Grandma & Grandpa Atkin's Visit to Japan

Words could NEVER express how EXCITING it was to have family come and visit, so I'm going to try and let the pictures tell it all (prepare yourself for LOTS of pictures)...I can't leave any of them out!

These are the fun things we did with them:

RECEIVED BLANKETS & LOTS OF HUGS FROM GRANDMA & GRANDPA

Can you tell how excited everyone was??? The kids were so excited that I could barely calm them down to go to bed. Tia bawled when she had to say goodnight.

ATE BREAKFAST AT SUNRISE BAKERY

This is Jayden & Tia's favorite breakfast shop...probably because they can get away with only eating donuts for breakfast.

HAD A GREAT TIME EATING OUT

This is our favorite Yakiniku restaurant (Korean BBQ).

At the end of dinner Grandpa said..."that was fun, but I felt like I had to WORK for my dinner"...I just had to laugh...that's totally my dad!

All the shoes lined up just outside our little room "facing out" so that we could step right into them...oh, and my dad's head :)

PAINTED HANDS TO PUT ON JAYDEN'S WALL

Grandpa's hand is the green "leaf" on the top branch and grandma is the multi-colored one that is hanging the wrong way...Grandma loves to complicate things...if you've ever been her server at a restaurant you'd completely understand :) Gosh...making this post is really making me miss my parents! I just love you guys!

ASAKUSA TEMPLE

Huge lantern.

We put 100 Yen (about $1) in the silver boxes, gave them a good shake, and got our fortunes. We all had good fortunes except for little Tia. Read below...no really, you need to read the funny English translation...I just love Japan!

So we did what the Japanese do when they get a bad fortune and we folded it up and tied it on a string near a tree. And then we gave her a new one :)...simple as that!

Washing our hands and getting ready to enter the temple.

We found a couple of Buddha's so of course the kids wanted pictures.

The kids are pretending to be Pagoda's.

Looking out of the temple.

Then we found a nearby park to let the kids get their wiggles out.

The kids loved the swings....

...and so did Grandma!

TOKYO TOWER

Standing on the glass window 475 feet above the parking lot. Can you tell that Jayden is NOT very excited! He wanted so badly to stand on it, but it just made him sick.

This is as close as Grandma would get :)

I love this picture because I'm starting to be able to see my mom in me. I always thought that my mom looked EXACTLY like her mother...and I LOVED that! I also loved that my mom and grandma had the same hands and that mine looked very similar to theirs! I'm glad I'm hers...and I'd love to look exactly like her...I love her to death!

Jayden & Tia building their own Tokyo Tower downstairs in the play area.

TOKYO CRUISE

We went on such a fun little cruise through Tokyo Bay. We even went right under Rainbow Bridge (the bridge we're all pointing at). This was one of my favorite things we did while in Tokyo with my parents.

DINNER WITH THE ALBRECHTS

The Albrecht's are my parent's friends who are the current mission presidents of the Tokyo Mission. Our little family has gotten to know them really well in the last year we've been here (they arrived 2 weeks before us and we leave the same month in 1 1/2 years). My kids even call them Grandma & Grandpa. Thanks Albrecht's for being our Japan Grandparents. We love you guys!

MT. FUJI

Tia using Grandma's neck pillow on our 2 1/2 hour drive to Mt. Fuji. Grandma always has cool things.

Mt. Fuji on a cloudy day. This was the best view we got of it, but it was still fun to visit and walk around for a little while.

Grandma & Grandpa bought the kids miniature walking sticks so that they could "hike" Mt. Fuji like their mom and dad. They thought that was pretty cool.

Posing with their hiking sticks.

It was so beautiful up there.

JUMPING ON THE TRAMPOLINE

This was probably one of our favorite nights!!! Grandma & Grandpa told us stories on the trampoline while looking at the stars and playing with glow sticks.

What a BLAST!!!

SHOWA PARK

Of course we took Grandma & Grandpa to our favorite park.

We rode the train around the whole thing.

We walked around and looked at flowers.

Saw some cool bonsai trees.

Walked through the Japanese Garden. (Aren't my parents just the cutest???)

