forgot pony

I forgot to say that we found out the pony belonged to the family before us and they`ll be taking it with them! Sad, sad kids:(. Did I say this already? Sage said well then I`m going back to Columbia, you said there was a pony! We felt bad, we just assumed that it was the farm`s pony! Anyway, what can you do! There is plenty other fun stuff fun to do on a farm! later...

maybe the last time for awhile?

Hello, it`s children time on Japanese TV, 4 pm. And I found out this week that 3pm is the universal kids snack time here. Which Sage loves, he said I like the snacks here better than the food! OOooh they are getting spoiled with snacks. Snacks are really big here, new ones come out all the time and they are very inventive. Baba and aunt Sayoko have been very generous with them, so when we cut back I have a feeling that the kids are going to ask to move back here! So, tomorrow, we will make the move to Naganuma. Kenji and his dad went there today to take a load of things, some of our stuff and more things that we have received from generous family and friends and their friends! This past weekend, Kenji`s younger sister Sayoko was here with her two girls, Hikari and Nanami. All the kids had a good time playing, the boys seem to be slightly calmer now that they are getting used to things. Of course, they`ll be changing again! We are supposed to sit down with the Epps at the farm and talk about expectations, theirs and ours when we get there. And I have to start grocery shopping and actually cooking whole meals again:).A little nervous about how things all work out, but I`m sure they will. Kenji`s dad will stay with us most of the week helping to fix things up on the house. Very thankful for that, it will be a huge help. So far our times at the farm have included meals around a big walnut table, the boys playing with the Epps 3 boys, and trips to the chicken house to see the noisy chickens and ducks. Lots of mud and still lots of snow. We ate potatoes and Japanese winter squash(kabocha) that they still have from last fall and they are sooooo yummy! Also rice from their fields, not completely white, but not fully brown, really yummy too. And bread made from wheat grown there and freshly milled in their new flour mill. Eggs and pudding made from their eggs. MOm, we got 4 out of 5 of our boxes of books so far, and no computer that I know of yet, maybe they got there since last week. We hope it comes soon. We need to set up our phone line and see about setting up wireless internet when we get our computer. If you want our address and phone number , please email me. I`ll mail it back to you.

