Hirosaki & Anmon Falls

 

The namesake of the Chrysanthemum Festival

Mt. Iwake

Marie on the top floor of the castle checking on her vast empire below.

Who in their right mind doesn't love fall?

 

Welcome to Hirosaki !

It was a fun weekend. We stayed overnight at a Route Inn, which is a great japanese motel 8 type. They had a onsen on the top floor that Marie just loved and you can't argue with a free breakfast.

Until next year Hirosaki!

Big Turkey & New Years Goals

Do you remember you New Years goals this year? I do, and I think I may have accomplished it. Yes, I said I would blog once a week, but that was mostly for my family, and so when I was in the states with some of my family I considered the "point of the goal" to be met- that is, keep up with family. So there. However, I still better do a few more posts to get my quota in. Therefore, enjoy the following random post.




This thing weighs about 5 more pounds than Marie. Muhahaha I am so proud! We are having Thanksgiving with 3 other families and I assigned myself to cook the Turkey. It's so big I have to capatilize the word: Turkey. Turkey by Rachel.
This should be good.

Other news on the cute home front:

The girls took a nap, then Marie tried to help me take a picture of her:

Things are good. Getting very excited to enjoy the holidays, and find out when Matt is getting married. That means a whole month in the good old U.S! Yee haw!


 

Oh boy. What did I get myself into.

Rokkasho

And this is the story of last Saturday....

We woke up on a Saturday morning and our friends called with an invite to join them on their fishing adventure. They were going to try and bag a salmon, and dared us to do the same.  It was a challenge.

Rachel was busy having arts-and-crafts time with some Japanese visitors (post below), so Marie and I sharpened our fingernails and teeth and jumped aboard.  We only had 3 minutes, so we had to act fast.  I barely was able to touch any for the first minute and I thought all hope was lost.  But alas, turns out that salmon can only spaz out at high speed for about 2 minutes.  They were huffing and puffing at the end, especially the fat, pregnant ones.

Like this one!!! I wanted to sink my chops into it right then.  The whole crowd was chanting,

 "Eat it!  Eat it!  Eat it!"

I think everybody remembers the first time they saw a fish gutted.  It was a great life lesson for Marie.  That's right, they gutted it for us and packed it away in an ice box.

Sorry for the blood (and nudity). Until next time Rokkasho Salmon Festival, until next time.

Meet our new girls!

We adopted!

...two teenage girls from Hirosaki.

Well, for the weekend at least.

Every year our Branch hosts an English Speaking Club from a Hirosaki High School.

We decided to join in and let two girls stay with us. They come on Saturday and then leave on Sunday. It's a whirlwind of fun, broken English, pityful Japanese on my part, and all around a good time.

As I said, they arrived Saturday and the ward hosted a craft. I helped them make caramel apples (which later was to my detriment as my crown broke as I was eating one... errrgh!- anyways).

After that I took them home to meet Marie and Brett.

Brett, being the great host, showed them how to play Battleship. They were such good sports.

Later we took them mini golfing. It was hard to think of things to do because if we wanted to keep them on the American base so they could hear more English. They were really cute and fun. They taught me a few things in Japanese and I tried my best to make simplified small talk in English.

Here is Marie as I caught her trying to reset her ball.

What is this face all about? 

Marie kept calling our girls (Ririko and Arisa) "The Ladies."

Later we took them to a Haunted House on the base. It was gory. The girls said that Japanese Haunted Houses are scary, but American Haunted Houses are the MOST scary. I would have to agree that at least the one on base goes a little nuts with the blood and gore.

And then to help them recover, the next day we took them to church :)
It was really long for them, but they were such good troopers. They didn't understand a single thing, but they tried really hard to sing and listen. They had never heard of Christ before, so it was cool to be the first person to tell them about Him.
Very cool.

And I have to mention the cutest part of the weekend was when I was showing the girls their bathroom, Marie casually offered, "and you can use my pink soap if you like." Her pink soap is the Mr. Bubbles bubble bath we only break out on special occasions. What a great host she is.

We'll Miss you Ririko and Arisa! Come back anytime!

HALLOWEEN 2011

Light up the Bat Signal! It's time for Halloween!

I thought this might be our Christmas picture, but it's probably a bad idea to send out half-naked pictures of your kids to everyone you know..... but I love it so much, so don't be surprised to get it in your mail box (if we actually send them out this year).


HALLOWEEN IS SO FLIPPIN' FUN! I love it. And I am not sure if I loved it more when I was 8 and got to dress up and trick-or-treat, or when I'm 28 and dress up my kids (and make them get candy for me). Either way I'm one of those people who almost loves it more than Christmas.

Here we are at the Mall. We heard they would be giving out candy, and turns out I was wrong. Sorry Marie, at least you have the rest of the night to trick-or-treat. I like how she makes no effort to hide her disappointment in me.

Halloween was so great this year. Marie really understood what was going on (as opposed to every other year) and I'm in love with Mina's Bat costume. It was also really fun to invite some good friends over to eat dinner and trick-or-treat with us. Thanks for coming!

Here are Marie's 2 best buddies. If she's not playing with one of these boys, she's talking about the other.

Here we have a dog, a mouse, and a cowboy!

Now bring in younger siblings:
a bumble bee (sleeping), a koala, and a bat!

Marie and her buddies are all the oldest and about 1 month apart in age, and Mina and her mini-buddies are about the same age also. Yay cute-ness!

As Marie and Keaton get started they stumble upon an open grave. Marie's in shock while Keaton says, "let's get out of here!"         (they may have said that, I don't know, I was so drunk off their cute-ness).

Who wouldn't want candy from this cutie? And Mina is pretty approachable too. Also note Brett's generosity with letting people chose their candy. I was much more stingy, giving out Twix to the best costumes, and Almond Joys to the older kids who weren't really trying.

Also this was the first year we've run out of candy. Props to our neighbors who had our backs in a pinch!

So trick-or-treating was going really well until I made them stop for a picture when we saw our other good friend Mark. Keaton is all about it, but note Marie's pain.

The trip couldn't be complete without a trip to our old apartment! And we miss our wonderful neighbors and their adorable doggies!

And everyone has that one house in the neighborhood, that has the spookiest decorations...

And best treats! Thanks Jasmine!

I couldn't help but try to recreate the scene from last year. Here are Jasmine and Marie one year ago when Marie was still in "trick-or-treat training."

What FUN! Now I expect to go to everyone else's blog and see your new posts up with TONS of pictures! TONS. I mean it.

Don't make me send Mina after you.

A message from Marie