Archaelogical Dig

Indiana Jones step aside, make way for Dr. Megan and Dr. Patrick. Megan's great friend Patrick came over after school today and were in here room looking through her rock collection and stumbled upon something Megan had gotten for Christmas that we totally forgot about. We kept telling her she had to wait until we moved to Japan to take it out of the box. Today was a great day to get it out of the box. Her friend Patrick also loves rocks and loves the adventure of digging for buried treasure.

They were two scientists (sometimes three when Dr. Kyle joined in for the fun) digging away at the Earth desperate to uncover their latest discovery.

It was hard work digging through the layers of Earth. They used their tools and scraped and scraped away at layers and layers of clay and finally after about 35 minutes they did it....They found their buried treasure......

Then they cleaned and polished their jewels....

And were ready to show it off to the world....

Kimono Boy

We went to the Bazaar here in the Spring and Kyle really wanted a Japanese Kimono that the boys wear, so we bought him one. Megan couldn't find a purple one that fit her so we are still looking for one for her. Kyle likes to wear his as his robe. I keep forgetting to take pictures of him in is Kimono so here they are. I'm sure I didn't tie the Obi (belt) just right, but it's close enough.

First day of 3rd Grade

Did I just say 3rd grade? Where did the time go? Where did the summer go? The summer is officially over and we are now back to packing lunches, going to bed early and getting up early, doing homework and the ever arguing over what to wear. Why are girls so indecisive on what to wear? It would be so much easier to have a uniform to wear the same thing everyday. I do have her pick out her outfits the night before to alleviate all the stress of the morning ritual. The past two days have not been bad so we'll see how it is on Tuesday when Kyle officially starts Kindergarten.

Kindergarten does not start the same time as the rest of the elementary school. The Kindergarten teachers do a home visit with each of their students and visit the child in their environment and meet the child on their turf. Then we will go visit the classroom at the end of the week for an open house. Kyle was so excited to have his teacher come to our house this morning. He showed her how he could organize his cars and he told Mrs. Garcia what a great helper he was and how he has helped his teachers organize the classroom especially the block area.

Here are some pictures from yesterday. It was a very very rainy first day of school. Megan has the same teacher she has last year. Mrs. Brown went back to teaching 3rd grade, so Megan is familiar with her teacher and her routine. She is on a mission to meet some girlfriends this year. We are lacking in girls in our tower her age. We just had one move in who is in the 4th grade about 2 weeks ago. She desperately wants and needs that, she loves playing with the boys, but boys are hard to have sleepovers with.

Enjoy the pictures!

Leaving the house the first time as a 3rd grader....

Walking to school on the first day in the rain with my friend Azariah ...

Standing in line in the gym waiting for school to start ...

Enough pictures already...

My teacher, Mrs. Brown...

Have a great year third grader!!!

Guess Who Made the Swim Team?

Megan had swim team tryouts today and she passed. She made the Swim Team she is in the Goldfish level. She will have practice every Tuesday and Thursday after school from 3:00-4:00 p.m. She was nervous about the tryouts and kind of went in with a negative attitude. She didn't think she would make the team because she couldn't quite do the butterfly yet. I told her to not have that attitude and besides most of the other kids in her level were all in middle school. She was not competing with them but with herself and she would be swimming at a team with her age group, not their age group. She did great. We were very proud of her and she was proud of herself. These pictures were taken today at swim lessons, I did not want to interfere with tryouts.

Megan is really getting great at her backstroke.

Here she is working on her butterfly.

A quick dive from the side of the pool.

Oops, I was supposed to dive but forgot to bend. Ow!

Here's Kyle in Level 3 floating on his back.

Just chillin'

Practicing my freestyle.

Just Cruisin' Around

It was such a beautiful night for a cruise around Truman Bay. It was so hot and humid on the shore but nice and breezy on the water. We were invited as guests on the Admirals Barge and took a nice boat ride around Truman Bay along Monkey Island and Yokosuka and a beautiful view of Mt. Fuji at sunset.

We went around Mikasa Park.

I'm holding on for dear life, trying not to get thrown off the side of the boat, it was a little rocky. Monkey Island is in the background.

Everyone was trying to take a shot like this with the flag and the moon in the background.

This was everyone on the cruise. It was a wonderful night filled with great company.

Mt. Fuji at sunset.

