Kumano Jinja Matsuri!

Last week Grace had the opportunity to participate in her schools annual festival parade. She goes to a Shinto school and so once a year the parade through the streets of Shibata Town to collect donations from people. During this parade they pull a small shrine for the people to see. We thinks its a great cultural experience for not only for Grace, but us. Its funny because all the parents are trying to video record this event and so people watching from the sidewalks can't really see the children with all the parents hovering over the kids. And as a parent trying to record the event you get pretty good at walking backwards with out falling over. Here are some pictures from the parade.



All ready to go in her class room.

She was the tail end of the parade.

All done. These little kids walked very far.

Bag Tag!

I have been bagged tagged. Now this is a good thing because afterwards I was able to clean it out a little. The rules are that you take a picture of your purse/bag, etc.. and then take out the contents with out throwing anything away and take a picture and write about it. So here is goes.
The bag. A nice handy huge Kenneth Cole animal print bag. My sweet Aunt Yolanda gave it to me as a present right before I came to Japan. It has done very well.




Next the contents of my bag. Hmmm which order should we start in? How about clock wise from the top right corner.
- Wipes from KFC. How exciting every where you eat in Japan they give you wipes in excess and I just tend to save them.
-Tour book of Seoul Korea. I am reading up on what to see in Seoul because I am going there in 3 weeks
-Hand Sanitizer. A moms dream come true
-My camera, well for all those times you want to take a picture and don't have your camera on you. So I always have it with me.
-My wallet. This could be a whole other tag game.
-Toys from McDonald's, enough said.
-My planner. So I don't over plan anything like I sometimes do when I don't have this handy
-Animal print bag that goes with my purse that is filled with point cards from too many stores that I have know I idea which store to use which one at.
-Japanese phrase book. For all the awkward moments that I encounter while in Japan
-Important papers. By important I mean expired international drivers permit, Some expired medical cards.
-Passport. I need to go get a re-entry permit for my trip to Korea and I don't want to forget these
-Two pens. In case I lose one
-Xlish gum. This is the most minty flavored gum on the face of the earth. Most people can't stand it for more than a minute. I love it though.
-Tiny key chain. Don't know where it came from.
-Vicks cough drops. A must in the winter here.
-My tiny umbrella. This perfect for those days that it looks nice and sunny and then it turns into a rain storm. And who wants to carry around a huge umbrella, not me.

So I think that was it. Now I have to tag three people. So I tag: Anna, Terra, and Becky.

Sakura 2008

The Last two weeks in Japan or a least our part of Japan has been undergoing a beautiful spring transformation. Before most of the trees grow their leafs back, they grow beautiful blossoms. During these two weeks everyone goes out for Hanami or flower viewing time. All the sakura (cherry blossoms) are beautiful light pink color. Between lots of rain and cloudy days we ended up with some pretty decent cherry blossom viewing days. Here are some of the pictures from it.
Grace and Sophia showing some sisterly love.

The girls running under the sakura trees.

I love this picture. They came up with this all by themselves.

At this point the sun started to come out and Sophia could barely keep her eyes opened

Half way through our 3 km walk Grace dropped a giant rock on toe. I had to carry her the rest of the way. She was very unhappy by this point.


The sakura trees line the river for over 3km and it is absolutely beautiful.

Up and close cherry blossoms.

All the blossoms on the trees make it look like snow.

Frogs.

With the spring season now here in Japan, there also comes a lot of rain. With all this rain comes all the little frogs from out of their holes in the ground. I say this because they are everywhere, but only at night and they end up all over the roads. So what does this mean, dead frogs all over the road. Why I am writing about this, because I feel so bad. I know its not possible to avoid every single frog, but what else are you suppose to do. They are truly asking for it when they hop out there. So this is to all those frogs out there, "Stay off the roads."

First day of School.

Today is Grace’s first day of school for the new school year. She is a second year student at the Kindergarten school she attends. I am not sure what her teachers name is, but her teacher was one of the same teachers from last year so Grace is familiar with her. I hope she has a good first day of school. Here is a picture we took this morning and the picture we took from her first day of school from last year.
Today's picture.


Last Year's picture. I think she looks the same. Her hair is a little longer this year and this year she looks a little more excited to be going to school.


I had to throw this one in. As we were coming home from our Saturday activities Grace fell asleep in the car. She was in the front seat so it was really sunny and she asked to wear my sunglasses and then she fell asleep. It was really cute so we took a ton of photos.

April Fools

So we were had this year. Some one played a good prank on us and we fell for it. Yesterday--I will have you know--was April 2nd in Japan, but in America it was April 1st. Since April Fool's day is not celebrated in Japan we didn't even really remember the day. I did, but I thought how do you prank people who know about the day who are 2,000 miles away. Well these people managed to get us and really toy with out emotions. So yesterday I got this email and I could not believe it:

Hi guys, I'm not sure where to start. I don't know if any of you saw the news last week from Minneapolis, the man who had the wrong kidney taken out... well, I was involved. I guess thats the wrong way to put it. I was the one who did it. Its kind of a long story, but basically the surgeon at one of the hospitals I work at got in a car accident, and this guy came in that needed his kidney removed right away because the cancer had burst through the capsule and was starting to spread to the body. It was something that just couldn't wait. I'm certified in surgery, but you all know that its not my specialty, but the hospital administrators said I had to do it because I was the overnight person. Anyway, the short of it is that I had never met the guy, and when I went in he was all prepped and ready to go with his right side open. I took the kidney out (despite it looking really normal to me), and closed him up. A couple of hours later I was called back down to recovery because his family had finally been let in to see him and had noticed the bandages on the wrong side. I had taken out his good kidney and left the bad one in, and it was too late to recover as I had sent it to be cut up for analysis.
Heres where the problem really begins. As I mentioned, this is not my specialty, and the hospital could go down in a big way for this, so they are blaming it all on me. The nurses and techs who prepared him for surgery don't want to be sued, so they all joined in to point the finger at me. The family is bringing criminal charges against me because its not my specialty, so they are saying I should have never agreed to do it. I got a lawyer, but he thinks we are going to lose, and I may even be looking at jail time.
Here's where you all come in. Zen and I have a little saved, but I wanted to know if Mave and Merra and Stan and Zara have anything you could lend me so I can get out of the country for a while, just until this cools down. Lane and Katie, may I stay at your place? I was thinking Thailand would be a good place to end up, but it would give me time to figure things out. Please let me know ASAP, as they may want to take me into custody at the pretrial. Zen will attempt a quick sale on the house (so they don't take it), then bring the kids to join me, so we could pay you back then. Talk it over, look at your accounts, then let me know ( and please hurry).
Also, please don't let mom and dad know...I'll break it to them when I get things a little more figured out. I just keep hoping everything will settle down. I appreciate your help, and will talk to each of you soon. Love, Charlie

*names have been changed

I instantly found the story on Google news and there the story was. I IM Lane and he sneaks out of work and sprinted home as fast as he could. We frantically found their phone number but they didn't answer right away. We were opening up our online bank to liquidate our CDs so we could be ready to do what ever they needed us to do. Finally we got a hold of them they said, "April Fools." Haha. Not funny at all.
This whole joke put this sort of real situation into perspective. What is going to happen to the real doctor who this happened to? Now, I actually feel very sorry for doctors that this does happen to.
So these people asked us not to get them back (and we won't), but we are posting this blog to show what jerks they are for toying with our emotions. We do love them and we are grateful this was just a joke.