{Our Mt. Fuji climb} TONS of pics

Our first full day in Tokyo we climbed Mt. Fuji. We woke at 2 a.m. and the bus left at 2:30 a.m. to head for Mt. Fuji. We arrived at about 5 a.m.  We didn't really start climbing until 6 a.m.  This picture below is us at the beginning. These are our hiking sticks.  We bought the sticks and we get them stamped with some cool japanese design at each station...each are different designs depending on each station. They are burned into the stick. Our whole stick was stamped from the bottom all the way to the top by the end of the hike. And a couple stamps extra  on the other side of the stick.

 You can't really see, but looking out we could see mountains in the distance, a big lake, and fields and fields. We hadn't even started yet, and i already felt like i was on top of the world. There were tons of clouds under us and it was really cool seeing that.

 This is something the japanese do, but i can't remember why they do it. It was a bunch of little rocks piled on top of each other and placed on top of a huge rock.  Maybe my friend Hatsuho can explain it to us.

 Darn, the picture is blurry.  This was still just as the beginning. When i think of hiking through mounttains this is what i expect when i hike. But this only lasted about 30 minutes. :)

 Can you see the lake out their in the distance?

 This is just the beginning. We climbed lots of zig zag paths to get to this point.  It doesn't look too tough or steep, but pictures can be deceiving, as is the case here. This was fairly steep and lots of work.

 Hmmm, i am not sure what station this is. I think it must be station six. We started at station five. It took a little while to make it to station six.

 The temperature....

 We got our sticks stamped here. It was either 200 yen or 300 yen for each stamp. All the stamps that we got really added up. It was PRICEY.

 Another station...

 Still climbing. I remember looking down and it seemed like we hadn't gone that far at all, and it felt like we had climbed so much farther. It was crazy. The first zig zag part that we climbed was full of thick dirt and some rocks. But by this point in the picture we reached the huge lava rocks that we had to climb. I was usually climbing with my hands and feet by this point.

 Climbing the steep lava rocks... As you can see, the weather is still decent here.

 They had lodging so you could sleep...it's mainly for the night climbers.

 At each station we snacked as much as we could for a few minutes. I was so hungry when we actually sat down. We snacked on power bars and a trailmix.

 We had to pay to use the bathrooms....

 Getting higher! We can still see and the weather looks nice...

 The higher we got the steeper it got and the more nervous it made me. i just tried not to pay attention to the height.

 Tori gate....

 3.2 k doesn't seem that far at all, does it? It is far when you are climbing steep rocks. Who knew.

 As we got higher the wind really started picking up.  The black tiny pieces of lava rock would blow in the wind and plaster us. It hurt at times because it would whip in your face so hard it would sting.

 3 more hours to the top?!?!? That's what i thought. :)

 Lots of people gathering at the station. It was so funny watching peoples reaction when they came upon the rocks they had to keep climbing after their rest. They all would yell "woah!" OR "Oh my gosh"! It was in a tone like, "Holy cow, more?!" And listening to guys do it made me feel like maybe it was hard. :)

 At this point we are getting higher and higher....the huge lava rocks weren't too bad right here. But the lack of oxygen started hitting and my muscles in my legs were exhausted.

 I think the lack of oxygen was getting to us here. :) We both look like we are breathing heavy.

 The last 2 hours of climbing felt like forever.

 There were many stations in the 7th and 8th and 9th stations. Such as 7.2, 7.5, 7.6.  So, this was just another station for the 8th station. At this point we are starting to climb into the clouds. The wind has really picked up. Visibility started diminishing.

 This is a picture we took at the top of the stairs looking down at one of the stations.

 Here's the fujisan hotel. We had to reach this point by 12:30. If we had not reached it by 12:30, we were supposed to turn around and go back. It really wasn't a hotel hotel. It was a small little area with bunkbeds.

 We reached it by 9:58. We were doing real good on time.

 Put the poncho on because their was a heavy misty rain that started.

 This was our visibility towards the top. it was very limited, plus the wind gusts had to be up to 50 mph. It was really scary to me. When the wind gust came i would just drop myself to the ground because the wind would push me if i was standing and i was afraid of losing my footing when a gust came and i would get blown off the side. SO, because of that i would drop to the ground when the gust came and then get back up and push on FAST until the next one came.

 We were almost there. At this point i was really tired. I was so ready to be done. I couldn't catch my breath very well, my legs were exhausted, and the winds were scary.