Another Naganuma visit

We did it, we finally saw Sage`s school and got our registration done for health insurance and town residence. The school visit went well, although Sage still says that he isn`t going to go to school. The school is old, but besides some peeling paint and signs of age is very clean, neat and organized. It`s interesting in that the gym is on the top floor of the 3 story building. There were no kids there when we went and Sage found it fairly boring, imagine that! Especially the part while we were sitting in the office and Kenji was talking to the principal and vice-principal as they went over the info we need to know. They were very nice. The school seems well rounded. The town is known for being a computer place, everywhere is wireless. Each classroom has a computer and there is a large computer lab too. There is a nice music room with many instruments including a grand piano. A nice crafts room and a practical skills room for learning cooking/home skills. I think that if Sage can get past the language barrier he will love it. He makes the 11th student in his class, 7 girls, 4 boys! First graders have only half days for a week and a half while they introduce them to the school routine, so hopefully that will help Sage to gradually get used to things, Kenji may go with him a few days if the teacher thinks it`s necessary. We will meet his teacher on the first day of school which is the 6th of April. The school is only a short distance from our place so it will be a short bus ride. They get on the bus about 8:20.
We spent the night in our house, unfortunately it was not a great night. The place had many cats living in it before us and K is very allergic to them. We were hoping it wouldn`t be too bad, but it was, his asthma kept him up all night and his inhaler was not really working. He of course said he was fine, and I`ve learned not to hover, he deals with it well and does not get panicked, I`m the one who does that. He is still recovering. The carpets will definitely have to go, luckily the carpets here are rarely wall to wall, just large area rugs and only two rooms have carpet, so it shouldn`t be that bad. We will get an air purifier too, as there is not forced air\heat, so the air isn`t filtered.
Hopefully the next night we stay will be better! Kenji wants to do many things to the house and the owner says to submit his ideas and if they approve they will provide the materials. The main thing is converting an unfinished room to our bedroom. After the changes are made we should have plenty of space to house visitors, hint, hint! Also there is a guest room in the main house. Kenji and his dad will go on MOn to start working on things, I think this will be a fun experience for Kenji to get to work with his dad on such things as he never has before and they both enjoy building things. I really like the house, although now it is very dirty and I can`t wait to clean it! Also, the entrance is thru the greenhouse and the former people made their own compost in it, it smells like chicken poopoo, not my favorite welcoming essence!! I`m not sure I`m thoroughly farm material yet, but I`ll get there! The greenhouse is basically ours, they no longer use it for the farm, so K plans to make a terrace to eat out there in the fall/spring, and a sandbox.
We`ll see how much gets done, but I like it anyway. It isn`t really much smaller than our previous house, I`m curious how different actually and with the changes, it will be more than I expected! We found out about how it`s built, interesting. The walls and ceilings are not framed in the typical way, instead it is all made of 3 meter long panels that consist of 7 in. of styrofoam glued on both sides to particle board. It is supposedly very warm. The heating is only in the floor like we thought. They poured concrete and within the concrete they coiled flexible piping through the whole floor. This is connected to a boiler. ONce the hot water goes into the pipes it takes awhile to radiate thru the concrete, but once the concrete is warm it stays warm a very long time. They say you run the boiler about two hours a day and it stays very warm. You can`t run it until it gets warm, or you`ll be run out of the house. I guess they did it like that when they first built the house and it took several days for the temp to be comfortable enuf to live in! I thought this stuff might interest you Dad. Akiko Epp`s dad was a teacher in a college here, teaching about insulation. ONe of his students` companies made this material, maybe on one of his recommendations. They thought this material would work well in Hokkaido. They donated the materials for this house so they could test it. The ended up never producing it en masse because they were planning to market to all Japan and were concerned about termited I think.
Anyhow, we plan to move on Tues. People are gradually giving us things, everyone is being very generous. Kenji`s sisters especially. Kenji`s older sister Makiko`s family is planning a move in the next year so she says this is a good time for her to clean things out.
After Sage and I`s conversation I pulled out a LIving Bible that Kenji`s parents have and took it to read it to Sage on our trip, starting somewhere in Mark with a story about Jesus I thought he was pretty familiar with. He begged and begged for me to read, and was upset when it was too dark to read, we read thru like 12 chapters or something on our trip. He would stop and ask me what something meant, but never was bored by anything it seemed.
Put money down to buy a car too. It`s a good deal I think, 7 seater. The second seat is a bench so all three kids can sit there and we can leave the back two folded down and there is a luggage rack, so we can haul people from the airport, important! It has very low mileage, is nine years old and has the main features we need-Abs and 4wd. We won`t get it for two weeks, but they will deliver to our door, which is what they do here, I guess.
LUcas is fussy, better go....

nothing much!

hmmm, what to write today? something quick, Kenji and his dad have taken the youngest to run some errands before lunch and Sage is outside playing. We go to Naganuma tomorrow afternoon, after some more red tape with the documents we need, we couldn`t go today, but think it worked out better maybe anyway. We`ll hopefully leave early afternoon as we are supposed to be able to pick up the document around then and we found out we can spend the night in our house tomorrow night as the previous folks are cleaning it tomorrow am! Exciting. We`ll visit Sage`s school Fri. afternoon after lunch and high tail it back this direction to see the car we`re looking at buying later that afternoon. It takes about 2 hours to drive to Naganuma from here on the toll road, like interstate, but it`s like $30! So we may go on it one way and thru towns the other, that adds another one hour at least we think. Sage is calling me to play outside, so I go... later then

