{Our Holiday Break}

Our Christmas Break was lots of fun for all of us. Shane had about a week and a half off of work. Gavin took off 2 weeks from school. We had fun doing lots of fun things together. I really felt the Spirit of Christmas this year, stronger than most years. This year i really noticed it, not just as that feeling that comes each year, BUT as a feeling of the Spirit confirming to me over and over what the season is really about. It was a really good Christmas for me, in that way. I think we might do something a bit different next year to take focus off so many presents. We have an idea , but we will see.
Christmas Eve we acted our our own Nativity. Shane read the story and the boys and I played the parts of Mary(me), baby Jesus(Jaydon), sheperds(all 3 boys), angel(me). It was fun. Then he read a few more Christmas Stories, we sang a couple songs and then Shane had us listen silently to Silent Night by David Archuletta. It was BEAUTIFUL and i felt the Spirit so strong. We drank hot chocolate, i made a big Christmas Dinner. Of course Christmas music was playing the entire day of Christmas Eve with my candle burning all day. The boys took turns carrying the Presents downstairs and placing them under the tree. They had fun doing that and then just staring at it. :) I don't have pics of Christmas Morning b/c i use my video camera on certain occasions like that. It was so fun having just us together as a family. :)


We went up to Okuma, the day after Christmas, to do some camping. We were going to camp in our tent, BUT decided to stay in their little cabins because there was a change of rain. The cabin has a bunkbed and a double bed and a little pull out bed that was under the bunkbeds, for jaydon. It had a small fridge and microwave and that was it. IT was SO fun. We loved it. We had a firepit in front. We made up some tin foil dinners and some banana boats. Our cabin is right by the ocean. And there was a large playground right there as well. The boys played on that for awhile. We had lots of fun. At the end of the night we went in our room and played a few games, the favorite being "Si, Sho, Wagu, Jon, Kin, Pong"(rock paper scissors the japanese way). It's so fun. Okuma is our FAVORITE spot for camping. It's gorgeous. We love it.
Oh, you can see in the picture above a Gecko. They are always coming into homes. They like to eat the spiders and bugs that get in your home. We found three of them in our cabin behind the curtains. They are cute little things. I welcome them if they are going to eat spiders. :) These were the largest ones we have seen so far since being here.
We woke up and ate some oats and then headed to the Churaumi Aquarium. That aquarium is so awesome. We like it a lot. We really get into animals, and ocean life. We love watching Planet Earth, and LIFE....all that stuff. We love it so much that we ordered videos so we can watch them often. This world is an amazing place. It's incredible.

Here we are getting ready for bed.

Here is Shane and the boys right after we arrived to our little cabin.

Still learning Japanese , slowly. I love trying to learn it, but i need to learn it faster than the pace i am going.

We love the parks here. Especially the roller slides. You have to go down these on a box or a tray or sled. You go down fastest on a sled. We need to go buy one. We all love the slide except for Tanner. WELL, actually, he likes it only by going down on his bum. He doesn't like sitting on anything because it makes him go faster and feel like he doesn't have control and he DOESN'T like that one bit. So he carefully nudges himself along the slide on his bum.

You can see here in the picture below that he doesn't like it. We had him try it with all FIVE of us going down and tanner sitting in the middle. We thought for sure he would enjoy it then. We started going down and he started PANICKING! He screamed and screamed. hahahaha...sad, but so funny when i think about it. People were probably wondering where the dying kid was. He doesn't scream like that hardly ever, so it was funny to me to hear him scream so loud. We weren't even going that fast AND he was in the middle. He just doesn't like feeling like he has no control.

Here you can see the boys made some christmas ornaments during the break. They made snowmen and little gingerbread men with their thumbprint, the year, and the first letter of their name...

Gavin and Tanner reading The Friend together.

We went to check out the lighthouse at Cape Zanpa. The sunset was soooo gorgeous. My pics still don't do it justice.

This is random. I made my own little concoction for lunch today and it was yummy. I want MORE now. Baby arugula, black beans, grape tomatoes, red onion,cilantro, corn tortilla torn into little pieces, italian dressing with lime and cumin in it. It was tasty!

Christmas vacation was so much fun. I had the boys deliver homemade hot chocolate powder mix and peppermint homemade marshmallows to our friends. It took us TWO nights to get that done. Partly because it took us 1 1/2 hours to find where one family lived. You don't understand what it is to be confused on roads until you come here. woah. No thought or organization went into putting this place together.

My favorite part was going to the Orphanage. We took our kids and visited the Orphanage. We donated gifts, as a branch, and a gentleman in our ward came in as Santa and gave the kids each a gift. The Japanese kids were so well mannered and DARLING. I wanted to take a few home with us to save them and give them a loving home. So bad, i wanted to. We sang songs with them and played games with them. It was a good experience for our kids and for all the moms. We want to do it again next year.

Now that it's the start of the New Year we've got other things to focus on. Tanner wants to do KARATE. Gavin wants to play basketball. I am putting all THREE in swim lessons in April. They will stay in it until i feel comfortable letting them swim without my help. I wake up every morning between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m. to do workouts each morning with a few friends. Crazy i know. I never thought i would wake up that early to do workouts, but i quickly realized i have to in order to get in a workout for the day.

We have lots of exciting GOALS to reach for as a family this year! We have a goal that if we read the whole BOM , say family prayers each day and have FHE each Monday, then around October we are going to take the kids to DisneyLand Tokyo. I can't wait to take them there!! You have no idea. I think i will be more excited than they will. We have been on the fence about taking Jaydon with us because he won't get to ride most of the rides. BUT by then he will be 3 1/2 years old. I can't leave him behind for that. No way. I will gladly give up riding certain things so that he can experience the rest of it. :)

Here's to a WONDERFUL New Year and reaching our goals we all set for ourselves! :)