 Almost there!!! and still smiling!!! A nice young japanese couple took this picture for us and then we walked with them the rest of the way to the top.

 We made it! We just had to go pass the Tori Gate and climb a few stairs and then we reached the summit! And we have the shisa dogs guarding our way!! The wind was even stronger here.

 Here's the japanese couple we talked to a bit. They are P.E. teachers and they are getting married in October.  We took a picture with them before departing from them. :) The wind was insane here.

 Taking a rest at the top in a small hut area.

 We ate our MRE lunch here. It was packed full of hikers. It was sooooo nice knowing we made it to the top and it was sooooo nice resting!

 We took a one hour break at the top.  On our way down it was pretty scary. I wish you could have see the wind gusts and heard the sound of the wind blowing. It was so scary. About half way down the mountain the weather started clearing. Thank goodness. We ran into this little old lady and her son.  She is 82 years old and they reached the summit and were descending. AMAZING.  There are lots of elderly japanese people that were climbing. I was impressed because you wouldn't see that in America. There were also lots of young japanese kids climbing. As young as 4.  That's very impressive. This isn't any easy climb people.

 Finally at the end!! It took us a little over 5 hours to reach the summit and about 3 hours to descend. The bad weather was chasing us the whole climb down the mountain. It finally reached us at the bottom. The wind picked up even more and it started pouring rain. i was so glad we finished when we did.  The hike down was on a different trail. There wasn't any of the huge lava rocks. It was just thick dirt and small rocks. I can't decide if the climb up or down was harder. The climb down really started killing my feet and knees about half way down. By the end my big toes were all completely blistered and my toenail might end up falling off. It hurts to touch it. The hike down was very painful on the knees. I thought i wasn't going to be able to walk the next day. BUT i ended up being fine. The only painful part the next day was my blisters and toenail.

 Also, at the bottom we saw all the people who were starting the NIGHT hike. It was CROWDED. Everyone was bumper to bumper on the way up. It was insane. PLUS the weather was as bad at the bottom as it was at the top by that point. i can't imagine how much worse it would get by the time they reached the top. We were sooooooo glad we didn't do the night hike. Plus, our tour guide said it's dangerous and scary. phew.... The day we were there is one of the busiest days of the climbing season. it is the Japanese holiday, Obon. They welcome the spirits to the earth and a few days later they send them back. It's something like that. It's a very big holiday for them, almost like christmas is for us. So, during that time it's extremely busy! Particularly the night hike, which we saw first hand. yikes.

Here's shanes foot after the hike.  Our drive back to the hotel took twice as long as the drive there. We kept getting caught in traffic on the expressway....because of the holiday. It was insane. Anyway, shane's foot was so wrinkled and whiter than he has ever seen his foot. Still to this day, his big toe doesn't have full sensation back. After he took his rain gear off he realized his clothes were soaking wet from all the sweating he did. So, it was very cold for him.

We had lots of fun doing the hike. I am so glad we did this together.  I remember right after we finished we said we would never do it again. That's what everyone seems to say. We are glad we did it, but won't do it again. :)  It was a fun experience though! It's a wonderful memory and we had fun doing it together. :) And we really enjoyed talking to the japanese on our way up, usually saying "Ganbatte!"  Shane opens up and becomes quite a talker when surrounded by japanese. He soaks it in like a sponge. I have never seen him so talkative. The japanese wouldn't really say anything to us UNTIL we said "ganbatte" or "o haiyo gozaimasu"(don't think i am spelling that right)....the first means "good luck" and the other means "good morning". When we were the first to initiate it it almost took them by surprise or caught them off guard. But then they take it and run with it. They will start a conversation with you or just respond back just as nice. :) It's so fun. They are so interested in Americans, something we discovered while we were there.

Since being here in Okinawa Shane and I have conquered Mt. Fuji together, we have conquered scuba diving together, and we have conquered a half marathon together! I am already brainstorming about the next thing we should conquer together. I am thinking a vacation to Thailand WITH the kids. :) That will be a big accomplishment.

I found these too late. This is the beginning of our hike. Well, before our hike.  This is the store where everyone congregated to after the hike. It provided warmth and food. :)

 You can see the clouds resting on top of the mountain.

I will post another post tomorrow about our next day at Tokyo. :)

{It's Official}

We are officially scuba dive certified. It was a fun process, but more work than we expected. 

