Pioneer Day at the Beach

Last Saturday we celebrated Pioneer Day at the base beach with our ward members. It was a good day for some food, boating and paddle-boarding.

Rayce and I, he did an awesome job navigating that paddle board by himself.

Last night the kids and I went back down to the beach at dusk to catch the sunset. The sun slipped behind some low lying clouds not long after we got there and that was that. Oh well, we still have some summer nights to enjoy.

Tanabata

It's festival season in Japan! We got here the end of August last year, so we barely missed all these cool festivals. This weekend was the Tanabata festival just outside the gate here in Misawa.

Part of the modern day customs for Tanabata is writing wishes on paper and hanging them from bamboo...I think that's what this is. The other part is all the colorful streamers, we went at night to see everything lit up!

Okay, so I may have taken pictures of every single set of streamers along the way but I wasn't slowing anyone down. My family was busy filling up on snow cones and cotton candy and yakisoba. We had a great weekend, and next weekend?! Nebuta festival!!!

Relevant

I was listening this morning to an old conference talk from 2000 by Richard G. Scott and this passage stuck out to me: "LUCIFER WILL ENCOURAGE YOU TO CONTINUE TO RELIVE THE DETAILS OF PAST MISTAKES KNOWING THAT SUCH THOUGHTS CAN HAMPER YOUR PROGRESS THUS HE ATTEMPTS TO TIE STRINGS TO THE MIND AND BODY SO THAT HE CAN MANIPULATE YOU LIKE A PUPPET TO DISCOURAGE PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENT".

July

So July is almost over, crazy I know, this month went so fast.

We did some dog-sitting for about a week. Her name is Josie and Avie Jo was in heaven packing this little dog around with her everywhere...poor Josie, but, she survived Avie and Boris.

I try and go to the gym or run before the kids wake up but sometimes I can't get up so we go run at the track altogether, well, I run, and the kids play.

Avie ran a little.

Than, her and Danielle got a hold of my camera.

We went to a local farmer's market with some friends.

We also went to Kappa Sushi, or as my kids call it "conveyer belt sushi".

201 Torii Gates

We had a lovely 4-day weekend over the 4th and I thought for sure we would go out of town. We ended up staying around the base but went for an amazing day trip to Takayama Inari Shrine in Tsugaru City, also known as 100 torii gates although it's actually 201. Misawa is on the East coast of the island and Tsugaru is on the West coast, so it was almost two and a half hours in the car, but worth it.

Summer means late nights for these two.

Arriving at the shrine.

It was overcast but warm and getting pretty humid.

I'm a bit obsessed with all the hydrangeas around. The blues and purples are the most amazing colors.

These day trips have become my favorite even though the kids could do without the drives. It's amazing to see new things all the time and experience a culture so rich.