Birthday and Halloween

Halloween is always a big day for us. Not just because we love to dress up and get loads of candy but, because it is Charlie's Birthday! Chip jokes with Charlie and tells her how lucky she is that everyone gets to dress up for her Birthday. She thinks it is great!
It is not often that we have an "invite your friends" party for the kids. We usually reserve that for the "even" years. Charlie is 5 this year but, I thought 5 was a big milestone. (And she had already invited the whole school bus, her whole class from school AND church. I got her to narrow it down to a select 5 girls.) Charlie started school this year and hey, she is our last one.... I think the boys are getting tired of hearing that one :)!!


This year we went trick or treating with a few friends. The Larsons and The Websters have been such great friends since the beginning. The kids had fun and got quite a load. This year Chip was not able to join us for the trick or treating part so, it was nice to have some friends to have the kids treat with.

Homecoming 2008

TJ had his first homecoming experience this last week. (The camera was MIA for the first part of the week or I would have pictures of all the fun ways he dressed up this week.) We found the camera just in time for him to leave for the dance... so this is a picture of TJ with some of his friends just before the dance.

TJ was nominated for Homecoming Court for the Middle School. We did the whole walking out on the field during half time thing. We have a friend that took some pictures for us... when I get the copies I will post em.

This week has made me nastalgic to say the least. Though the cheerleaders wore jeans and a sweatshirt for the game because they were cold... I NEVER got to do that when I was a cheerleader and it is way colder in Holland than it was that night. Granted we had cute little sweat suits to cheer in!! tee he ANYWAYS...

When I was a cheerleader, I was more into that than the actual game. When I wasn't a cheerleader I was more into hanging out and talking with my friends than I was the actual game. Not much has changed!! Groups of kids gathered along the field, on the track, around the concession stand but, not many if any were in the stands watching the game. OH THE DAYS!!!

Zack and Drifting

Last weekend Zack and Chip went to a drifting event down by Hachinohe. There were all kinds of cars showing off their stuff.



Zack was able to catch a ride with one of the drivers. He said he had a blast.

Shock and Sadness

Finding out today that a person in my life passed away has shocked me greatly. The person was young, full of life and seemingly healthy for the most part. Though I had not talked with her physically in quite some time, I kept up with her on her blog. Reading about her family and their adventures. I am saddened at how difficult it will be for the family. Still raising young children. There is not much more to say...

This last week we went camping near Anmon Falls. This is the first of three falls along the hike. Our whole group didn't get to go to the other two because the Japanese were doing construction on the upper parts of the trails.





Chip, Zack, Andrew Webster and Sean Larson got up early the next morning and decided to see just how hard it would have been to get to the upper falls... They were gone for 3 hours. But, as you can see it paid off. The falls are beautiful.


The stream passed through our campground. But, the horse flies were so bad that the kids din't want to stay and play too long....

Mason was eaten alive... this is a few days after our trip.



The campground had a big park for the kids to play on. We just wish it wasn't so hot... 83 with 98% humidity... The kids could only use the metal slides early in the AM or when the sun went down.

It is amazing the people you meet while you are out and about. Our family recently went to visit some castle ruins in Hirosaki, Japan. While walking around the garden grounds we ran into some missionaries from our church. One of them we had actually known in Misawa when we first got here. He recognized us and ran to catch up with us. We had fun that day in the park of the castle ruins... by the way the ruins are nothing more than the tower you see behind us in the picture.

my van "YODA"

Here is a picture of my van. It's not what I would call my "Happily-Ever-After" van but, it's what japan had to offer for our "large" family.

Actually, I really like it. It is tall. 4x4. I can see everything I need to. With the size of most of the cars here in japan I feel like I am a giant. (I think I have a short complex?)



The kids have this thing naming cars after Star Wars characters... Our Suburban in NM was black... Vader was his name. My husbands van here is blue and silver... the kids named him R2. My van is green with yellow and gray... the kids named him YODA.