Are you watching closely?

This is Drew's office.  Sometimes we come to visit when we have to get out, or we have gone to a certain bakery and have delicious goods in tow . . .

Since there is a scale in Drew's office, everyone's been watching what they eat very carefully lately.  This was from dinner the other night.  Drew watched for tomatoes, Vivi watched for Italian sausage, and Rafe watched for pasta. 

We could all do a bit more watching, really.  I obviously need to be watching the children more closely so I stop finding them in precarious positions.

Rafe continues to watch Vivien's every move.

And every Japanese person we pass can't help but watch him too.

We went on a little trip to Sasebo this week so we could watch Drew get his "dress and summer whites" (they don't have Navy uniforms on our Marine base).  We stopped at "Canal City" in Fukuoka on our way home and watched their fountains dance to music.  There are about 200 shops crammed into this shopping center, so there was a lot more to see there as well, including a Coldstone Creamery!

And the most wonderful thing we watched this week was spring's arrival!

We took a Sunday stroll to Kikkou Park to enjoy the "sakura" (cherry blossoms).

The park sits at the base of the mountain that Iwakuni Castle is on top of.  There were hundreds of people there today enjoying the flowers and sun and water!

Vivi and Rafe were desperate to get in the water.   

Sunday attire isn't the best for wading though, so we attempted to distract them with cherry blossom photo shoots.

Vivi has a bruise on her cheek from falling off a teeter totter at a park in Sasebo.  

This shot was captured by many Japanese cameras as well.  Sometimes I wonder what they do with the pictures they take of my children . . .

Rafe wasn't having it.  He kept getting magnetically drawn back to the water, so he was banished to Daddy's shoulders.  He perfected his parade wave for his adoring fans.  

I attempted one last picture of my people before we went home.  It was definitely not one of those "and then we got the perfect shot!" moments.  Vivien is yelling "no, no, no!"  while Drew says "cheese," and Rafe wouldn't look at all, even when I made all my most ridiculous noises (in a very public place).  Ah well.  I still think they're the most beautiful people in the world.  

"It will turn out well." "How will it?" "I don't know. It's a mystery."

These have been a few crazy weeks.  Our stake leaders came down from Tokyo to visit us, but our Branch President that had communicated with them about what was going to happen over the weekend had to go to Hawaii suddenly, so no one really had any idea what was going on.  Drew ended up in charge of organizing a dinner at the Chicken Shack on Saturday for 14 people last minute.  Of course, it all worked out just fine and everyone had a good time.  I ordered entirely in Japanese--woo hoo me!

The Branch Grandparents, Elder and Sis. Pierce

On Sunday we had lots of meetings.  Here is the crane that we drive by when we go to church.  There are lots of them here.  

Drew was going to pass the sacrament.  During the announcements Rafe started freaking out and trying to get to his daddy, so I let him go.  He climbed into his lap, looked at him for a second, then threw up all over him.  Drew took the kids home and held Rafe while he puked all day so I could stay and feed the stake leaders before they had to fly back to Tokyo.  

Luckily it was a quick sickness for the little boy.  We played on the playground right below our apartment the next day.  It's a nice one.  Rafe showed off his rabbit teeth for the camera (finally). Swinging is his favorite.   

There is a music station with drums, chimes, bells, and these squeaky horns.  (Vivien loves her shirt, Grandma Paula.  The hood was a good choice!)

And a set of slippery steps that Rafe likes to smack his face on when he falls.

Unfortunately, "there is a spider web in my house."  I managed to get it with my face while following Rafe with my camera.  

There is also a little house at the playground.  Vivien served us all some food.  I asked her what we were eating.  

"Cabbage and french fries."  Mmmm?

They must not have mixed very well in her stomach, because right after the "amen" of our family prayer Monday night, she threw up all over the bed and continued throwing up every half hour until 3 am.  Then she spent the rest of Tuesday like this:

Or this.

Unless I laughed at her stares too much.  Then she tried to reciprocate.

By Wednesday she was feeling well enough to go out, so we went and registered her for Yochien.  Each class has a different color hat they wear to play outside.  

Everyone has a cubby for their outdoor shoes.  There is a guinea pig in the entrance, and I guess they have rabbits in the yard as well.  The principal is the very happy Japanese lady coming out of the office in the picture below.  She came out to meet Vivien and help her take off her shoes.  Her residence abutts the school.  The woman holding Rafe is her daughter, maybe daughter in law, and she speaks English very well.

Here is Vivien's class.  She felt right at home with the fake food.  She will definitely get a lot of exposure to Japanese!  

