A few more pics from the weekend... Jacob turned 3 on Sunday! We lit and relit the candles about 20 times, so fun to blow out. He got a batman fishing pole that he LOVES. Adam tied a stick onto the end for a fish.

I took this pick out the window while driving by.

Duch is getting so big! She has settled down A LOT lately. Thank goodness. There were a few weeks there a few months ago right before she went into heat that we were seriously thinking the move would be a good time to find her a new home. But, she is doing MUCH better, and we had a fun weekend with her.

Who knew volcano's stink??
This past weekend we rented an RV and headed south about 5 1/2 hours to Aso for the weekend. The mission was to visit Mnt. Naka, an active volcano, and see the Kumumoto Castle (in the top 3 of Japan's castles). The castle was pretty awsome, had a mote and everything. It is celebrating it's 400 year birthday this year. The outside was awsome, and the inside had a great view from the top (6th) floor. The kids were impressed.

The volcano....very stinky sulfur smell that burns your lungs. I had flashbacks of visiting Yellowstone. Inside was a milky aqua color, boiling and steamy, not quite what I had expected to see.

After we looked at the volcano from this spot, Adam and the girls hiked for a couple of hours to the other side of the volcano. The boys and I drove, then took a tram and met them. Yes, that meant I drove the RV, I was a little nervous, not just that it was huge and had never driven one, but I also didn't know where the heck I was going, hello, foreign country, don't speak the language, can't read the signs, but I eventually figured it out and made it! They beat me by about 20 minutes of course.

Ok, so quick story. As the boys and I got off the tram, and started up the short hike to where we were meeting Adam and the girls, we had to walk through a group of about 150 highschool kids on a field trip sitting eating their bentos (lunches). They ALL went NUTS over us.....Luke especially. I seriously felt like a rock star! The were all trying to use their English that they learn in school on us. They loved his blond blond hair and blue eyes. It was overwhelming, there were so many of them...once we'd get past one group, there'd be another. Pictures and everything. I just kept thinking, wow, I never want to be famous, I can't take this.

Look---they're all smiling, all 5 of them. Maybe we should use this for our Christmas card! It only took about 50 shots to get.

I discovered a wonderful addition to camping...visiting an onzen (Japanese natural springs hot tubs)! It's so great to get everyone so clean!! Sunday night I set up the beds in the RV, and we drove to the onzen, just a few minutes down the road. We all had a great time, and the kids got into their PJ's and all ready for bed there. Jakey was asleep in his bed before we even got home to our campsite. It was great. The onzen...they are separate, men and women. And of course, the boys wouldn't go with Adam, so they ALL went with me on the women's side. It took a few minutes for me to get over being naked in front of them all!!! Americans typically aren't quite that open, but it is totally normal for the Japanese. So I figured, what the heck, when in Rome...

For anyone interested in how rice grows....look below! You see it all over the place here. It looks like little bunches of grass growing in straight lines in flooded fields.

The drive was long going home of course. Why is that? That the drive home always seems about twice as long? But we somehow survived it. And we've got pumice rock spread all over the house to prove it. Now back to real life, back to getting ready to be packed out Monday/Tuesday! And planning a 3 year old "fish" birthday party for this Saturday. Any ideas would be welcomed!!

