Camping at Seven Falls (Zyakuchikyo)

We planned a trip up to a place called Seven Falls for the weekend of July 4th. We were supposed to go with our friends the Griffey's around 1 PM on July 3rd. Unfortunately, that morning we realized our car was not going to make it up the mountains with our brakes as bad as they sounded. So, after a couple different stops, we found a Toyota Dealership that could fix our brakes but wouldn't have them done until 6 PM. So, our friends left and went up to the campground to set up while we got the brakes done, fed the kids and had them nap. We were on the road a little before 7 after picking up the car, getting gas and getting food for the kids. Luckily, the trip only took a couple of hours and we arrived there around 9 after a couple wrong turns and much rain pouring down on us. So, unfortunately, the campground and our tent which our friends were nice enough to set up for us were soaking wet. Also, our tent was missing a pole which kept the ends of the tent up so water would pour away from the tent and not in the tent. Since we were missing that pole, we had a tent full of water along every edge and corner. We hung out for an hour or so with our friends to relax, then laid our sleeping bags in the middle of the tent and piled our bags on top of the kids feet of the their sleeping bags since it was the only dry spot an none of them really reached the ends of their sleeping bags and we tried for about 2 hours to get them all to go to sleep.

The next morning, we got up and had breakfast. The kids had cereal and bacon and we had some eggs and bacon and bagels. We all put our tennis shoes on except for our friend Amy who did the whole hike pregnant and in flip flops and we hiked up to the top of the mountain to see the water falls and the view and then we came back down. Here are some of the pictures from the hike.
The picture on the top right is one of the first waterfalls as we were starting up the stairs to get to the top of the mountain.These pictures are of Ryan and the kids. The one on the left is them by the manmade waterfall early in the morning. The one towards the right is as we were hiking up the mountain. They are standing on a bridge in front of one of the waterfalls.Here we all are standing on the same bridge. Our friend Amy was nice enough to take a picture for us so everyone in our family could be included. Then, we swapped and I took pictures for their family. It was a great but tiring hike up the mountain. I definitely got a workout since almost the entire way up the moutain it was steps. Talk about a step aerobic workout! This would definitely be it.

This waterfall was farther up the mountain. It was awesome to be able to watch all the water rushing down the mountain and was definitely a calming feeling to hear the water. We really enjoyed the trip there.Luckily the whole way up the mountain there were stairs and for the most part, they had handrails so Hayden was able to make it up to the top with the help of Ryan.This waterfall in this picture was one of the waterfalls we found towards the top of the mountain. I was so happy that I remembered to take my camera and was able to get some great scenic shots from our trip. This will definitely be a place to take family to visit and camp when they come to Japan. Hope you all are ready for the wilderness. The part of the hike that I thought the kids might get scared of was the cave that we had to walk through. It was pitch black and you couldn't see the end of it when you walked in. Luckily the flash from my camera was bright enough to get the picture! The kids were just excited and all I heard was "ECHO, ECHO". It was very cute. The rest of the hike had some very narrow steps, some missing handrails and at the very top had no steps and no handrails. Only Ryan and our friend Dustin went up to the top. Since Amy, the kids and I couldn't see the top view, the guys got us some pictures of the top of the mountain. Here is a partial view from the top with Ryan showing how high up we hiked. Definitely a good workout! The picture of Ryan and Hayden walking together by the man made waterfall is at the end of our hike back down the mountain and the rest of the pictures that will be posted on here are some pictures showing the campground and the kids having fun. We hope you enjoyed looking at our pictures because we know we enjoyed taking them.

School's Out....Summer's Here!

Well, school is officially out here in Iwakuni. The kids finished up their last day of classes on June 11th. They had a half day of school and then a half day of playing outside with their friends! To end the school year we followed the tradition Grandpa Greg started with his kids and enjoyed rootbeer floats at A&W. Because the restaurant is inside the bowling alley and joined with Pizza Hut, the kids enjoyed bowling and some new Chicken Alfredo and cheesesticks from Pizza Hut! What a fun way to end the school year. Cora is now in 1st grade and Dominick is a 3rd grader! Dominick's teacher is moving away and going to teach in Okinawa Japan so he gets to see what a regular 3rd grade class is like. No more combined 1st, 2nd and 3rd for him. It'll be good though to see if he's ahead in anything or if he's behind in anything. It will show us if the combined class was beneficial or not because they also have the combined 4th and 5th grade class. We'll have an idea if we want him to be in there or not the following year.

