Obon

                Hello Family! We had a great weekend last weekend. Celebrating Obon.
  Obon is an annual Buddhist event commemorating one's ancestors. It is believed that each year during obon, the ancestor's spirits return to this world in order to visit their relatives.

Saturday we took a bus for an hour long ride, part of that ride went over and under the ocean! They made a tunnel that goes under the ocean. Pretty dang cool eh? We went with Our friends Tyler and Kyo. This video shoes the parade we attended, were they carried the spirits in a temple like thing up and down the street, shaking them to wake them up! Watch out for naked bottoms... the men wear wearing thongs!

Each group wore matching Yukata's.

Sunday we were lucky enough to have a festival right outside our door! We heard some really loud drums and went out exploring. The "dancing" was beautiful and looked really hard. A TV station interviewed us. Makes us famous right!

As if all that wasn't enough fun!? Monday, John had the day off so we went to the park and fed the coy fish at our favorite park..

 

And later that night we went with our friends Joey and Chelsea to watch as one town released their ancestors back into the other world I guess? Or where ever they hand out till next year :).

 

Things are going great! I can honestly say I like living here. We can't wait to visit in 6 weeks though!

The 4th

Happy 4th of July!!!!!!!

We had a great 4th of July! Mostly we celebrated John's birthday, we also listened to the classic Proud to be an American song. Told Dallin all about why we should be proud to be an American. He sang along to the song, so I'm pretty sure he is proud ;).  We found sparklers and lit those off our balcony.

 For Johns Birthday I attempted to make a fertada (no clue how to spell that) for breakfast, and we went out to OkonominYaki for dinner. It was pretty yummy! lol Then we came home to have his cake (brownies with a reeses in the middle) It was a great night!

Johns work got him a cake!

MY BIRTHDAY!! HURRAY!

My sweet husband decided to give me a pamper Holly night! He made me a yummy yummy dinner of Gnocci and corn on the cob! You can see below the delicous desert he got me. He knows me to well.

For the pampering part he gave me a pedicure, and even painted my toes! He made me promises not to put the pictures on face book. But he said nothing about our blog mwahaha. Then he have me an aroma touch massage! Talk about heaven! Dallin was a perfect angel the whole time!

On to the many faces of Dallin!!!


Dallin the Scholar

Dallin the curious

Dallin Bright eyes

Dallin the game player

Dallin the hungry

Dallin the appreciative son!


Well the rumors are true... Looks like we will be here till just before Thanksgiving. That way John can train the new guy coming out to take his place. Not his job, but his place as an American employee if that makes sense... They want to make sure and keep the culture of the American Office, so they want an American employee or two in the office. I'm excited to talk to the replacements wife, and help her get acclimated. Hopefully with a little help she wont have as hard of time adjusting.
Miss you guys!! Its getting hotter and hotter here.... A little frightening if you ask me! ;) As my brothers know... I hate sweatyness!! 

WE MADE IT!!AGAIN!

The flight was pretty rough, I think Dallin needs a break from all the traveling. Thank goodness he wont have to fly again for 3 months. Here is the Sumo match from before we left, and our AMAZING new apartment!

The men were huge. It's sad, they only get 1-2 minutes of fame.

OUR NEW PLACE!!!!!!
Our friends the Linders moved most of us stuff in before we got there, they are to freaking nice!!!!!!

I'm showing you the bathroom first because its amazing!!! The Toilet lid opens with a button, it had all the normal buday (spelt?) functions and it plays music!!!! It has lots of different songs!

It's all so clean!

The shower has mood lights!

Its a big TV! nice couch, the place is clean, and open and there is a huge window going outside. I LOVE LOVE IT!!! Only down side is the freeway is outside our window. Kinda loud. But hey I'm not complaing. We actually have a dinner table to sit at!!!!

It sounds like we might be able to fix Dallins head issues on our own. So we are going to try and do everything we can, and then we will just come in September and hope for the best. The doctor wasnt worried about waiting until then. Hurray for good news!
Our new little town is exactly what I would have imagined Japan to be. I didnt realize how much our last town had been influenced by foreigners. Its so much fun, I wish you could all come visit. We have room now so if your considering it, please do!!!!
Miss you all

Happy Easter

Happy Easter!!!!!!!
We had dinner with the Linders for Easter. She found a ham and we had pot roast too. So yummy. The weather has been so perfect that the cherry blossums are blooming everywhere. Seriously Everywhere. It is so beautiful, like snow. We also watched conference which was great. The Linders are incredibly generous! We are so blessed to know them. Their great friends and their kids are a lot of fun.

DALLIN MEET DALLIN...... They're twins I swear!

KaMakura

This Giant buddha usd to be inside a temple. After a tsunami the temple was washed away, and he was left. We had the best weather day on Monday 72 degrees!!!! Dallin loves being able to look around outside. Next the Buddha picture is some giant flip flops. We've seen them at lots of temples.. pretty rad!

To be or not to be

Dallin LOVES bath time!

We are all doing great. John is rocking it up at his job. They love him to death. He takes the train to work, well two trains. Takes about 30 min to get there. The grand opening for the Japan office is next week so there is even more to do.

Our friends the Linders are watching Dallin this friday so we can go to the temple. I get to go through a temple in another country!! How cool is that?

We are settling in on planning to stay for 6 months here. The summer weather gets really really hot so when we come back we are going to stock Dallin up on summer clothes!

Adventures !

We had a BEAUTIFUL day in the park

This is Shibuya, the busiest cross walk in the world. Ever 3 minutes or so mass amounts of people come through. It was pretty cool to watch.

Vendors sell all sorts of things..

lol

Asakusa.. A really huge temple about 40 min away. There were tons of vendors with all sorts of weird things... As you can see a tasty little morsel below. With squid legs hanging out.

I LOVE THESE FAT GUYS!! They were almost the size of Dallin

Our cutie pie is almost 3 months old!

They have amazing Bakery's!