What a Joy

Today has been going very good! We sold our house in Texas, church was good, and then bought a car. Something about the cars here...the steering wheel is on the right side of the car, and drive on the left side of the road. This has thrown me off, as I nearly jumped into Dad's lap last night when I was getting in the car...I'm still learning!

The car closest to you is the one that someone graciously gave to us...but as you can see it is large and dwarfs the Japanese car right next to it!


This is the one we got today...it is smaller, but can carry just as many people. We were all wanting a smaller car, because the roads are so small here!

By looking at Nolan in relation to the car, you can tell it is lower to the ground

They have some funny names here. Dad and I call this Mom's "blog car." Just in case you didn't know, she has a blog called "Choosing Joy." Which we did

Chopsticks

At lunch I got to try my skill with chopsticks..while at the same time trying to avoid an international incident!

My first attempt proved a failure

My second shot at it was a bit better!

And the tables were to small for my knees...at least it didn't have a lot of gum under it!

This was my meal...very good!

Blogger isn't working with me on these pictures and the titles..so I'm sorry!

Misawa City Tour

On Thursday..so yesterday, we went on the Misawa City Tour. I'm really excited to live here for three years and can't wait to see what God has in store for us!

We went to a Buddhist Temple. This tombstone is extremely expensive...I think the tour guide said somewhere around $30,000 in American cash...imagine that in yen! The tombstone has the families name written on it. The lady said that on certain years, i.e one year after the person dies, 3 years, 7 years, 11 years, ect up to 50 years they mourn. But after 50 years they don't care anymore!



Inside the temple they had a lot of very expensive items like this

I was at the back of the group and didn't hear what this was for...but it looks cool

This dude is supposed to be guarding the cemetery. There is two of them..one on each side of the gate. The other one has his mouth open. He's "catching the bad spirits," while the one with his mouth shut is, "keeping them locked away."

We went to a Samurai's house...the Samurai wasn't alive, it was a museum!

And yes..the door jams were like 4 feet high...I did hit my head once. Mom asked me a question and so I lost my concentration on ducking door jams.


We also went the International Center where we received several briefings on Japanese culture. I ate some sushi..it didn't have fish in it; it had seaweed, rice, and cucumber. I'm sure you have heard the saying that once you get past the gag reflex all sorts of food options become available...well, it was still nasty after I overcame the gag-reflex!
Afterwards we went to Veedols Plaza for lunch. I'll post about that in a minute!

Boxing...sort of

We went to some people's house the other day. One of the people's son's is about 8 years old. He walked up to me and asked me if I wanted to box with him...he had the gloves. I figured why not...just be careful with the guy.

I got done on my knee's...partly to protect myself and partly so it would be a fair fight for the kid...next thing that I know I'm flat on my back. That was a mean upper cut! lol

House Hunting

We went house hunting today! It still amazes me that something can be 31/2 miles away, but still take 20 minutes to get there! There's not much to say...well there is, but I'm not sure what has already been said. And if there is news, I'd rather my mom cover the story first, for my own safety! lol

We check to make sure our tank fits in the garage. You can see me standing with my head through the sunroof talking to the Japanese dude. He looked at me and said, "Basket?" while making a basketball shooting motion. That was hilarious!

We check the insides of houses still being built....Dad looks sort of sinister!

We checked the bathroom. I tried getting the photo to flip, but it wouldn't. So, if you can't see it, the sink is on top of the toilet. I guess you'd get water from the tank!

We checked the view from outside

At noon all of the workers stopped, ate some rice and took naps

And of course you need someone to supervise!

The Picnic

We had a church picnic yesterday (the first one for me to go to here). Dad, Nolan, Alex, and I went over early help set up. We also had the church service at the park...so we had to bring bleachers from a near bye field over.

That was a lot of work! Chaplain B brought a utility truck. The work trucks here are very different from the ones in the States. They look like golf carts with a bed in the back. They are short and all of the ones I've seen have been white; but that doesn't really matter!

Some more help came along right as turned the first one on end. A nifty feature of this truck was that it could let the sides down. We all lifted the bleacher onto the bed of the truck. The bleacher's back half stuck way over the end so we had to walk behind it while Chap B drove. It was a lot of work, but fun!

We cleaned the bleachers, set out table, cut desserts, and started cooking lunch.

We then had the church service. The power was dead until the last few minutes of the service. That was amusing!

After we ate we went and played. There was a lot of people! A great turn out!

Stacia is 4!!!!

Stacia turned 4 today! She is such a doll! I know in about 12 or so years I'll have to take out a lot of guys for this little girl! lol





New slippers, "eye-glasses,"