Played in the Dragons.

& jumped on the bouncy domes.

Even Grandma & Grandpa tried it out :)

Boy did we have a good time!!!

THEN IT WAS TIME TO SAY GOODBYE :(

We can't believe how fast the last 7 days went. It was REALLY hard to say goodbye. The 3 of us sat on the grass and bawled as the airport shuttle drove away.

We miss you Grandma & Grandpa, but are SO EXCITED you came to visit! We will ALWAYS remember how fun it was. And thanks for helping us not be so lonely while Shane was gone. It sure helped time pass quickly! We love you both so much!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

for coming to visit us!!!

Off to the Philippines & October Dinner

Shane took off for a humanitarian mission to the Philippines last week. He's super excited! So far he has already met a lot of really neat people and next week he gets to help the Philippine military vaccinate a bunch of their animals. Hopefully I'll have some pictures to post soon. All I know is he's having a blast and I'm LOVING SKYPE! I love being able to talk to him face to face even when he's in another country. Technology is super cool!

Here are some pictures of his last night home. We already miss him like crazy but are really excited to see him in a few weeks. In the meantime we have had family in town to help the time pass. It has definitely helped! Family rocks!!!

We had a "Welcome October" dinner. I don't know what that is...we just made it up at the last minute. I needed a fun way to give the kids their Halloween PJ's and thought that this would do the job. I was inspired by my sister-in-law Tera who ALWAYS celebrates each holiday in so many fun ways. She's amazing! I decided I would start with Halloween, so here's my small attempt on celebrating the month of October. We had an all orange dinner and opened some gifts (Halloween cereal & Halloween fruit snacks for the month). We also gave the kids some Halloween PJ's that have been SOOOO fun! I got them online at Old Navy a month or two ago. Anyways here's our goofy family celebrating October.

About 5 minutes before dinner we all made a VERY POOR attempt at finding orange clothes to wear. We realized that is one color that none of us have in our closets. I'm embarrassed to even post this picture but it's part of the memories so I have to :/

Our "Orange" dinner.

This was our first year to do this so I wasn't too creative. Hopefully next year our dinner will get more interesting.

Then we frosted pumpkin cookies. Yummy!

And changed into our Halloween pajamas...

...that glow in the dark...super cool!

(Side note: the PJ's actually glow all night long. We all slept in the same room at a hotel this week and it was way freaky every time I woke up in the middle of the night and could see them both glowing in their beds.)

The morning Dad left the kids had a blast....

...playing Legos with him....ALL morning long!

Have fun dad! We MISS YOU like crazy!!!

First time...

Today was our (EVERY one of us) first time to ever spray paint our hair. Boring....I know...but we turned over a new leaf today. The base had a party celebrating kids and TIA had no fear and walked right up to the spray painting booth and asked them to spray her hair. The rest of us needed more convincing, but by the end of the party we had all done it.

One of us washed it out of our hair within the first 10 minutes of being home. I won't name names but it wasn't me or the kids :) he he

Thanks Tia for helping us all have a great time!

Backwards Day

This post is for Tia. She had the opportunity to fill in at a pre-preschool 2 days ago (she's does not normally go to one) because a child was absent. The class just happened to be celebrating backwards day on that particular day. She was SO excited because 1) she got to go to school like her big brother and 2)because she was able to do something totally silly. Here are some pictures for her to look back at and remember that silly day.

Do any of you have your kids look back through your blog? For the last two years Shane has been sitting with the kids once or twice a week and looking through our blog together. My kids will LAUGH their heads off for hours looking at silly pictures and watching videos that they think are hilarious. It is so fun to watch them bust up laughing as they remember fun experiences! We love it! Plus, it helps motivate me to keep the blog going.

This is my attempt of trying to do her hair backwards (and upside down).

Tia in 30 seconds

I curled Tia's hair the other day so I wanted to take a picture (I rarely get around to curling her board straight hair). I asked Tia to just stand and smile for me and this is what I got...all with in a couple of seconds...

(This one is my favorite! I love the stance and the furrowed brows.)

We are always on our toes with this one. But how can you not love that little face?!