warm day, melting snow

it`s really warm and sunny here today, Kenji was following the neigbor`s lead and throwing piles of snow into the street to melt for his parents, to hurry up the process. The boys were out playing in Jiji and Baba`s sandbox this morning and Sage was sweating in his coat. We were hoping to receive our document in the mail today so we could return to Naganuma tomorrow, but it`s not to be it seems. So it will be a day trip on Thurs probably, hopefully it arrives by then, we need to be back here by Friday so Kenji can go and see the car we may be buying and if he likes it sign a contract so that we can get it for the great sales price. If we buy it we won`t get it for two more weeks though, something about registration in a different township, blah, blah, Kenji doesn`t know really either! So we may be using the farm truck and be stuck on the farm for a bit. At least Sage will ride the school bus. Hey, the mailman just brought our document! That`s a good thing. It is getting long to not be in our own place, I will say. We are very thankful for the hospitality, do not mistake what I`m saying however! It`s just been a long time since we`ve been HOME. Kai said yesterday I want to go back to Columbia to our old home tomorrow very matter-of-factly. When I said that was not possible, but that we hope to be moving to our new home next week, he said, okay, then I want to go there right now! The boys have been acting out lately, this is probably why. And then with less responsibilities for K and I we are micromanaging them and this probably doesn`t help either. I`m having trouble with not being angry at them for their many childish actions, imagine them having some of those! It`s pretty tough not to get stressed at what relatives think by their actions, get what I`m saying? Like they`ve spent very little time with our kids and then they are kind of acting bratty, makes me feel sad and probably it`s actually my pride that`s causing my anger, you think?
Anyhow, Sage and I had an interesting conversation yesterday, out of the blue like kids do, he says to Kai, "you know Kai if you died right now you would go to heaven and live forever and never die anymore. That`s so hard to think of isn`t it. "They then proceeded to have a conversation about not knowing where heaven is, and Kai said but Mommy knows where it is, so we talked about noone but people there and Jesus\God know where it is...."But bad people go somewhere else right mom, what`s it like there. " Then we talked about that we don`t know that either but that there is nothing good there because all good things come from God and it would be awful to be separated from goodness. Sage tried to bargain with me on that saying that he could be good even if there was nothing good, etc. etc. We also talked about that being good\bad isn`t what gets us either place exactly and about how noone is good from Adam and Eve`s choice and that`s why God sent Jesus to take care of our badness so we could once again be close to God and why it`s so sad when someone dies who doesn`t know God. The conversation was fairly lengthy, and then Sage says, "Mom, the devil tries to get me to think something every day, like I`m doing something and all of the sudden he makes me think of this, but I refuse" What does he make you think I ask, thinking that he`ll answer something about doing bad stuff, but instead he says"he makes me think that you and Dad are just making it up about there being a God." Wow, I thought, this is what you are thinking about when you are staring into space and ignoring me calling your name!! So I very calmly say, you know it`s not a sin to have doubts about God, in fact when you have questions is when God can teach you the most maybe. So we can ask him to help you know the truth for yourself not just because we say so, because he says he will give things to you if you ask him. He then proceeds to say," well I know one way I can know there`s a God, like the time he raised up those dry bones in that valley in the Bible, there has to be a God to do that!"He was very impressed and interested in this story when we read it months and months ago and has never forgot it as bones and skeletons are very interesting to kids, he`s a little obsessed with fear over them it seems to me like. Anyway, all of you wonderful, experienced, seasoned, veteran parents out there help me on this one!! Where do we go from here, what are some good ways to help Sage see the truth for himself, some good resources, Bible passages etc. I have to say that I was shocked to hear this stuff coming from him now, honestly it`s been awhile since we have spent much time talking or focusing on spiritual things other than praying, sad to say. It was a good push for me to get past our rushed life of the past few months and put my and our focus where it should be.
Sage just returned from a visit to a neighbor`s house with JiJi to see their baby discus fish, like 60 of them! He is telling me they drink milk from their mother`s skin, I did not know of other fish but big mammal fish that produced milk, interesting! He is showing me the loot they gave him too:) Special tops that having strings to spin them, a bottle of juice and dark choco/cookie sticks. Share with mommy?...please!
We have been having conversations about what would be better, cell phones, landline, both or one or the other, think we`ve settled on a landline. So nice to have cells for travel in the big city here, like directions, meeting etc, but reality says that`s a luxury and a landline is cheaper for sure, especially for intntl. calls. The cell plans are not as good as in the US even.
Also K`s been looking at car and life ins. prices online, the details are back:).
We have been starting to receive some secondhand things from K`s family and friends, just got a little TV and K`s dad is giving us a VCR. There is a table and chairs at the house we`ll be in and a dresser\wardrobe and a few other odds and ends. We need to get a washing machine. No dryer! They cost around $1000 here, not very common. They`ve come out with washer/dryers, no idea how they work, but they are around $800 with regular, small albeit, washers being around $300. I`m looking at the bright side of no dryer, clothes last longer, cheaper electric bills, less wrinkled clothes, no set-in stains...got anymore??? I`m definitely spoiled, but I`m already getting used to hanging clothes indoors, and we have a fairly nice place for that at the house. It will seem a luxury to have an automatic washer(normal, to us), after spending a whole morning doing laundry every 2-3 days here. K`s mom has a washer that you need to manually do all, meaning add the water from a pipe, change from washing tub to spinner tub and back and forth infinitely:) And it`s very small so like 6 loads sometimes. This is not an old washer either they sell them this way still. Kenji`s sister`s husband offered to buy them an automatic one, they are not much more money, but his mom refuses saying it won`t fit in her small space. I think it might be more that she thinks it wastes less water, she has a way worked out that she uses the water so it`s less wasteful and as a typical older Japanese is very conscious of wasting anything. It`s overwhelming to set up house, never been at square one before really, just got into it gradually. People are very generous and I know that we won`t need to buy everything so that`s wonderful.
Better quit, I`ve been on here awhile. Hello to all, love your comments!