Maybe she'll start saying things like this quote a saw on a bag at the Daiso:

Though she doesn't need any help to say funny things.  At dinner the other day:

Drew: "Oh there's lots of spaghetti left."

Vivi: "I have lots of spaghetti in my pull-up." 

(a la Olaf saying "I don't have a skull.  Or bones") 

Or today when I walked into her room:
"No!  Don't come in.  I'm in a meeting."
"A meeting?  With who?"
"John Smith, Eric, and Elsa."
"What is the meeting about?"
"To plan for the meeting."

And here's her rendition of the ABC's:

"A B C D I F J, Q R S, Y Z."

Who needs all those extra letters anyway?

Giving herself a bath while my back was turned for 5 minutes.  

Hopefully she'll be back to her cheerful self in the next couple of days.  Being sick and the arrival of all our furniture (at last!) seems to have thrown her off a bit.  I can't imagine why . . . 

At least she's got her brother to keep her grounded.  They sit next to each other at the dinner table now, which is kind of a hassle when they want the same thing or when they want to put things in each other's hair, but it's pretty cute when they share.

It was Rafe's birthday this week though, and sharing is a tough concept as far as birthdays are concerned.  "Everybody makes a fuss for birthday boys who are not us."

She did get to have cake, but it was a close thing.  Rafe almost grabbed the whole thing while I was trying to get him to look and smile.  He loves nothing so much as slinging plates full of food off the table.

I think strawberries are his favorite fruit.  These are the Japanese strawberries that are "the prince of strawberries."  Oishii (delicious)!  The cake was good too.  No candles--we learned our lesson about one year olds and fire with Vivien.  

We love this boy and are grateful to have him in our family!

What kind of a hike?

There is a Costco in Hiroshima.  The Jenkins invited us to go with them this week to check it out.  It's an all-day affair.  

We left in the morning and switched car seats so we could all ride in the Jenkins' monstrous (by Japanese standards) van.  If you're not a member it costs about $60 to park in their parking structure because it's right next to the Hiroshima baseball stadium and they don't want any spill-over event parking.  

It was nice to walk around a familiar store.  It was about 60/40 American to Japanese products.  Every Japanese person we passed had a big bag of those Costco rolls everyone has at missionary farewells/homecomings.  After we shopped Vanessa wanted to take a Costco pizza home for dinner, so we played in the courtyard while she waited in line.  There was much giggling and pointing at the blonde children from the other Japanese patrons enjoying their lunches.  

We were not offended, as we do plenty of giggling and pointing at them around here ourselves.  This week Vivi got into my makeup and pretended she was David Bowie.

She sat like a slug in many layers of princess pajamas at the girls high school soccer tournament.

She tried on Daddy's combat boots (which might as well have been cemented to the floor for how far she was able to go in them).

 And she tried her skill with chopsticks at the udon noodle place downtown.  The noodles are like 2 feet long and extremely slippery.  She ended up using her fingers.  Actually, so did I.

 And so did Rafe.

Rafe got his first haircut this week.  It did not go as I had planned.  I took some little-boy hairstyle pictures to the barber shop, but no one spoke any English and he was squirmy, so now we have a mini Marine.  

Marines, as you know, are few and proud, so yesterday we took him and his sister on a hike up a mountain that you could take a tram to the top of.  Only a few people are crazy enough to hike where you could ride, and they are very proud of their accomplishment.  We took the train and then the ferry to Miyajima.

 Our baby backpack is in our household goods shipment, which is still not here, so we rented 2 from the gear rental place on base.  For free!!!!

 The hike starts by a Buddhist temple.  All the statues were dressed for cold weather with hand crocheted/knitted hats, scarves, and wraps.

 And then we basically did the stairmaster for an hour with 30 pound packs.  If anyone touches my legs today, I snarl like a cornered tiger.

 This gate was at the top of the ridge to the summit.  We passed through trepidatiously.

When we finally made it to the top on our shaky legs, we ate some lunch. 

And drank some water.

And snuggled together, because the wind was cold.  

There is an observation platform built on top of the mountain that offers a pretty spectacular 360 view.  Here's 180 of it (it was too crowded to get the other side.  Iwakuni is a little to the right of center down there on the coast across the water.  

 And here's a view in the other direction.  The tram comes up to the building on the ridge to the left.

 Our way back down was very bouncy, and we managed to jiggle both babies to sleep.

 Rafe didn't even wake up till we were off the ferry and on our way to the train station.  (Mount Misen is the left of the tallest humps)

Hurray for hiking!  Hurray for babies!  Hurray for Japan!