There are a few different ways to take the class for it, but we opted for studying on our own and just diving every saturday with the instructor. Usually you do class time with the instructor, but we don't have time for that.  We studied on our own. I must say, the studying process wasn't that fun. A lot of the info. isn't anything fun to learn about. But a lot of it is necessary. I struggled through the studying process, ask shane. :)

We had to get in FIVE dives before we could get certified, AND take an 85 question test.  Our first dive was at the Sea Wall in about 6 feet of water.  I made it for about 30 minutes and then i got some bad pain in my throat and chest. It's something i have been dealing with since i can remember. I finally decided to go in and get it checked to make sure i could dive still. It really is very uncomfortable and almost suffocating...and to feel like your suffocating with all that gear on almost puts me in panic mode. Bad combination.  I went to the doc and he has a few ideas of what he thinks it is, but it hasn't been figured out yet. But he thinkgs it shouldn't keep me from suba diving. It's going to be a long long process to figure it out, i am sure.

I went back into the water a few days later with the instructor to make up for what i missed on that first dive. That one went a lot better. One of the things i didn't like at all about our dives is what we have to do when we first get in the water. We practice a few safety procedures. Two of them being that we have to let water into our mask and then blow it out.  Next we have to completely take our mask off , put it back on and blow the water out. Sounds simple. It's not. In any pool i naturally just blow air out of my nose when i am under the water. I figured that would be advantageous for me , but it wasn't. It's like the regulator in my mouth stopped me from being able to blow water out of my nose like i usually do. I don't know what it was. So, then i would get water up my nose. I eventually forced the water out, but it took a few times of trying before my nose would let me blow air out. In the meantime i forget that i have a regulator in my mouth so that i can breath in and get some air.  And getting that salt water in your nose just doesn't feel good. It burns. So, everytime we had to do that i would get so nervous. It ended up working out just fine for me.

The other issue we had issues with was equalizing our ears. It wasn't as big of a deal as letting water in our mask, but it was bothersome. Our second dive, my left ear equalized fine, but my right side didn't. It took it longer to equalize and wouldn't pop.  Eventually my ear started making really loud, creepy squeeky noises. I thought i was ruining my ear. It didn't really HURT, but the sounds just didn't sound normal. :) I would feel warm coming out of my ear when i heard these noises and wondered if i had blood coming out. I didn't. Our last two dives my ears were totally fine. I learned that i need to start equalizing from the very top, all the way down the whole time. If i wait until i start feeling pain in my ear then it is more difficult.

The other things you have to learn is your weight and buoyancy.  You have to wear weights around your stomach to help you sink when you get in.  If you aren't weighted properly then you will have troubles with floating too high, or sinking so much that you feel stuck at the bottom. And you can notice for sure when you are not weighted correctly. When you are weighted correctly its so nice. 

So, i had to wear 12 pounds around my stomach.  We wore exposure suits...full length. And those things are heck to put on and take off. Poor shane received one that was too small on our last day. hahahaha!  It was too short and it was pulling the top of his shoulders down...he couldn't fit into it properly so the whole crack split. hahaha! It was so funny.  The same thing happened to one other guy in our group on the first dive. It's so funny watching each other put our suits on.

After you put your weights on you then put on your BC....It's like a lifejacket, but it is able to fill up with air so you can float and it has a few different attachments to it. And attached on the back of your BC is the tank. Then you have a mask, and your boots and fins. It's a lot of freakin weight for me. I am small and weak. So, i always felt like i was on the edge of falling completely over everytime i walked. I had a really hard time getting OUT of the water. I felt like gravity was working triple time against me everytime i tried to step up out of the water. It is crazy.

Underwater is amazing.  We are so lucky to be able to see AMAZING sea life JUST off our sea wall, which is only about a 5 minute drive. It's a very popular spot for it.  What's crazy is that when you are underwater you don't see the TRUE color of the things you are looking at.  Out of the water my flippers are a vibrant RED color. In the water they look like a dull pink color. So, i only WISH we could see the TRUE colors of all the plant life in the water.  There are special cameras that are able to capture the true colors, but they are so entirely expensive SO that won't happen for us.  BUT seeing the varieties of coral is awesome. I thought what i saw snorkeling was awesome, but when you go down 40-50 feet the coral is so much bigger and beautiful.

We saw many many fish.  Shane and I kept being SURROUNDED by fish. Nobody else was getting it. I look around and realize i am literally in a tornado of fish surrounding me and nobody else is. It was the funniest thing. They are sooo interested in us. They just were staring and staring. I loved it.

