Skiing and Easter.

I should have posted this blog last week, but I didn't so I am going to post it with my Easter blog.
Since about January we have taken Grace and Sophia skiing about every other week this year and the last time we went I took some pictures. We go up to Alta Ski resort and where the bunny slope is free after 3pm and it is a high speed triple so getting to the top is pretty quick. The slope is long and has a few steep spots, but it makes for a great mountain to teach the girls on. So here is a few pictures of them skiing. And might I add they are doing really well and totally enjoy every aspect of it.
Grace on the chair lift.

Sophia on the chair lift.

Coming down side by side.

Lane has the girls make a train as they come down so they can follow him and learn to stop. And make sharp turns. Its fun to watch them go down together.

Their wonderful Ski instructor.


This year Easter was lots of fun. It was Grace and Sophia's first real Easter celebration.
We got to go to the neighborhood Easter egg hunt early on in the week and Grace did well. Sophia on the other hand stopped to cry after someone got the first egg she spotted and well she missed out on all the eggs.
Then on Easter Sunday we had the girls do a scavenger hunt for their Easter baskets and that was lots of fun. My mom had sent the Easter dresses so they were happy about the new dresses. We also got them lots of $1 store stuff and they loved it. I haven't been to the dollar stores here before, but they have lots of good stuff for kids. I also made my first fruit carving and I am quit proud of myself.
Happy and excited for their first egg hunt.

A sad Sophia. Her cousins did all give her an egg at the end.

In their Easter dresses from grandma.

Future cheerleaders. Pom-poms from the dollar store that we used to cushion the bottoms of their baskets instead of plastic grass.

The bunny that I carved out of a melon. Cute Huh?

Ok the breaks over for now!

Ok I am back into the swing of things. We had a lot happen in the last two weeks of 2007 that gave me little time to write about anything. On December 15th at 8 pm we were in a car accident. My first one and very scary might I add. I hope this is the last one. I was driving our family home from our Japanese class in the next town over (about a 25min drive from our house). On our way home I would like to say a semi truck hit us, but I hit him even though he was completely at fault. I say this because just as I was coming up to the giant truck, that I thought was just parked off the side of the road going in the opposite direction; just started to back up into our lane. Well I hit the back corner of this truck. It totaled our car and did no damage to his car.

Lane and the girls were all in the back seat. Lane wasn’t wearing a seat belt and he broke the front seat and hit his head on the front wind shield.

Sophia was on the driver’s side and her door was smashed in and she hit her head pretty hard on something. I felt bad because even though she was in her child car seat she still got hurt. Grace was in the middle seat and was just sitting on her booster seat. She hit her nose on her knees. While my side of the car had the brunt of the hit; I didn’t receive an injury that was physically visible. I had cuts and scraps on my hands and that was it. To make a long night short we were taken to the hospital in Sendai. We were treated and released that same night. We are very blessed that I was not driving faster that night (which I tend to do on that very road we were on). It could have been much worse.

The truck driver later admitted to being at fault and said he saw us coming and decided to back up any way. His insurance has taken care of everything, including a nice rental car for the last two and half weeks. The truck driver even came to our house to apologize. Which I thought was a very amazing thing for someone to do.

Just six days after the accident Lane’s mom and sister came to Japan to join us for the holidays. It was nice to have them here. I was still sore from the accident too, so it was nice having someone wash dishes and clean up the house. We had a wonderful time with them.

We had a wonderful Christmas Holiday with them. It was a lot of fun to show them our way of life in Japan and have them meet all our friends here. I took them back to Narita airport on Tuesday and I was sad to say good bye.
Yes Santa does come to Japan. Here is the proof.

We also got some good news from back home. My younger sister Susie got engaged to her boyfriend Daniel. They are planning to wed next November. Also we need to keep him in our prayers. He is going to Iraq in the end of January as a part of the Marine Corp.

While we are still adjusting from the holidays we are hoping to have a new car by tomorrow. We are going to go to the car dealer tomorrow to seal the deal. If any one wants to know we are getting a Life, a Honda Life. It’s small and cheap.

The more I look at how our life has paned out over the last two weeks; I see that they were blessings in disguise. We were just about to spend 2,000$ on registering our car in February and now we just get a whole new car that we wont have to spend a penny on or at least that much. We are truly blessed and I am grateful for all the we have. To top all of this off. Two day before the accident I was telling Lane how we had gone threw so many cars in just our four years of marriage. We are now on car number 7!

Halloween!

So this year for Halloween we dressed the girls up as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. Yes they are princesses, but that is exactly what they each asked for this year. Before I even told them that I was going to buy them costumes. While the Japanese do not trick or treat; they do like to have Halloween parties. So we got to go to three this year. The most fun one was of coarse our ward Halloween party. One of the American Missionaries had his mom send so much Halloween candy and treats. It was great. Here are some pictures from that. Lane and I at the last minute decided to go to the party as each other. I put eye shadow on my face to look like a beard and Lane shaved and I put make-up on him. The Japanese loved it. The girls also had a really fun time. This was the first Halloween that they actually got to do something.




I had to add this too. We have now been in Japan for one year now, so it is traditional to give flowers on one year aniversaries I guess. Any how Our dear friends the Kosekis gave me this huge Orchid plant that is beautiful. I love it. It is so pretty. Its taller then Grace too.