motions, hence Helen looks ready to take flight.

Here are the girls and I with the moat all filled with cherry blossom petals in the background.

Jane got her picture in her "cherry blossom" shirt with her current favorite colored cherry blossoms - purple.

It almost looks like snow!

As we were leaving we got a surprise treat. These girls were playing shamisen.

Spring has sprung

Spring is full of surprises at our house. I had no idea that most of the tree in our yard were cherry blossom or sakura trees.

 Our daffodils are in full bloom, as is Helen's smile.

Here is our shot at a family picture. I had all sorts of great ideas of how we could position ourselves better to see the blossoms, but then it started storming and it has been raining petals.

I am not sure that our Japanese born baby really appreciates the cherry blossoms. 

 I love spring flowers, I love spring jumpers, I love sunny days!

 Last week Ryan had an unplanned trip to Okinawa and this was my favorite picture that he sent. I know that if I squint hard at the water I can see killer jellyfishes waiting for some unsuspecting swimmer in a diaper.

Happy Birthday Jane!

We've been working on getting Jane to hold up two fingers for her birthday. I think if it weren't for her birthday it wouldn't even occur to me to teach that. 

 Ryan and I got this great pseudo-high chair for Alice when we travel far and wide. It works great at home as well since we are a couple months away from actually eating real food. 

 Is there anything as tasty as an ice cream cake roll for your birthday dessert?

 These are Jane's favorite gift. They're purple, they're sparkly and you wear them on your face...Sunglasses!

The blue thing you see her shaking is her streamer. After discovering streamers at the 100 yen store we can hardly have a birthday without them.

Spring is Here!

Thus far, this is the best picture we have of the three girls. I love all these bright spring colors!

 Alice is getting to be such a big girl. Helen is the best at getting her to laugh. Without fail, when it's bedtime Alice dissolves into giggles watching her sisters bounce up the stairs.

 The snow has finally all melted and our kids hardly knew what to do with themselves, so they just went back to their default outdoor activity. You can't tell from the picture, but Jane's singing Jingle Bells at the top of her lungs.

 I think that I should have put bags of sugar and flour in the sleds for a little additional weight going up the hill. I like to see kids work hard, it means they sleep well afterwards. :)

 Quite time is one of my favorite times of day, here is how Helen likes to pass the time. 

Aquarium

While Ryan was getting some additional training the girls and I took a trip with the base travel office to an aquarium. These girls were so happy to be on a bus. I was happy that we made it, as the departure time was 7am. In the picture below, you will note the snow-covered pine tree well into April. The picture is foggy because I left the camera in the car overnight so all I had to do in the morning was get three girls packed up.

The highlight of the trip was the dolphin show. We talk about dolphin shows all the time now and pretend that we are dolphins on a regular basis.

I love these giant Japanese crabs.

We just potty trained Jane three weeks ago, so I packed extra clothes just in case we didn't make it to the restroom in time. I was sure glad that I did because when I wasn't looking she put her foot right over the Plexiglas wall separating her from the clams, starfish and crabs that she wanted to grab. She was dry all day other than that incident.

After the aquarium they took us to the mall. I couldn't help but take a picture of these delightful little puppies.

Nijo Castle

This was our last, and perhaps best stop for our kids on vacation - the famous Nijo Castle. "One of the most striking features of the Ninomaru Palace are the "nightingale floors" (uguisubari) in the corridors. To protect the occupants from sneak attacks and assassins, the builders constructed the floors of the corridors in such a way as to squeak like birds when anyone walks on them."This is a tired pair, but only one is showing it. Can you tell which one? The gardens were beautiful and we weren't even there during cherry blossom season or fall when the leaves turn brilliant colors.
Helen loves vacation, gardens, orange pants and rain. So does her mother.
Listening to Robin Hood on tape for months had prepared us to fully appreciate the two moats, "Poor Robin, he never even had a chance." Don't worry, we checked for Robin breathing through the reed every time we crossed over a moat.
Helen and Jane are preparing to sail away on the west wind, just like they learned from the Mary Poppins book on tape. Jane fought the whole walk to gain sole possession of the umbrella, and finally she was given the chance.

Gion and the Kyoto Zoo

This is the beginning of our descent into Kyoto via the Gion. Jane was really happy to be free from the stroller. Here we are going down the "three year slope" where local folk lore says if you slip here you will have three years of bad luck. I am confident that veteran mothers will recognize what Jane is saying without any words, "I am not going to hold anyone's hand, much less Helen's."
If there are flamingos to be found, our girls can find them. You might not be able to tell, but they are standing on one leg each, except for Ryan, he only does that at home when we listen to our flamingo music.

Kiyomizu Temple

Here we are at the top of a steep hike we took to get to Kiyomizu temple, with the city of Kyoto in the background.

I realize that I didn't get the whole bell tower in the picture, but I wanted to see the detail work underneath. Jane is not hiding from the paparazzi, as one may guess, but is waving to the camera.

Here are some tourists getting ready to go into the Kiyomizu temple. Note the fine scaffolding in the background. We actually didn't go into the temple because we were so disheartened by the repair work, and there was a door fee.

Fushimi Inari Shrine

One of the best parts of going on vacation and taking a lot of pictures is that I get to keep remembering how much fun we had and how much warmer it was down in southern Japan. Can you see Ryan and the girls at the entrance to the Fushimi Inari Shrine?

Here is Helen with the map of the area. Someday we may know how to read the signs, but for now we just wander along the paths.

As you will see in the following pictures, once we commenced on the path, it was really hard to lose our way, or wander off to be lost.

This is perhaps one of my favorite pictures from the trip

Arashiyama

This is the restaurant where we had dinner before we caught the bus into Kyoto. Luckily for us, there are plastic replicas of the meals in the window front so we can decide if there are things we are brave enough to try.The girls got some fried rice and I got Udon noodles with beef and curry. The proprietress had pity on us and distributed forks and spoons as appropriate.
We saw this fan shop and thought it was worthy of a picture. Sadly we couldn't think of anyone in dire need of a fan, so we didn't go in.

Hiroshima and Arashiyama

When we discovered that we were coming to Japan I made it a family goal for us to see some snow monkey that I had heard about. When we were in Arashiyama we had the chance, although they weren't in hot springs, they were the same kind of monkeys so I count it. The beauty of the sign below is that the trail is straight up the mountain just as it appears. This was not a hike for the faint in heart. Luckily we were able to leave the stroller at the bottom and Ryan got to carry Jane all the way up. What a good dad.Here we are at the top with the city of Kyoto in the background. I think that Alice missed the whole experience. The monkeys fascinated the girls.
Is there anything as fun as looking at a monkey staring at you? I don't think so. Especially not when it's up close and personal like this.
But he wasn't interested in a chit-chat, he really just wanted food.

One of the things we learned on this vacation is that when you travel off season, there won't be nearly as many tourists, but many of the sights are going to be under scaffolding. This is the A-Dome in the background. I have to admit that I was really disillusioned, but they want to keep the building looking just like it did when the atomic bomb was dropped in Hiroshima.