Summer is now here and the kids are already enjoying themselves. They have had watergun fights at the park with friends and turned the park's slides into water slides by getting them all wet. We enjoyed almost an entire day at the pool and are definitely going to be going back for more. Dominick has enjoyed riding is bike, playing horseshoes with his daddy and hanging out with his friends. Cora plays in the backyard with her friends and has enjoyed some days at the park too. She's not old enough to be outside on her own unless she's in our backyard, so if it's hot and too muggy for me to go sit outside all day, she has kept busy with her Littlest Pet Shops up in her room. Thanks to our friend Devon she has kept her room clean for over a month. I don't know what Devon said to her but thank goodness for her miracles! Hayden is still going to yochien during the week. On the 22nd, they start teaching him swimming. At least I have one I won't have to pay for swimming lessons for. He has enjoyed his afternoons swimming or playing at the park with his brother and sister. And of course they have all enjoyed not having to be in bed by 8 every night. They love being able to stay up late. I just wish they'd now learn the art of sleeping in. I'm sure they'll learn it soon enough and they'll escape chores and everything I think is important by staying in bed. Then I'll wish I never wished for it, kinda like wanting my children to talk and walk. I don't know if that was such a good idea now. :-)

I hope everyone is doing well and I'm sure there will be more posts of our summer fun soon. For anyone in South Dakota, we'll be seeing you at the end of July!

Bad mommy

I had the case of bad mommyitis last Thursday. After Cora went to school, I discovered that she was supposed to have a field trip on that day and that I was supposed to have sent her to school with a lunch, water, sunscreen, and a change of clothes in her backpack so she could go to the Asa Zoo up near Hiroshima. Instead, unaware of this field trip, I sent her to school with a backpack full of library books and a blanket for nap time. The paperwork specifically said to make sure there was nothing extra in her backpack as she was going to have to carry it around all day at the zoo. I felt horrible.

So, I called my friend and she got ready to go with me, I made a lunch for Cora, grabbed a smaller backpack and filled it with the lunch, the water, and sunscreen and stopped at the ATM for yen and off we went to meet up with the bus at the zoo. We drove up to the zoo and when we got there discovered the zoo is closed on every Thursday of the year. Not only were all the gates to the zoo closed, the parking lot was all roped off so we couldn't even get in there. I thought I read the paperwork wrong. So, I called Ryan, had him borrow a car from a friend since we only have one van at the moment, and asked him to go to the house to look at the paperwork. He got there and told me I wasn't going crazy and that the paperwork said the 28th so he called the school. They informed us that the field trip had been canceled for that day and moved to June 2nd. They said paperwork was sent home about it but unfortunately we hadn't seen any. When Cora got home from school that night, she produced that paperwork and then we realized why we had no idea. Even though I had the bad mommyitis and forgot about the lunch...at least it all worked out in the long run.

On the plus side, my friend Devon has been visiting Japan for over a month now and has seen very little of the country so we were able to stop at Miyajima and tour the island with no children. So, here are some pictures from our trip there.

New way to keep in touch

Hello family and friends! I've decided there needs to be a way to allow everyone to see what we've been up to over here in Japan. Most of you probably thought we've fallen off the face of the earth, but hopefully, with this new blog site we can keep you up to date on the happenings in our lives! Ryan plans on working on a website for the whole family to use to keep in touch but until that happens, this will have to do. I'm going to start out this blog by posting the most current pictures we have of the kids and ourselves. And, then hopefully we'll be able to post new pictures as events happen throughout our lives. Cora thought she needed pretty pictures with daddy after getting her hair brushed last night. It took many times of taking it to get them to stop goofing around enough to get a decent picture. The picture of me with Dominick and Hayden was taken at the triangle park on base in Iwakuni. Dominick's class had a class picnic under the cherry blossoms to enjoy them for the few days they're out. Everybody had lots of fun and we're looking forward to being able to do it again next year! Everyone is doing well here. The kids are getting ready to finish up school. They are super excited for the summer to start. Only 8 1/2 more days! Hayden however has year round school and only gets August off but I think he's okay with that because he likes having stuff to do. When he gets home from school, we can take him to the pool, tire him out and he'll sleep like a baby every night through the summer. Hopefully, that means the kids will learn to sleep in a little. Then, maybe I can too. But, that's probably just wishful thinking. Ryan will continue working throughout the summer but we're hoping in August to take time to head back to South Dakota and Minnesota and visit family and friends. We are in dire need of a vacatiion in an English speaking area. I hope this finds everyone well and there will be more to come soon. Love to all!