Maybe about the farm?

Well, I thought maybe I should add about the onsen that it was quite a bit more relaxing without children:) but they enjoy it alot too, so it`s still a good experience, just less relaxing! Sage especially loves them, Lucas is hard to keep up with as he tries to go from one place to another. It can be a little slippery and dangerous, so gotta keep a good watch. It`s helpful to have grandparents along!
It`s Sunday afternoon and Lucas is napping. Kenji is going to a hardware store to "look around" and see what`s there as we plan to do some modifications to the house we`re moving to soon. We`ll go to another onsen this afternoon, on with an outdoor onsen pool that looks like a beach, and is like a swimming pool in that it is mixed and you wear bathing suits. This hotel onsen has a "wedding chapel" and Kenji`s dad works there marrying people as his retirement job. Many people like to get married in a "western" way, meaning in a euro/american style church with the typical wedding dress etc.
We got a crib for Lucas last night finally. After the initial exhaustion from jet lag was gone it was hard enough to get the other boys to lay down and sleep on the futon mattresses on the floor, but nearly impossible getting him to lay down and sleep without the crib bars he`s used to! And I obviously do not have the patience Japanese parents do, as many of them sleep family style for many years and the kids just kind of get up and wander and they drag them back for quite awhile. Anyhow, Kenji was getting directions to a babystore to look for pack-n-plays from his sister and she knew of a neighbor getting rid of a baby crib so we were able to get one for free! It is like the cribs we know there, although slightly smaller and instead of being raised off the ground on legs, the lowest mattress setting is on the floor pretty much. Safer at least. It will take some time for Lucas to get readjusted to it, and it`s so hard to let him cry in someone else`s house, but happy to have it regardless!
ON to our Naganuma visit. We were lacking an essential document so were unable to register Sage for school or ourselves for health ins. so we are waiting for it to arrive from Kenji`s birth town. It is the koseki tohon, or family registry that everyone has here. Your marriage and children are registered there and it is like birth cert\marriage cert. all together. You have to have a newly issued copy when you do things like the above. Kenji is learning the ropes here yet as he hasn`t lived here as an adult much at all, spent less than two years total here since he turned 18, which was 16 years ago I guess. Almost half his life in Canada and the US. Anyhow, we hope to get the document sometime this week and return to do what we wanted to do last time then along with a school visit. Sage missed the official school visit day for ichi-nen sei, or first graders last week it seems. He is anxious, wondering how he will ask to go to the bathroom etc, we are practicing with him. The three boys who live on the farm will go to the same school and walk to the school bus stop and back with him each day as well as with another first grade girl who is a close neighbor. They have about a quarter mile walk down a gravel road. When we first got to the road we thought surely that wasn`t it and turned a different way, the entrance to the road was totally snow-covered and very steep! Which is why we need a 4WD vehicle I guess! Sage was thoroughly excited when we found we did need to go down that road!
Very exciting to actually see where we will be living! There is a main house where people kind of gather and eat lunch together, etc, then two other houses, ours included as well as a machine shop, a greenhouse converted to a chicken house and maybe two other greenhouses and a few other outbuildings. We didn`t tour everything, but did go in the chicken house. It smells a little, but not like some for sure. If you read the article abouｔ the farm published in Rodale`s mag, you know they use forest leaf litter mixed with the chicken manure on the floor to both heat the house and to reduce the smell. The house we`ll be living in is cute, nice big eat-in-kitchen, a long bedroom and small all purpose room then the bath\laundry area. There is a pretty big unfinished room we are hoping to convert to the boys room too. Kenji says that they told him the house was originally built to be a breadshop/bakery, then converted to a house later. The boys were so busy playing with the other boys and toys they didn`t even want to go see it! The back door looks out on the pony pen. The house is I guess very well insulated, the man who helped to build it went