Pudding Slip & Slide

ReAnn, this post is for you :) Thank you for the awesome idea! Love you tons!

The kindergarteners started school 1 week later than everyone else, so while they were home that last week we decided to celebrate with some of the neighbors.

Two years ago my friend ReAnn introduced us to Pudding Slip & Slide and my kids still talk about how fun it was...it was time to do it again.

Taste testing to see if they liked it. I love the choice of finger Tia always uses :)

Two thumbs up from Briley.

Painting the kids with pudding.

Getting started.

Not sure if this is still cool.

Cute girls covered in pudding.

Attacking each other.

I think this is my favorite picture (thanks Austin for taking it). I love the handprint on Tia's forehead.

Poor Jayden started itching because the pudding had milk in it. For some reason I didn't think it would affect him since he hasn't had a skin reaction in over 2 years. I was wrong. He could not stop itching, had red splotches everywhere, and started sneezing like crazy. We had to make an extremely fast run to the shower, wash off, take some benadryl, say a quick prayer, drink lots of water, and keep a close watch on him for a while. Luckily it didn't get worse. I was pretty scared there for a bit. I thought he was getting better with his allergy, but he most definitely is still allergic to milk. I'm obviously Mother of the Year right?...makes a "milk" chocolate pudding slip & slide for my son who has a milk allergy...wow! Thanks ReAnn for the new tip on how to make it with water...we will be doing that next time!

My friend Austin made all the moms their own little glass of pudding to enjoy while the kids were having fun :)

Thanks friends for celebrating the start of Kindergarten with us.

Family Home Evening Activity

This is what we did for our Family Home Evening (FHE) activity last week. It had nothing to do with the lesson, but it was "TOTALLY AWESOME" (from the mouth of our 5 year old) and definitely worth the fun!

Attacking Darth Vader (thanks Grandma Andrews for the life size cardboard cutouts-they are a HUGE hit in our house).

Destroying the DARK SIDE is serious stuff!

Aunt Tera...recognize this? You deserve a big THANK YOU for this Christmas gift (I know it's been 3 or 4 years, but never too late for another thank you)! It has entertained kids for HOURS at a time! They LOVE it!

Trip to Matsumoto

Last month our friends, Scott & Norma Aston, invited us on a little vacation with them. It was a perfect overnight trip up to Matsumoto City (about 2 hours away).

Matsumoto Castle and its moat.

Just being goofy...mostly because no one wanted to smile for another picture.

Matsumoto Castle grounds. What a beautiful place to take a picture...why wasn't anyone else doing it??? Maybe it had to do with the signs that were in Japanese around the perimeter of the grass :/ oops...shane was extremely embarrassed (because he could actually read the signs). Norma and I were taking the blame because we COULDN'T read them :0

Scott, Norma, our volunteer English tour guide, and us right after our tour. This guy did a great job explaining everything in the castle to us. It was very interesting.

Finding things in Matsumoto City to entertain the kids.

We heard about this Wasabi Farm that apparently is one of the biggest wasabi farms in Japan. We had lots of extra time left in the day, so we headed on over to check it out. We laughed the entire time because none of us even like wasabi and here we were touring a farm of wasabi plants. The funny thing was...there were lots of people there. Maybe they were all there for the wasabi ice cream...which ended up not being too bad.

Underneath those black nets are the wasabi plants. They are soaked in running water that is freezing cold (at least it felt freezing cold).

We don't know who this is, but we named her "Princess Wasabi" :)

I'm not a huge fan of my kids jumping on their beds at home so about a year ago I told my kids they could only jump on hotel beds (thanks Michele E. for that advice). I thought they would forget, but EVERY TIME we stay in a hotel room that is the FIRST thing they do.

Here they are wearing their Yukata's (Japanese robes) right before we went to the Japanese hot spring...oh how we love those!