Twelve Frogs

Before we left on vacation, Megan and I went to lunch together. It was kind of a girls day out and her first real lunch following her surgery. We went to lunch of base to a place I discovered thanks to my Japanese class, Twelve Frogs Chaya Restaurant. It is a cook your own meat restaurant. They serve beef so I knew Meg would love it. I loved their special soy sauce especially on their rice. Megan doesn't like rice so she just got the meat and had a few slurps of my onion and seaweed soup (quite good). Then afterwards we walked to a French Patisserie for ice cream. I had belgian chocolate coverered chocolate and Megan had a cookies and cream. Yummy!

Fanta Melon soda it's a favorite. They don't serve diet coke off base, atleast not they we've found.

Karubi (it's Australian beef). Yummy!

The chopsticks aren't working very well, how about a fork?

Hey, I got it. YEAH!

Fun Pictures

Day 6 (Friday). We slept! We were exhausted after yesterday's attempted hike to the top. Eventhough Kyle and I didn't make it to the top they hike down was tiring. We came back took showers, ate and tried to nap. Then played some baseball had dinner and tried to stay up until 9pm. Sad I know. We got up Friday and took advantage of the gorgeous view of Mt. Fuji and I played with the camera then went back home to A/C. Camp Fuji the marine base we stayed at had no A/C. You know those marines are tough, not wimps like us Navy people. (OOPS, Sorry!)

Anyway here are some pics we loved, sorry about the helo strip I wasn't allowed in certain areas. Check out the clouds aren't they cool?

It was hot out, can you tell?

Mt. Fuji

Day 5 (Thursday) we awoke at 5am and left our room at Camp Fuji at 530 am. We drove up to the 5th Station of Mt. Fuji (after finally reading the map and arguing if we were going the right way) and made it to a parking spot at 615am. It was a beautiful clear morning and we were so excited when we woke up and saw the view from our room. What a great day for a hike we thought.

We decided we were going to climb all the way to the top to the 9th station, 3,776 meters (12,388 feet). Originally, we were going to drive to the 5th station and just walk from the 5th to the 6th station. The day before Don talked to some people staying at the lodge with us and they had some kids a little older than Megan and Kyle and a baby and they drove to the 5th station and made it to the top, so he said we could do it. Ok, armed with tennis shoes, shorts, sweathsirts, raincoats (just in case), water bottles, snacks and walking sticks the kids bought at the 5th station, I ended up buying one on the 6th station, and cameras we were ready to go.

Doesn't she look thrilled?

The view from the 5th station looking up?

Kyle looking down, a cute shot.

Ok, here we go, we're ready.

What a view (still from the 5th station).......breathtaking!

And we're off...

We made it to the 6th station, that wasn't so bad!

Now onto what I thought was the 7th station, wrong it was the 6.5 station and it got a little bit harder. Can I say hiking boots next time!!! We actually saw Japanese people wearing crocs and flip flops... CRAZY!!!

Okay, so I thought I was about 10 minutes away from the 6.5 station (Don says longer) then all of a sudden I look up and here comes Kyle back down the mountain. I saw Don pointing but had no idea what he was pointing about. Apparently, Kyle was done and didn't want to hike anymore. I finally just got myself up to atleast making it to the next station. It was not easy, the terrain was rough, definitely needed the hiking boots and slow down. You need to kind of walk in a back and forth motion not straight up. Plus I was sweating, I was hot. SO, I was bummed and ticked that Kyle was coming down so I spent the next 1 to 1 1/2 hours getting back down with him. It was much harder going down the mountain with Kyle than up. He fell atleast a dozen times, once so hard on his booty and the way he fell on his legs I thought he broke a leg and I was going to have to carry all 63 lbs. of him down. I was cursing Don at this point. Plus, Kyle decided to have a melt down on the way down that he missed his Daddy and wanted to climb back up after we had climbed down for the past 30 minutes. I told him no way and he needed to stop crying and focus or we were both going to tumble down the mountain and neither one of us would be seeing Daddy ever again. A little harsh but the tantrum wouldn't stop and he was screaming at the top of his lungs and carrying on. Of course no one probably understood him anyway but it was a little embarrasing. Finally, he calmed down. As we made it back down to the 5th station it started to sprinkle, so we went to the car and slept for the next 1 1/2 hours while it poured and poured and poured.

Here's pictures of Megan and Don's journey. Unfortunately, do to the downpour they only made it to the 8th station. Megan was freezing and crying that she couldn't go anymore. I guess it is still quite a ways from the 8th to the 9.5 station. There is always next year with better shoes!

Then it poured and this is what they looked like when they got back down.....