Drama...
So much drama, where do I start! Last Saturday while I was at a baby shower, Luke managed to crawl off the end of my bed and fall on my sewing maching, hitting his eye on the little metal thing that the thread sits on! Yes, I said eye. So, after I got home, I took him to our Urgent Care here on base. You'd have never known, he was all grins. Adam said he cried pretty hard after it happened, but by the time I got home, he was his happy little self again. Anyway, it cut his eye down where the bottom eyelid attatches. We could tell it hadn't affected his vision, but still, it was HIS EYE, so I took him in. At Urgent Care, the couldn't really tell how deep it was, so they sent us on an ambulance ride to the hospital out in town. There he saw an opthamologist. First he just put flourescent yellow drops in his eye, and shined a flourescent blue light in it. But, since he was so little and not so cooperative, he wanted to clamp his eye open. They told me I couldn't watch, but I told them I was going to anyway. I soon realized there was a pretty good reason they'd not wanted me to. The clamp clamped onto his top eyelid, and his bottom eyelid, and opened wider than I ever thought would be possible on a little baby eye. It was so awful. The nurse had a sheet around him and was sitting on him trying hold him still. He was screaming his little lungs out and choking on his spit. It was so hard to watch, I had to keep leaving and coming back in. I wanted him to hear my voice though, hoping it would comfort him somewhat. They poked and prodded, and looked with all their different scopes and lights. There was one peice of skin that looked like a little white peice of plastic floating in his eye, but it was still attatched. It was just a peice of the white of his eye!! They kept messing with it and finally cut it off. ALL WHILE HE WAS AWAKE! I thought that was what modern medicine was for!! So we don't have to feel these things! I just kept telling myself, I'm so glad he won't remember this!! The doc finally concluded that it wasn't too deep, and would heal just fine with some antibiotic drops. Now, only 5 days later, it looks SO much better already! I am so happy! And so grateful that it didn't affect his vision at all. Thank you Mom.
So today the girls had a baseball game. Adam is their coach. They were trying to do pictures. Emma had forgotten her cleats, so the boys and I ran home and got them. The boys unloaded, and I was getting Luke all squared away in his stroller, when bam, Isaac tackled Jacob for some unknown reason, and Jacobs head hit the ground (thank goodness it was only grass this time) and blood everywhere. Jacob got his first bloody nose! There was so much blood, it took me a minute to figure out where it was coming from, his mouth was full too. At first I thought he re-bit his tongue (he bit both sides of it 2 days ago, it looked like hamburger, a lot of blood that night too). He was pretty freaked out. His white shirt was getting bloody very fast. I had to grab a nearby Japanese lady to watch Luke for a sec while I hauled Jacob to the bathroom. Not even sure where to start, I just started grabbing papertowels as fast as I could and holding them to his nose. Anyway, long story short, I finally got it stopped and mopped up his face.
As soon as we got home, everyone jumped out of the car and the girls began playing catch with Adam. About 5 minutes later, the girls come running in the house telling me that Jacob had thrown a bat at a car in the street. I went outside, and sure enough, Adam was in the street talking to some people in a car. Apparently Jacob had just thrown a bat (thank goodness it was plastic!) into the street at a car and hit it's windshield as it was driving by. Just for fun. Good thing we are about to move.
Speaking of moving, we have some dates!! We are getting packed out June 4 & 5, and we are flying out of Osaka July 2. We will land in LA, and working on buying a car that will be ready and waiting for us so we can then drive to Utah. From there I will fly to RI for a few days to pick out a house. We will check in to RI the first of August.
Hopefully things will calm down a little around here. We've been dodging way too many bullets lately!

I'm ready to go back... Luke thought being an only child was all right.

Adam and a banana tree.

Adam snorkeling...I took this pic through a window of an underwater observatory.

Tonight Emma and Sarah were complaining about having to take piano lessons, especially Sarah. I told them I didn't want to hear it, it wasn't up for debate until they could play the hymns for church. A light went on in Emma's head, and she immediately told Sarah, "Sarah, that's great, let's just go learn the hymns right now". It was like a light at the end of the tunnel for her. I had to laugh, they're nowhere even remotely ready start on them. But, I did appreciate the cheerful ambition.

Guam was WONDERFUL!! After being home only a few short hours, I was ready to go back. I thought I was all energized to combat life w/5 kids again, but apparently my batteries weren't charged high enough. It was so great. We stayed in a hotel right on the beach. We had brought the jogger, so we were able to go running a couple of times along the beach. There is a lot of war history in guam, even ran through a bunker on the beach on one run. The food was great. I have learned to love Japanese food while living here, but there's nothing in Iwakuni that compares to eating at the Outback or Hard Rock Cafe....mmm. Even Denny's for breakfast was a real treat. I did promise myself before I left that I wasn't going to step foot in K-mart , but Jacob's birthday is in a few weeks, and since I've bought everything decent at the Exchange, and it's getting a little late to shop online, we decided to go take a look. (It's the largest one in the world....it didn't seem any bigger than any other one though, maybe they just meant to say it's the last one left in the world.) We snorkeled our hearts out, and saw thousands of fish. That was the ONLY time I wished the kids had been with us, the girls would have LOVED it. We hiked to a waterfall, that ended up being more of a little water trickle than fall, but it was still fun to take a little hike through the jungle. Of all the good restaurant food we ate though, I'd have to say the best meal was a lunch when Adam I were driving through some villages after our hike and we stopped and bought a bag full of fruit right off the tree from an old lady selling in front of her house. It was my first time eating monkey bananas, guava, and star fruit. A lot of things about Guam reminded Adam of the D.R. We've always planned on going back to visit his mission, but now he's really planning it, hopefully this winter.