Thanks Scott and Norma for a fabulous day! It was so fun laughing with you guys. At the end of the night Jayden turned to us and said "I really like Scott & Norma...they are fun!" We love you guys!

Service in Sendai

Last weekend Shane and I went up to Sendai with our Church to do some service in the recent earthquake/tsunami affected area. It was super exciting to be able to help in a little way. Our church charters buses up to Sendai 3 times a week until the end of September, so any member in Japan (and any of their friends) can go up and do service. I just love our church for so many reasons...especially how they care about other nations and are willing to help in any way they can.

They gave us these yellow shirts that say "mormon helping hands" in Japanese on them. You could see us from a mile away :) These are some friends we met from Yokosuka base (not too far from our base).

The city we went to had water about 1 meter high after the tsunami hit. Everyone's 1st level of their homes and businesses were affected to some degree.

Our task for the day was digging mud out of ditches so the drains in the city could work again.

First we (actually the men) had to lift out all the cement slabs covering the ditches.

Then we shoveled mud out of the ditches...

...into these white bags.

Here's a muddy ditch.

Here's a clean ditch.

Here's us sweeping the street.

Here's a street with a clean working ditch :)

The people in charge kept making us all take breaks. It was fun getting to know some of the locals and some of the Japanese members on the trip.

This girl (Tomoko) is a member in Yokohama. She served her mission in Hawaii and is just about to get married. She was so nice. She kept translating everything for us when Shane wasn't near by.

This man temporarily lives on this street. He was so sweet to come out and help us the whole time. He actually lives further away, but his house has too much damage to live in it, so he had to move to this block until he can somehow get his home fixed. Oh how I wish we could have helped him get back into his house.

Using a "rice spatula" that we found earlier in the ditch :) to clean mud off the sides.

Our group of Mormons. There were people from all over Japan in this group. One family even drove up from Osaka (about 7 hours) to take another 7 hour bus up to Sendai and back. It was really fun getting to know these Latter Day Saints from all over Japan.

On the way home we drove through a city that was hit pretty badly by a tsunami. The city was deserted...people could not live there anymore...it was really sad and hard to see.

There were piles of rubble & debris all over the city with stuff collected from the streets, businesses, and broken down homes.

If you look closely you can see how damaged these houses are. This looked like it was a pretty nice area before. They NEVER have any vacant lots anywhere, so all these weeds must be in the place of homes that were torn down or fields that were used for crops.

Please keep praying for Japan. We love this place and are so grateful to be here at this time.

Back to Blogging!

I know, I know...it's been FOREVER since I've posted! There's really NO reason why. I think I just got out of the habit...and that I'm overwhelmed with how much I HAVEN'T blogged, so I just gave up. Well, thanks to some nudging from friends...I'm trying to regain a relationship with my blog :) I'm in the middle of a BIG post (our visit to Utah), but it's going to take me a while, so here's a smaller post just so I can say I'm blogging again :)

TANABATA FESTIVAL

The city near our base had a Summer Festival last week. We dressed the kids up and headed out for "Dinner on a Stick". I didn't get any pictures of our dinner, but basically everything comes on a stick (corn, pineapple, banana's covered in chocolate, chicken, rice wrapped in pork dipped in a yummy sauce, etc). But, our favorite item of the night was...the Shaved Ice. Sorry, we also ate them to fast to take any pictures :/, but they were fabulous!

We just had to take a picture with these cute Japanese kids.

BAKING & BUILDING

Tia received a package from Grandma in the mail this week...it was an EASY BAKE oven. I remember having one of these as a kid and feeling so grown up. The kids were SOOOOO excited to use it!

Making pretzels.

Yum Yum!

Shane and the kids used the boxes from Grandma's packages and built this in the front room (while I was grocery shopping--boring)....

...they were so excited! I think every toy in the house ended up in this fort. Thanks Grandma for making our week an exciting one and thanks Shane for being one awesome dad!

I'll be back soon with more posts than you'll be able to handle :)