We also saw lots of sea snakes.  I saw a large eel. He was actually out of his hole and in the open. Our instructor said it's unusual to see them out like that. There were numerous anemones and lots of clown fish. The coral life is amazing. There was tons of soft coral. Just beautiful. Truly.

Scuba diving makes me EXTREMELY hungry. It's quite a workout with all the kicking you do. Not only that but when you scuba dive you lose 25 percent more body heat than you do at surface.  It's a great workout, especially having to walk with all the gear on. And you can get dehydrated very quickly because of the dry air you are breathing in from the cylinder. It has zero moisture in it.

We really enjoyed the journey. It was tons of fun and we cannot wait to go out on our own without an instructor. :) To the Kerama Islands! Yippee!

{I want Jesus to come}

Jaydon fell down earlier this morning. He came over to me and i held him while he cried. As he is crying he points to the picture of the temple that's on our wall. He says "When Jesus comes he will put a band-aid on it for me." I repeated what he said in the form of a question just to be sure i heard him correctly.  He said, "Yes, when he comes he will." I said, "Yes, he will."  Still crying, he said "I want Jesus to come." I said, "I know you do, so do i."  He said, "Yeah, i want Jesus to come."  He kept saying it as if he were talking about daddy. He says that about shane sometimes when he is at work. " i want daddy to come home". Anyway, He said that a few more times until he felt better. Then he goes over to his brothers , still kind of sad and says "I want Jesus to come."
I didn't know how to react inside. I felt sad for him, but at the same time it was such a sweet moment for him and I.  I really believe children are so much closer to the spirit world than we realize. We can learn a lot from them. They know certain things and sometimes i am surprised by some of the things they say when i feel like it is something we haven't really discussed.
I remember a few special moments with my children, and hopefully i blogged about them. I need to go look at my blog books i created to see if i posted them. There is one i might not have posted about.
Gavin was three months old. Still just learning to smile.  I was holding him. He was such a good little baby. I was walking him around our apartment and talking to him. I came up to the picture of Jesus and i pointed to it and said "That's Jesus". He stared straight at it for a moment and then he got a big smile on his face.  At that moment i realized he knew something more than i did. It was a special moment for me. I have always felt like kids are closer to the spirit world than i realize and they are closer to the way each of us should be. Christ-like.

So, this made me want to ask him a couple questions. I asked, "Do you know Jesus?" He smiled, nodded and said ,"Yes." I asked, "Who is he?  He said, "he sent us," and then pointed to our family picture we have hanging on our fridge. Jesus is in the background of our family picture. He pointed to it and said, "He is right there."

{swimming , dancing, discipline}

1. My mom and dad dancing in the dark to Anne Murray music, with the fire lit. The Song playing that i remember most is "Could i have this dance for the rest of my life". I hear the crackling of the fire and the room is filled with the warm glow coming from the fireplace. This was a regular occurence in the winter time at my home growing up. We always lit our fireplace up and danced together in the evenings. When it was time for us kids to go to bed(our rooms were upstairs) we would pretend to go to our room and then sneak out on the balcony ledge and quietly look down on our parents in the living room slow dancing with one another just holding each other so tightly.  They love each other so much. And i appreciate those moments that they often shared that kind of affection with one another. I truly appreciate their relationship. I often saw them kiss each other(i didn't appreciate that at the time), slow dancing together, my mom tickling and teasing my dad(and my dad letting her), and my dad often doing things for my mom because he knew she would love and appreciate it. When he had time off he would do whatever he could to help around the house. He would clean and clean(deep clean) and i knew he was doing it to show his appreciation for her and to show her he loved her. My siblings and I would try to help him. He would cook once in awhile. He cooks OFTEN now and he is an amazing cook! :) He would always surprise her with "lets go out to dinner tonight" so that she didn't have to cook. OR he would surprise her with gifts she wanted. I could always tell he loved her. They always went on a date once a week. My siblings and i loved when they left. :) haha! BUT i(and sometimes my other siblings) also enjoyed cleaning the house and making it look perfectly clean. We tried to set the mood by lighting candles so that the home would smell wonderful and then setting a peaceful mood with the lighting. For me it was so exciting because i knew when they walked through the door from their relaxing date night they would feel even more peace in their own home.  And i enjoyed their hugs and thank you's for a clean home. I knew my mom loved my dad too. She cared about his thoughts and feelings and tried to look after him in many ways that were important. She was always on his side. She would tell him when it was time for him to go to bed. It drove me NUTS at the time. I didnt' like that she was TELLING HIM what to do because he was a grown man and could go to bed when he feels like it. haha! NOW, its an inside joke with us. She still will say that to him when i come around just to tease me. Its really funny. Now i realize she would tell him when to go to bed because she was just looking out for him. He had a very busy stressful job at the time, working 80 hours a week. She had to look out for him for his own sanity and for ours. ;) They loved each other AND I KNEW IT. :) I really appreciate their example. When i think about it, Shane is a lot like my dad. I never thought he was like my dad until recently.  I always thought he is a lot like my mom. He is a lot like my mom in ways and a lot like my dad in ways. What a great combo. He is like my dad in the ways that he loves me just like my dad loves my mom. Always trying to please me, always trying to help me when he can so that he can make me smile, giving me surprises(and they always are surprises). Just trying to do whatever he needs to do to see me smile. I truly have a good man. He loves me AND I KNOW IT. :) He is like my mom in that he loves to tease and harrass me. :) There is nothing that gives him(or my mom) more pleasure and joy than teasing. sigh. And i TRY to be like my dad and just LET HIM. Although sometimes its too much and then i have to put a quick stop to it. BUT That is why i appreciate my parents relationship so much. It helped me to find what my parents had.

