Merry Christmas Everyone!

"Neighbors"

We had some visitors at our house a few weeks ago when Lisa got home from her run. We have wild Peacocks that live in the neighborhood. Mostly in the woods behind us, but sometimes they come into the yard for a bite to eat. This day they seemed to have an interest in the roof, the yard and the fence! It has been fun for the boys to see them and no matter how many times we have seen them, we still get excited when we spot another one. Aren't they pretty? Does anybody know what the white ones are? We haven't figured that out yet. So next time any of you comes for a visit, maybe you'll get to meet the "neighbors" too!

Thanksgiving

I am thankful for Brian ( he wasn't here for thanksgiving but he deserves a shout-out because we missed him terribly)
I am thankful for my boys
I'm thankful for Jen and Lisa - some
good guys need to come along and snatch
these two up because they are seriously
wonderful!!
Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Hiking in Japan

Boy's: A couple of day's ago we went for a hike up in the mountains in Japan and had a blast. Hope you enjoy the pictures. Wish you could have been with us...the little girl is only 6 months old and we were huffin and puffin by the time we got to the top but she hadn't even broken a sweat. I think you would have done just fine as well. Love ya and thanks for looking out for Mom for me.
Love dad.

Happy Thanksgiving

Today Jake had his "harvest feast" at school. He was a pilgrim ( he would have preferred to be an indian, but what can you do?!), and we enjoyed round number one of turkey and pumpkin pie.
Tomorrow's pie is cooling on the stove, the house is clean and I'm hoping the turkey is thawed. I just love this time of year!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Really?!

So, today I caught Noah cutting the buttons off of one of my sweaters. It is something that can't be fixed by these untalented hands so, to me, it's ruined. He got in trouble for it but after the tears stopped he said "but mom, I left ONE button on there for you"!. The tone of his voice sounded like he was trying to tell me that he had really done me a favor by leaving that button. And I am fairly certain that he believes that! Oh this boy, not sure how to get through to him!!!

Jake and Noah, Mom is heading home tomorrow. We have had a lot of fun over here experiencing all the fun things that Japan has to offer. Above is some chunky tuna, raw. It tasted really good, with Wasabi and soy sauce.
This is the fun Shuboya square...there are lots of people here and they don't slow down! It is a big shopping district with lots of places to eat and shop.

Your mom wore me out with boot shopping...
And it rained a little while we were out. But your Mommy is lovely in whatever scenario she is in...I didn't mind the boot shopping that much!We found a cool little cafe...it is made completely out of ice. It was 23 degrees in there and all the tables and chairs were made out of ice. The cups were made out of ice as well, and they gave us coats and gloves to keep us somewhat warm. They make the ice in Europe and ship it over here to make this place. It was pretty cool, pun intended.
And of course, we enjoyed the hot coffee of starbucks as well...we enjoyed all our time together. Your mother and I had a blast together on this vacation, but we missed you boys a lot. Pray that Mom has a safe trip back to America and you will see her soon. I love and miss you, I will be home in a couple of months...take good care of Mom until I get back. Love ya, Dad and Mom

Alright Me boy's: Today, we went to the Imperial Palace in downtown Tokyo. The Prince and Princess of Japan live here, but you can't go inside or see them cause it is their private residence/house. It is a rather large house that they live in and it is surrounded by lots of tree's and gardens. They even have their own moat!
This is a statue of a Samurai on a horse, if you zoom in really close just behind his right hand, you can see a helicopter!
This is their moat, pretty cool, eh! They even have their own swans, coy and other birds. It was unique to see so many creatures in the middle of downtown.
Of course, no palace would be complete without high walls and bridges. On the right side of this picture you can see one of their house's peeking out behind the tree's.
More pictures of the wild-life...these might be wood ducks...or they might just be ducks! I am not sure. They were friendly cause they thought we had food.
They had a water-fountain park which was pretty cool. You couldn't get in the water and play around, but the views were really nice and the water cooled the air there to make it nice and comfortable. The tree's are turning fall colors and the leaves are falling, made Mom happy to see it like this. She really enjoys the fall.

We went to a toy store and bought you some toy's. I won't tell you what we got you but boy are you going to like it when you get them...cause Mom will be home to give them to you! They had this cool car track at the top of the toy store and were letting people race the cars while we were there. It looked like lots of fun...but no, we didn't buy this for you cause Mom wouldn't be able to carry it in her purse! We love and miss you! Mom will be home in 3 day's; be good for Auntie Lisa and get better. Remember, no having fun while we are gone. Love you. Dad and MomPS. This is Dad; I saw a lot of cool motorcycles like this one in the picture. You have to help me convince Mom that I need a motorcycle just like this for Christmas. Can you remind her of this when she gets home? Thanks.

Boys: We traveled again today, this time back to Tokyo. We took the fast "bullet train" again and had a nice quiet discussion about what toy's we were going to bring back for you while we were cruising across the Japanese landscape. When we got to Tokyo, we went to the Tokyo Tower (11m taller than the Eiffel Tower) and took a look around the city.
These three pictures are of Tokyo at night. There are a lot of lights and lots of people here. It gets dark around 5:30 at night so there is a lot of things to left to do after the sun goes down. They like to play soccer and baseball here, just like you do back in America. Wouldn't that be fun to play soccer beneath big lights like that in the middle of the city?

This morning when we got into our taxi cab, our driver told us he loved American movies and sang us two songs from some of the movies that he has watched. He said that he has watched "White Christmas" over 200 times...that is actually more times than you boys have watched "Cars". Impressive, eh? We love and miss you both. Mom will be home in 4 more day's so keep checking off your calendars. Love, Dad and Mom.
WE LOVE YOU!!!

Boy's: here we are again at a Japanese "garden" thinking of you. Hope all is well back in South Carolina and that you are checking off your day's till Mom comes home. She is being good about checking off her day's as well while she has been here. Today, we ate at McDonalds for breakfast and had pizza for dinner, not bad for being in Japan!
Today we went to the top of a mountain just outside Kyoto and went for a little hike. Since we have been here, we have traveled on an airplane, a subway, a train, a taxi, a cable-car and and a Gondola. We traveled in the Cable car (picture above), the Gondola (picture below) and the taxi today.

These are the Japanese mountains that we saw at the top of the hill.
They have big trees in their forests, somewhat like Yosemite. We didn't see any animals while we were out in the forest, we were kinda bummed about that.
This is one of their many gardens. They have many little places to sit and look at the landscape. My favorite was the seat carved out of a tree stump. Love and miss you! Dad and Mom.

The Second Day

Boy's: The Japanese culture here is pretty unique. They like lot's of tree's and vegetation in their cities and castle's. The picture above is cool because that is one big tree, but it seems that there is some sort of different plant growing in the first set of branches. Also, your mom is beautiful. The picture below shows some of the large branches being propped up by sticks so the tree's won't sag as much.
Today, we went to a temple and two castle's. This little guy is one of four holding up a water fountain. He doesn't look all that happy, does he? Poor statue.
Here is the inside of a temple...lots of gold and stuff.

This is one of the gardens in the Imperial Castle. They put a lot of work into keeping these tree's looking nice and the grounds looking clean. Does our back-yard look like this? We might have to get a rake and start working at it, eh! Maybe you can surprise mom when she comes home!
This is one of the gates to get into the Imperial Castle.
Here is mom and I in one of the gardens at the castle thinking of you boy's again. Hope you are enjoying your time with Auntie Lisa, we saw the fun pictures of you all at the beach. Keep up the good work of helping around the house.
We love and miss you boy's. Mom will be home soon with lots of presents!