Little Joys

It's the missing hair tie!  YAY!  Grace found it in the pocket of Sarah's sweater this afternoon.

And we are all so happy!  It's the little things...

Remembering the Tragedy

The apartment building we are living in has a blog for its' tenants (mostly foreigners) to look at for ideas and activities to do while staying in Osaka.  This afternoon I was looking at old posts on the blog and I thought the posting on the year anniversary of the Earthquake and Tsunami was touching and I just wanted to share it with all of you...I've come to understand that people here do not really refer to it by these names (earthquake, tsunami), but with hurt and sadness in their eyes.  And, you just know what they are talking about.

After one year

It has been one year since the tragedy had happened.
We Japanese were in big shock and scared uncertain future.

However many people even who are not Japanese, have given us hand to stand up.

We are appreciated and it made us feel stronger.

We should learn from the tragedy not make that happened again, also we will keep remember your help and how we felt back then.

We would like to say “thank you very much” for everyone all over the world, as a member of Japan.

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The Japan Earthquake and Tsunami took the life of 19,000 people in March 2011.  To help us gain a little perspective...the city of Burlington has 16,000; the cities Florence and Lake in the Hills, IL has 29,000; the cities of Withamsville, Amelia, Batavia and Bethel have a combied population of 16,500; Barrington, IL has 10,000; and Danville, IL has a population of 33,000. 

A Simple Gift

Remember the little one-year old that Grace was playing with at the park?  The mama made these for the girls.  She specifically wanted Grace to have the pink ones and then had me pick a set for Sarah and I chose purple. 

So, if you see these in the girls hair when we come home hopefully your heart will smile as much as ours because you will understand they came from the hands and heart of a woman in Japan who does not speak English, but enjoyed our company just the same.  And, if you happen to see that one of the girls is wearing TWO purple ones, please be overjoyed with me that I will have found the other one.  Because I can't find it anywhere...

Commenting on Our Blog

I found a setting the other day and I think you should be able to now comment on the blog, if you want and even if you have not been able to before.  Someone tested it for me and it worked, so if you would like to try...please do!  We'd love to know who is walking beside us in the adventure - if we haven't heard from you in some other way.

Our Highlight Reel

I've been thinking about writing this post for a little while.  It really, really pressed upon me a couple weeks ago one night when I couldn't sleep.  However, I thought maybe I was just being silly.  But, here I am again feeling pulled to just put this out there.

We are having a great time exploring Japan.  We think the culture here is great.  I do not whatsoever miss the minivan.  Not even when I have to go to the store in the rain...well maybe a just a little, but only because I didn't wear flip flops.

But, this blog is our "highlight reel."  Behind the scenes things happen everyday.  We still struggle sometimes with the girls arguing, someone crying, someone not listening, sometimes bribing them to eat dinner and with missing all of you.  There have been days we don't leave the apartment.  There are still often nights I fantasize about a button you could push to just make them fall asleep right now.  Jim leaves the apartment at 7 a.m., returns about 7-8 p.m. and then works for 2-6 hours more while sitting on the couch listening to some program on TV (and talking to us too).  I'm not making this up.  He walks a mile to come home with a heavy laptop backpack and steel-toe shoes, sometimes in the rain.  Now this crazy schedule seems to be coming to an end...2 nights this week he got home at 6:30 p.m., but this has been true for about the last month.

And we ARE having a great adventure.  There is no doubt.  We can get to the beach in 30ish minutes, the Kids Plaza place is awesome, we saw where they make and created Ramen Noodles (right here in Osaka), we fed monkeys, went to a tea ceremony, a Japanese Baseball game...all among our favorites.

We've made a couple friends which has helped our experience tremendously.  Community and fellowship is important anywhere you go for an extended period.  What I don't post on the blog is that yesterday, when I stopped at our fruit stand the lady put an extra peach in my bag and said, "service" and I went on to the market and got all teary.  I love our fruit stand people, I love Miyuki and we love our friends on the 10th floor.  And it's 99.9% likely that we will never see these people again.  They are the reason, for the girls and I, that our experience here has been so positive during the week and our time here is coming closer to an end.

And all that does not mean that we aren't looking forward to being home.  Not at all.  We do (very much) miss our life at home, but knowing this is temporary makes it easier to wait.  We want to be in America, to be with our family and our friends.  Very much.  We miss our activities, our family and best friends, my MOPS mamas, our church, our cat (well, the girls and I miss the cat) and flavored coffee creamer (that's just me).

But this is our highlight reel.  We are blessed our summer has been filled with so many highlights and new experiences.  But, we have real life behind the scenes too.  And, even those moments are blessings.  Just ones I don't share very often because they certainly are not always camera-worthy and they are probably very similar to your behind the scenes moments too.

"Trials" of Living as a Foreignor

So, when we first got here our apartment had given us a couple packets of dishwasher soap and laundry soap.  I set out to buy more and found this product in the laundry aisle.  If you look at it, would you guess laundry detergent?  It smells fragrant. 

Just to be sure, I did ask a lady in the aisle.  She didn't know the English word and I kept showing her my empty packet of laundry detergent and pointing to this bottle, in effort to ask if it was the same thing.  She looked in her translator to find the word and told me...that this, my friends, is bleach.  It's always good to ask!  And, I did avoid a laundry disaster :)

Giggles

Grace:  Jim went in to check on Grace the other night because she was making some noise in her sleep.  When he went in there she was saying, in her sleep "I just can't walk anymore..."

Sarah:  She will argue with you if you give her noodles (fried noodles) without chopsticks.  She does not believe they can be eaten with a fork.  She insists upon chopsticks, then she proceeds to put one chopstick in each hand and feed herself the noodles.

Grace is Really Fitting in Here...

People on the trains get on, find a seat or place to stand and either 1) listen to their IPOD, 2) read or 3) almost immediately close their eyes to rest.  Grace fits right in on this day...

We Got Mail!

Thanks to Matthew M. for sending us some mail.  It arrived just in time to brighten up a very rainy day.  It seems today begins the "rainy season" here.  The hot and humidity follows...

Bible Study

So, when you can't pack a bunch of books in a suitcase (two of ours was over the 50 lb limit already) this is how your Bible Study looks!  One the left, the Kindle with a Bible Study Book on it (Jen Hatmaker's MakeOver:  Revitalizing the Many Roles You Fill) and on the left my IPhone with the Bible loaded on it.  Passage from Gallations being studied today.  Thanks for digital media today.