2.Swimming. Swimming is a great love of mine. If i can remember one thing we did a lot of growing up, it was SWIMMING. I have been swimming since in the womb. My dad has a great love for swimming. He was an awesome swimmer in his younger years and won state championships. SOOO, its no wonder that swimming became a part of me and the rest of my siblings. I remember as a youngin, living in South Carolina, we swam at the neighborhood pool just about every single day of the summer. Seriously. My siblings and I swam on swim team and i really enjoyed it. I was a lifeguard in highschool and taught swim lessons to toddlers. Watching the swimming in the Olympics this year is really making me wish i could get in the pool to swim and swim...  and swim some more. I am craving it. So, its important to me that my boys learn how to swim. Scuba Diving is completely DIFFERENT.  My swimming skills really don't come in handy with scuba diving. It's crazy. I thought it would be easy for me since i am a swimmer. Nope. Wrong. I will do a post about scuba soon. Tomorrow is our last dive and then we will be certified.Anyway, we had a pool in our backyard in Oklahoma. The summer's got hot there. We were out in the pool all summer. We would lay out on our floats , we would play pool games, we loved doing tricks off the diving board. I love our memories of having a pool and really hope we get the opportunity to live somewhere where we can have one in our own backyard one day. We had family parties around our pool. We had a ward pool party a few times at our home. When cousins would come visit it was always in the summer and we would spend every single day lounging around the pool and chatting like you have never heard before. When i say we spent all day around the pool, i am serious. And when we showerd up in the evening, we would go back out and sit around the table on the deck next to the pool and chat past midnight. I love the water. Truly love it.

3.I am laying the smack down on my boys lately. I never realized how inconsistent i was with my disciplining until recently. And i don't know how i came to the realization. Once i really tried focusing on being consistent is when i realized it i guess. And i am done with time outs. I think that works with kids from age 2 to 4 years old. We have moved onto GROUNDINGS in this house. :)  haha. Yeah, baby. Let me tell you, it works. :)  And i stick to it. I hate to see them sad because their friends are all outside playing and having fun, but they really think about what they do and say now.  Gavin has this thing of sayiing "I hate myself" OR "i hate this day", when he gets in trouble. So, i also came up with a punishment for that. haha!  Just yesterday i made him write "i love myself" five times. And the next time he says it he will write it six times. The next time , seven times. And before you know it, he will LOVE himself so much. :) If he says "This is the worst day ever", he will be writing "This is the best day ever". Man i love it. I feel like my punishments lately are more severe than i like, BUT at the same time i feel like its right to do, so i am doing it. Whining results in grounding....disobeying results in grounding.... Punching, kicking, hitting, pinching all results in grounding.  Depending on the day, i might let them WORK their way out of a grounding. The other day around 3 p.m. i let Gavin work his way out of the rest of his grounding that day. I made him clean the downstairs bathroom. Brilliant.  I finally feel like i am in charge and control of my kids and it feels so good. :) And through this my love for my boys is growing. They are such good boys.