to school for insulating houses or something. The heating is by boiler, hot water flows thru pipes under the floors, so your feet are never cold! We didn`t see another heat source, but I`m not for sure. The people who live there say it is very warm and in summer if you open windows across the house it is comfortable. We sat and visited some and met the various people who live there. There are plenty of English speakers there., hope I can learn more Japanese... there are plenty of Japanese speakers too though.Ray and Akiko Epp, the couple who basically manage the farm and her mother who was an English teacher for many years and has a great accent. Akiko`s parents Ray is American and Akiko lived in the States for quite a while I think. Their oldest son also speaks quite a bit of English although the younger two do not. The middle boy seemed a little territorial and made a comment about learning English being Yada! or no way when his mom suggested that Sage could teach him some! Sounded like Sage when we were in the states encouraging him to practice Japanese. It was interesting to talk with Ray, he was telling us that the roots of organic gardening\farming in the U.S. can be traced back to a book written by an American professor in the early 1900`s who travelled to Japan and studied the ancient farming practices here. He was intrigued by the fact that the fields here were still so fertile after being farmed continuously for 4000 years, and he was in disagreement with the thinking of the American gov. of that time which was that the U.S` resources were unlimited and we could just take and take and not worry about them ever being depleted or if they were just go west. He could see that the soil`s goodness would be depleted in several gen. of the current practice. Other conversation was about how the main couple living there and the couple vacating the house we`ll be in as well as us and other people who don`t live on the farm but help and visit frequently are Christians although most other people who volunteer, are students doing internships from colleges or are members of the CSA(community supported agriculture- you buy a yearly membership before planting season and then get a portion of the harvest of the farm) are not. They have learned that having a community of Christians with others invited to participate who are not Christians, brings questions and interest. He said they have learned that it is not appropriate in this culture to do evangelism the way it is typically done in the US with the different cultural environment. Ray mentioned that the change in the culture from the spiritual based waste-not(the old Japanese way, from farming on out) to one based on efficiency has left a spiritual void that leaves people wanting so that when they see true spiritual community they are drawn to it. He said that with the loss of the old ways which was based on using everything in a cycle, (for instance even human and animal excrement) that many traditional community and relational qualities were lost as well. With the attempt to modernize and keep up with the west many ideas were brought in that do not work in this climate\culture etc. Menno Village is an attempt to educate people about what has been lost and hopefully introduce community from Christ`s viewpoint. Other interesting things, within the last few years the community around the farm was able to gather enough signatures with a petition, to stave off one of the largest cement companies in the country from moving in and destroying the forest. This is unheard of here, it is usually thought that a company like that can not be fought. Then the farm petitioned its members and raised over $100,000 dollars in a few months to buy the 40 acres of forest that were in question so that would not become an issue again. It is part of the Menno Village corp. and the plans are to turn in into a land trust, although I don`t really know what that means! They use 12 acres to farm on and the rest is beautiful forest according to them with many ponds etc.
The view is beautiful, snow covered mountains, a ski resort right behind us and the gravel road is bordered by apple trees from a nearby apple farm. It is definitely farm country, many farms around, farmers markets etc. The school Sage goes to will be mainly farm kids I bet!
The school has about 60 kids for 6 grades and everyone says it`s a great school. The Epps oldest boy said he can help Sage if he needs it, the middle brother`s room is closest and he can go and get him he said!
Well, that should be enough for now! Sorry can`t post pics until we get our PC from the States in the mail, then we`ll have plenty to post!

