Mike's birthday presents from Bryan and Dan.

A picture with Gigi.

A popular place to get your hair done in Japan!

The sign says Unisex Hair Salon. Only in Japan, you can find these kinds of signs.

Kiara @ kindergarten II

Kiara @ Kindergarten

Dinner with uncle Larry.

Bryan and Dan the translater

Church girls

Church boys

Church youth and penior

Saito family

Kim Family

October B-day

Erika pulling her grandfather's nose.

WEC Autumn festival

ＡＰＮ

Kiara and cosmos flowers

Kiara kissing a killer bee! Oh NO.

my art

Tomoko's Birthday

We had a little late birthday for Tomoko Ishikawa.

3girls

Erika,Kiara and Caroline

Grampa and Kiara

Tomoko

center of the earth

Disney Sea

arrival-9am

Disney Sea

We head out tomorrow morning to Disney Sea, a theme park located adjacent to Tokyo Disney Land. I will try to send in some mobile blogs and pictures during the day, if there are some of you who are interested. You might check back from time to time.

Candy Apples

Festival

Traditional JapaneseDance Troup

another day anothersnowcone

Festival

Sugao

Announcements

Taga Church of Christ

Yokappe Festival

But first worship.

Snow cone

How better to beat the heat?

Taiku-kai...

Neru-kai?

Erika

...in her dance garb.

Erika's Sports Festival Day

mobile test

Taking Kiara-4- to kindergarten.

Budding Photographer?

I wanted to share these pictures Megan Anna took a few days ago. I must be doing something right, because, even when I'm not home, my girls know to take pictures of good sunsets. Good Job, girl!

Superheroes

Wanted to share these two pictures taken by Adam Elliot, one of our LSTers this summer.

First me, rescueing a kitten from a tree.

Then some professional smoozing with a collegue in the superhero business.

Busy Summer

I know we tend to say this every summer, but, this summer was very busy. We started out with LST camp the beginning of July, and then Tomoko led a VBS with Danielle Nusbaum. The the kids got out of school at the end of July. Our family went to Christian camp for three days, and Anna stayed an extra session(she met a guy). During camp, we went to the beach were I proceeded to get part of the cornea of my left eye sliced in a game of beach footbal(tackle). A few hours later, I had six neat stitches on my eyeball (didn't even know they could do that). I wore an eye patch for a day, but other than that, it was nowhere near as bad as it sounds. My vision wasn't affected in the least, but people sure looked at me funny. I got some really great reactions to,(with accent) "Look deeply into my eyes.....". It was like Frankenstein had marked me as one of his.

Anyway, how about some camping pics? These shots were taken a couple of hours from here in a mountain resort town called SHIOBARA, which means "white rose" if I'm not mistaken. We have camped or stayed here at least 5 different times, if not more. It is close to ski resorts and has great hot springs for the winter, and beautiful mountain streams ,forest and hot springs for summer fun. It also has a pool and other amenities that make it worth while. The campground is called Green Village, Shiobara, I think.

After camping with the family, we attended the ALL-CHRUCH-RETREAT the Churches of Christ have every year. Our church was not in charge this year, but Tomoko was asked to lead the children's classes and activities, and I was asked to be the song leader. It lasted three days( not to mention the weeks of prep for Tomoko), so we were very tired by the end.

Then, we went back to work after that two-week"vacation" and had our anual Back-to-School barbeque with our students and their families.

I hate to tell you I told you so, but...

Something told me I wouldn't be able to keep up with this, and guess what?

Well, just to update where we are and where we've been since our last update (1 year ago).

This summer has been the hottest one that I can remember experiencing since I've been in Japan. We had one week where it hit, I think, at least 100 every day. Or if not, because of the humidity, it felt like it. I planted sunflowers this year for the fist time.

As far as family, no new children this year. Megan Anna is 14, Kacey Erika is 8 and Christiana Kiara is 4. Kiara started kindergarten this past April. These are some pics of her entrance ceremony.