October

 It's been a minute.  I have thought of updating this a few times but never found the time to sit and write my thoughts down.  October has come and gone.  We successfully completed our Primary Trunk-or-Treat.  It was a lot of work and I feel really grateful for my creative and hard working counselors.  My boys and Mike, the bishop and his wife, a missionary couple, as well as some youth in the ward also came and helped us with the booths and it went really well.  We had some great feedback and I'm so happy it's over.  Now on to the presentation.  The presentation is next week and once that's over, I can take some deep breaths.  

We had two days for Fall break.  The girls and I met up with some friends and visited a fun museum.  We ate our lunches on the roof of the building.  It had benches and a little green area as well as plants all over.  It was raining a little bit but it was still a fun experience.  

The following day, we took the kids down to Kamakura.  It was supposed to rain on us all day but thankfully, we didn't get a drop of rain.  We went to see the giant buddha and then drove to another part of the city to walk down a road full of shops/street food vendors.  We stopped for lunch at a burger place and the burgers and fries were so yummy and thankfully, there was just enough room for our entire family to sit (we took all but one seat!).  After, we walked to a temple and by that time the two injured boys were ready to be done walking and it was getting close to dinner time so we headed home.  There is still sooo much for us to see in Kamakura.  Hopefully we can make it back down.  

This year we were able to enjoy trick-or-treating on the embassy compound.  Last year no one was allowed on the compound for trick-or-treating unless you lived there.  This year they opened it up to guests so we were invited to come and trick-or-treat. The girls loved it.  Last year they didn't do trick-or-treating here and we tried to make it fun still by watching a Halloween movie and taking candy to our neighbors and carving a pumpkin that night but it was still pretty lame.  This year was way more like a normal Halloween.  The embassy held their trick-or-treating on Saturday and when Monday came around Piper was not feeling well so she stayed home with a sore throat and cold and we felt that they had enough candy from Saturday so we didn't dress up again and go out, even though there were a bunch of apartments open for trick-or-treating.  Most of the trick-or-treating happens in expat heavy areas, which makes sense.  Anyway, we had a Halloween dinner and lit our pumpkins and everyone felt satisfied.  

I find that I miss America so much during the holidays.  They just do things so differently here and that doesn't mean we can't appreciate the differences, it just means we miss home.  

We are going to celebrate on Sunday with friends by having a "Friendsgiving" and then on the 19th we are flying to Korea to spend Thanksgiving with Andy and Laura.  My first time in Korea!  I can't believe I'm writing that.  I never thought I'd live in Japan or visit Korea.  

The only other things I can think of to mention are that the two boys are still going to PT on Saturdays.  They are both making a lot of progress and I'm hoping we are almost done.  Both boys still have pain from their injuries but it's getting better.  Will also had his toenail removed and his toe is finally starting to look better.  It was infected for so many months and so painful and gross.  Will turned in his applications to BYU and BYU I.  Will is participating in a few different extracurriculars--brain bowl, philosophy club, and robotics.  Isaac attends the philosophy club some times and he also does some mentoring during one of his breaks.  He and a friend volunteered to hang out with the second graders during their lunch recess and they play games with the kids.  He's considering signing up for the after school mentoring program that's starting up soon.  Eli chose not to do any after school things this semester because of his knee but he stays after occasionally to lift weights.  Piper does after school recreation (organized games) and soccer.  She is loving soccer.  I believe those all end this week and then we've decided to have her take a break.  I think we will sign her up for the mentoring program so she can get paired up with a high school student that will help her with reading and homework but it's only once a week.  She needs a break and I'd like to see her more during the holidays. 

Felicity loves school.  They don't do pumpkin patches here--they don't really do pumpkins.  They do sell them but they cost about $30 for a tiny pumpkin (we get ours from the commissary and they are still small but we are content with what we can get at a cheaper price).  Instead of pumpkin patches, they do sweet potatoes.  Felicity has a field trip to a sweet potato farm in the city.  Each kids got to dig for sweet potatoes.  The school also held a Fall Festival that I was able to attend and they had all kinds of crafts and activities for the kids to participate in.  She also started Aikido once a week and she looks forward to that and asks me to count down the days until the next time she can go.

I can't think of anything else to write about.  I can't imagine that most of that was interesting to read about anyway but it accurately details our October.  Now it's time for all the photos.