We`ve seen the farm-finally!

Hey, hey, I`m finally writing again, it feels like it`s been awhile. We got back from Naganuma and the farm and a nice relaxing visit to an onsen\inn. Kenji`s dad treated us all to a night there for Chieko`s(K`s mom) birthday and their anniversary which are a day apart. An onsen is a hot spring bath, for those of you who haven`t heard that word. They are all over Japan because of all the volcanic activity that heats the springs. They are like a spa most closely. Wonderful! (You must be able to check your Victorian modesty at the door however to fully enjoy, which takes Americans some time and some people never quite can enjoy it I don`t think. I am not one of those people, lucky for me, mother-in-law and all!)They are now divided into men and women, at least almost all are. You go into a dressing room area and undress, then put your belongings into a basket or a locker. Everyone has a long narrow washcloth that you can hold in front of you for some modesty?! When you go into the hot bath part, you see rows of faucets and handheld showers low to the ground with little plastic stools and basins next to them. You sit and rinse off and then go and soak in the hot water for awhile. Then you go back and wash yourself and soak some more. Usually there are several,to quite a few different choices of pools, either temperature, bubbles, minerals, etc. Lots of times a sauna and water falling from high to massage your back. And then my favorite, the rotenboro, which is the outdoor hot tub equiv., but better! Most of them are made to look natural, with a floor made of smooth rocks and big boulder-like rocks around the edge, some landscaping, sometimes a great view. I was so thrilled when it was snowing during this visit. That is one of my favorite memories from the first time I lived here. Views of snow covered mountains from a steaming hot pool while snowflakes melt on your skin. Heaven! Okay, enough of raving. This is one thing Kenji really missed.
I still haven`t got to the farm yet!! Gotta go shopping for some winter boots for me though, it`s snowing again and my tennies aren`t really good enough, and untying and tying them over and over again to go in and out of houses is getting old anyway! Slip on shoes are best here. Later...

