Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

one-sixth of the way

Can you believe we've been in Japan for 6 months? We are one-sixth of the way through our journey which is absolutely mind-boggling. It feels like we've just barely been able to get totally settled and yet it already feels like we're running out of time to do all the things we want to do while we're here to make the most of our time.

The beach near the lighthouse

There is so much more of Japan to explore, we've barely scratched the surface. Even if we went out and explored somewhere every weekend we'd probably still not be able to see everything we want to see.

We explored a park near the lighthouse last weekend, which marked 6 months. We were supposed to hike Mount Fuji, but the trip got cancelled due to a typhoon passing through the area and the potential for rain or high winds. Hopefully we will get to hike Mount Fuji this climbing season, but the season ends the first weekend of September, so we'll have to make that happen sooner rather than later.

Sagami Giant Kite Festival

What better way to spend Cinco de Mayo than at a Giant Kite festival eating Japanese street vendor food? Yeah I couldn't think of a better way either!

I think this was one of our first pretty big adventures on our own. Brad figured out about where we needed to be and we rode the train having full faith that we'd find this festival once we got off. There weren't tons of people wandering around this train station, but there were just enough to make us believe we should follow them, that they were probably going to this kite festival.So we started walking down residential streets and soon we were surrounded by fields. But there were still people walking along these streets with us, so we felt we must be headed in the right direction.

We finally made it after a good 20 minutes or so walk. It was still relatively early, not a ton of people there for the festival yet. There was a performance happening with drummers and dancers and a flute player, very cool to watch. See a clip below:

All the performers were fun to watch, but I particularly enjoyed the children, especially the expressions they made.

After the performance we got to see our Japanese Ambassador, Caroline Kennedy.

The Kite festival is an all day event. There is a lot of waiting around, waiting for the wind to be just right, waiting for people to get off the field, waiting for the judges to be ready, etc etc. At one point it started to rain. So we sat under our umbrella and waited.

There was even an Army band  from Camp Zama there to entertain as well as countless booths selling toys, trinkets and food.

 Eventually came time to do the smaller kites. Usually a youth group like boy scouts were the runners for the smaller kites.

The large kite in one of the other fields was flown,

then they tried the one at our field a few times, it got airborne a little then...

CRASH!

It was a fun day, fun to be a part of a cool festival and see some traditional activities. I kind of related it to going to a NASCAR race. You sit around for a while bored out of your mind then something exciting happens...like a crash. Morbid me...

But seriously, it's not nearly as boring as NASCAR, I recommend anyone to go at least once. It really is a marvel to see how extremely large these kites are and the effort required to get them up in the air.

Christmas 2013

Brad and I left for our trip to Utah on Monday after work, since we were driving and it was around midnight we stopped in Reno for the night and finished our journey on Christmas Eve. We did sneak Gambit into the hotel with us, I had wrapped him in a blanket and carried him like a baby, it worked out well until Gambit didn't like the blanket over his eyes anymore so he stuck his nose out...luckily no one in the elevator said anything, and we were gone too early in the morning to suffer any consequences. 


My brother had bought me a crochet book for Christmas so as we were driving through Nevada I taught myself how to single/double/triple crochet and by the time we got to Utah I had made a scarf.

Christmas morning was quiet, Brad and I got up with his parents and his brother Justin and opened our stockings.

Gambit got a new hat to keep him warm in Utah

Christmas afternoon was hectic, as it tends to be with 7 grandchildren, 11 adults and 2 dots, but I wouldn't want it any other way. It was so much fun to see everyone all at once and watch all the kids open their gifts!

After the gifts and food we played, what has become a tradition, a dice game with prizes in the middle of the table. If you roll doubles, you get to choose a prize, otherwise you keep passing the dice, this goes until all the prizes are gone. At this point a timer is set and you continue to roll the dice, this time if you get doubles you can steal an item from someone else's pile, but only if you remember correctly who has it. At the end of the time you walk away with whatever you've managed to keep hidden or stolen from someone else in the family. Good family fun!