Oh, one last thing, Guam is a total Japanese vacation destination. When we first got there, and were checking into our hotel, this cute Japanese girl was going nuts over Luke. She said over and over, "he's such a door, he's such a door". I couldn't figure out what she was saying. Finally with a little charades on her part, I figured out she was saying he was such a doll! The say their l's like r's here.

A snack for Duchess!!!

Emma called Thursday after school, wondering if I could come pick her up because she had the class bird, Hulk, that she was going to bird-sit for the weekend. I asked her how we were going to keep Duchess from eating the bird, but she assured me she'd keep Hulk safe. She really wanted to bring her home, so I relented. Hulk is not a talking parrot, so I figured if worst came to worst, we could make a trip to Mr. Mac (Japanese closest thing to Wal-mart) and find a look-a-like "Hulk". It's Saturday morning now, and so far there's only been one "incident". Lucky for the Hulk, Adam came to the rescue before Duchess got the cage open. The kids think it's fun to let it fly around the house, but sometimes find it difficult to get Hulk back in it's cage when it perches itself up on high places. I find myself taking cover as broomsticks are being swung to get her down.

Thursday night Hulk was flying around the kitchen, when out of nowhere it decides to fly full speed at my head for landing. This took me by surprise, and I jerked my head down between my knees and tightened every muscle in my body, and pulled a muscle! It felt like a charlie horse in my neck! I thought, "What on earth, is this part of being over 30??" Nothing a little stretching and ibuprofen couldn't kick though.

Luke is into anything and everything now. He can stand up to the dishwasher and pull things out. He can unload my tupperware cupboard in less than a minute. And can shoot a mouth full of food across to the other side of the table, to let you know you fed him one bite too many. He also can stop a street full of Japanese with his blond hair and blue eyes.

Speaking of Japanese, today is "Friendship Day", and there are literally hundreds of thousands of Japanese on base. There will be an airshow, the Japanese version of the Blue Angels, every organization on base is selling baked goods (most Japanese don't have ovens, so cakes and cookies are a novelty. It's rediculous, they sell cake's right out of a mix w/no frosting for $10 each! Hello, such a rip off.) There will also be a bunch of food vendors, the longest line will be at Pizza Hut. People will wait literally hours for a slice of pizza...note to Pres. of Pizza Hut, build some in Japan!! There will also be a lot of airplanes on display, bouncy's to jump in, and carnie games. Adam has the 4 older kids over there right now. I dressed the boys in matching clothes, hopefully it'll make it easier to keep track of them.

He's got teeth!

As you can see from the pic, Luke has teeth now!! He got all four front teeth within a few weeks of eachother. He seemed a little uncomfortable from it all, but nothing like Jacob...with chunks of bloody flesh hanging with each tooth he got. He is such a cute little guy, I get stopped all the time with people commenting on his blue eyes and blonde hair. He seems to really be getting along well with Duchess lately. Duchess knows the best spot in the house is right under Lukes highchair, and Luke loves to lean over and pet her.

Our 11 year anniversary is coming up at the end of this month, and since the surgery vacation to Hawaii got cancelled, and the trip to Thailand never quite happened, today I booked a trip to Guam for Adam, Luke and I next week, Monday - Thursday! Not as long as I'd like, but when you have friends, not family, watching 4 kids, 4 days is a lot to ask. So, Guam for 4 days it is, I'm so excited!! I'm working on finding a hotel on the beach right now....