Day of bargain hunting

Well, we had a blast sledding yesterday. Jiji knew of a great little kid sledding place around the corner, with a nice short slope. The kids went up and down a million times, especially enjoying a little jump over a big bump. Lucas loved it too, riding in front of Kai until he fell asleep cozy in his snowsuit in Jiji`s arms. It was a great day for being out, sunny and warm, maybe 50`s F. The snow started to melt, people were out with their shovels and ice picks putting snow from around their houses, driveways and sidewalks out onto the street to melt in the sun. Today Kenji`s dad said they don`t even clear snow unless it snows at least 5 inches and then only on the big streets, everyone is so used to it here. Today we went to the next town about a half hour away to bargain hunt, actually just to check out some used stores. Very pleased to find that we should be able to furnish our house nicely at very good prices. Since used things aren`t valued as much here, the prices are right. Like a nice table and chairs for $120, a couch for $60-80, a computer desk for $35, etc. Many look very new, and if they look used much at all are very cheap. The clothes, especially kids are very cheap too. We only bought an umbrella stroller today, we`ll wait to see what space we have and what will be given to us. The way there was interesting especially for the boys. Kai`s biggest interest was the train, he kept looking for tracks. But we went along the ocean for alot of the way, big waves today. Many snow capped mountains to be seen along the way too. Sage wants me to promise that we will climb to the top while we are here, like the biggest of course. I told him I wasn`t sure I have the energy to hike up the biggest with three kids(well, that`s just an excuse really, I don`T think I`d have that much energy anyway!), but maybe we`ll find a smaller one to climb for sure! There is one naked (not snow or tree covered) mountain that has a new top, it is bare and steaming, several years ago it erupted and grew alot, burying some building and people in the process. The town we went to is a shipping port it seems, we went around in a big shipyard and by a huge oil refinery with tanks that are so huge it`s difficult to get your mind around, and of course the huge tanker ships(sure that`s not a technical term!) docked around it. The gigantic cranes were neat to see too. There was a place where they stockpile wood chips to sell to paper factories, with mountains of chips and a bulldozer type of thing moving around on top plus a roller coaster of a conveyer belt all around the yard. Then a place with logs sorted into all different sizes. Also a big scrap metal place where they were using a loader with a big magnet to move the metal around. And many, many huge old warehouses. We ate lunch at good old McD`s. Same old stuff, except Lucas had fish nuggets, and it was real fish:). Oh, and my big complaint as many of you have heard me say, the awful toys we have in the US, thankfully, they were nice little bulldozers with faces here! A new thing here, self service gas stations. Every other time we`ve been here they were all super full service, this means gas can be a little cheaper. It`s still quite a bit more here.
The boys are eating well here, although Sage and Kai`s age difference is clear, Kai is still in the picky stage at 3, while in the last year Sage has jumped the hurdle to being brave to try new things and liking more variations. Sage so far has tried and liked some fish, scallops, a little sashimi(raw fish), some different ways of eating familiar things also. He hasn`t liked everything, but this is a big improvement from previous visits, especially being willing to try things. Kai`s diet is a little more restricted:) but he has been eating pretty well anyway. We`ve tried to say he needs to try things at least, or give him a choice between this dish or that to eat and it`s working fairly well. Lucas is beginning to get used to fish also and is eating pretty good too. Kenji`s mom puts out quite a spread each meal, especially breakfast which for us is usually cereal or oatmeal and occasionally eggs(when dad was cooking!). Breakfast here is cereal, many times eggs, sausage, some veggie, yogurt, toast(white bread cut like 2 inches thick!), tea, sometimes jello. Sage says I wish we could live here forever, just for the breakfast! We are eating well, now I have a high standard to live up to I guess! It is typical to have many dishes and eat small amounts of many things at Japanese meals, you typically have 3-4 dishes to eat out of-a soup bowl, a rice bowl, a small plate, maybe a smaller plate for dipping sushi or sashimi in soy sauce, etc. Traditionally it is not typical to drink water or anything with your food, but to drink hot tea afterwards, except for with noodles and curry, ice water is served. Although they eat meat, it is usually small amounts in a dish. I asked the boys to wash dishes last night and it is their new favorite thing to do! No dish washer here, haven`t seen one in stores, there are little dish dryers I`ve seen for sale, they are like a dish drainer with a lid that heats air and dries the dishes! Never thought about it but although there are many dishes, they are all small so easy for them to handle and the sinks are lower too. I asked them if they would like to keep doing this when we move into our own place and they said every night! Yoohoo! They did a good job too! Tomorrow we leave for a night in an onsen hotel for Kenji`s mom`s b-day, she will be 72 I think. She doesn`t act it! It is in the town we will be living in so we can register Sage at his school and visit it and register for the socialized health insurance, which you must do where you live. Also of course to visit the farm( which actually is called Menno Village), yeah! I`m excited to finally see where we will be spending the next two years and be able to make a list of what we need etc. Then I can really tell you what our life may be like! Sorry can`t post any pics for awhile, the program we need isn`t downloaded on Hiroshi`s(K`s dad`s) computer and don`t want to bother him with stuff he doesn`t need. So you`ll see a bunch later. One last thing-Sage is intrigued with the warmed toilet seats ("I love it!")and also the fact that there is a faucet on the back of the toilet that runs when you flush the toilet so you can rinse your hands off(no soap). There is almost never a sink with the toilet, which is separate from the bath. Well, better go help set the table.

Life at JiJi and BaBa`s

Hi again, been so busy emailing mom about important mail that haven`t had a chance to write in a few days:). She is being our secretary for our Missouri permanent address, lucky her! But it is a much quieter job than hosting us for sure! Thanks to mom and dad on that end and this, for hosting us on either end of our move, what would we do without them!! The boys had so much fun at Grandma and Grandpa`s in Missouri with uncles and aunts, Grandmas and Grandpas and my cousins Austin, Ashlyn and Lerran. We were thankful for many nice days spent in dirt, sand, and on "4-ride wheelers" as Kai calls them with Uncle Eric and his brother Brent. Thankfully mommy took her ride last of all,as they were loading them up,so daddy`s description of their rides would be a moot point in scaring me! Kenji is pretty smart sometimes, hee, hee. Good memories, good memories....
We are now settled in for a few weeks here at Kenji`s parents. I`m enjoying a quiet moment or two now, doing laundry, a story of its own(someday I`ll explain!), while Kenji and Baba(what the kids call Grandma here) are outside. Kenji clearing some snow, and Baba watching kids. We are doing well with jet lag. Of course, that means getting sleepy at 7 o`clock sharp every night and waking up early and trying to get back to sleep for awhile. But not too bad really. Gotta go sledding, talk later:)

We are here!

Hi everyone, I made Kenji let me post this time, I never thought I`d have to fight him for it, I thought this would be my thing, but that`s good! Get ready for more details then you ever wanted now that I`m taking over! We made it safely here, as many of you have heard already. We had a smooth trip I`d say. Any fears we had about the boys and travelling etc, were unfounded-Sage and Kai were great. Lucas did good too, just fussed some on the long flight since we made him stay in his carseat alot. The seatbelt sign was on for most of the flight, although we had very little turbulence, thankfully. The older boys carried their own weight cheerfully in the airports and didn`t complain, I`m glad they saw it as a great adventure! Kai only started saying when are we going to land, the last 3 or 4 hours of the long flight and I was able to quell that by playing with him and convincing him to take a nap with the rest of us for the last few hours. Sage made us shake our heads by enjoying the movie `Cats and Dogs` 3.5 times thru and complaining when they shut it off before landing. And he laughed every time! Thank God for inflight entertainment! Those little tv screens made life much easier for all of us, Lucas even enjoyed watching without earphones. Lucas also found a black dog similar looking to Uncle Eric`s black lab Gunner(who he loves), in the inflight magazine. He spent many minutes saying Gun-Gun and kissing him. I tore the picture out for him to keep! He said pairplane numerous times during the trip. Kai was very excited by the airplanes and airports, and the people movers, the first flight was nice because the older two boys got window seats and it wasn:t such a big plane so they saw alot of the ground. The worst moment of the trip, which wasn`t bad really, was collecting our myriads of luggage in Tokyo to go thru customs. We were so glad that things have changed there and Kenji was allowed to go thru immigration with us in the new family line. Before I had to take the kids and go thru the foreigner line by ourselves, which inevitibly was way long. We did not have to wait at all! Yeah! and then after collecting our two luggage carts full of luggage and trying to carry the other bags that wouldn`t fit and Lucas when we got to the customs line, they just asked a few questions and mercifully waved us on thru, God is good! We did not have hardly any waiting time on our layovers by the time our work was done, and no delays or trouble. My favorite thing was that we had two sets of 3 seats to ourselves on the long flight, which made for lots of space and no worrries with other passengers. God answered all our and your travelling prayers and for that we are thankful. Noone was sick and the only sufferers were Kenji and I because of our colds, our ears hurt us with landing especially. But that is definitely bearable, since the kids didn`t seem to have any trouble. They slept a decent amount thruout. We were very happy to not have any trouble landing in snowy Sapporo, much to the boys excitement. The boys` tiredness abated upon seeing a gigantic fish tank as soon as we entered the airport with a fish with eyes the size of your fist! There were two boys age 6 and 3 also on that flight who I pointed out to Sage, were bilingual, see how cool that is, hint, hint! Sage enjoyed watching an cartoon DVD in English in Kenji`s younger sister`s husband`s car on the way to Jiji and Baba`s house(what the kids call Grandma and Grandpa here!). He laughed and laughed the whole way while Lucas, Kai and I all slept soundly, it finished up just as we drove in the drive. Very thoughtful of Shunsuke!