First Day of School

We haven't heard the sound of an alarm clock for a long time in our house. On August 31st we woke up to the sound of an alarm and excited for the first day of school!!

Drew is entering 3rd grade and has Mrs. Darby. Claire will be in 1st grade with 

Mrs. Barker. Both kiddos were really excited and I had to hide it... But I was the nervous one!!

And they were off! 

Claire told me I had to babysit her babies while she was at "work" so o put them in the balcony facing the walking path into our building!! She was excited to see her babies looking for her after her workday!!

Every year on the first day of school I bake a cake!! And here's this years!!! I had a big vision though... It was going to be in the shape of an apple, lots of frosting, decorated cute... And instead it crumbled to pieces when I tried to get it out!!!

I scooped it up though and put it into bowls for the kids and they LOVED it!! Drew keeps asking me to make the delicious blue cake again!! 

Itzu Peninsula Trip

Two weeks ago we headed to the coast! The drive was a little over three hours, however worth it! We were able to do a hike with seven waterfalls and end the day relaxing in Onsens (natural baths).

Andy is very excited to come back to this area and bring his fishing pole! There were a few Japanese men fishing in this river catching tons of fish!!

Amazing bridges connecting hiking paths!

We then ended the day soaking in the onsens!

Enoshima

The other week we jumped on the train a little over an hour away and went to Enoshima. Off of Enoshima is a beautiful island with cute shops, shrines, and restaurants! 

Entering the small island village!

Octopus as our appetizer!! The kiddos love it!

It's a small hike up to the top to see the shrine. Along the walk though they have beautiful stops.

View from the top!

A really nice guy was feeding the turtles in the water. The kiddos we're thrilled when he asked them to help!

On the street they cell cucumbers on a stick!! I don't know what they do to it, but it tastes very different then American cucumbers. We LOVE them!!

Asia Bound!

Late July we then flew to Seattle to catch a flight to JAPAN!! We had a few days in Seattle and so close to Andy's brother and awesome sister in law in Eugene... So we headed to Oregon!! 

It was so great to see our cute niece and nephew!! Drew and Claire loved playing with their cousins!!

We had a great visit!!

After two quick days in Oregon we traveled back to Seattle and boarded our flight for Japan!

All bags checked!

And then we found out our flight was delayed for five hours!! Thank goodness for the lounges!

And we were off!!

Spring Catch Up!

A lot has happened in the past few months, and all exciting!! We said good bye to our family in the Midwest and headed East for a month long class in Rhode Island!

We were so lucky to even have visitors during our short stay out East!! Both my mom and sister came out to visit!!

And to top it off our great friends who were also our neighbors in Spain are stationed in Newport!! We were able to spend a month with the Boyd family!!

The East coast isn't complete without lobster!

Spring

WOW!!! Spring has come and almost left and I'm so behind on the blog!!

In March I took a spontaious trip for a long weekend to our amazing friends Andros's!!! We were stationed with them in Spain and love them dearly! Another friend Kimberly who was in Spain with us was flying through on her way back to Spain after travels and joined us for our reunion!

My in laws had the kiddos, so I was childless!! We had a great time catching up and seeing all the sights!

Carolyn and I

Carolyn's husband Brad who's super fun

For Easter we headed down to Omaha and visited my cousin Lindsey and her family along with my aunt and uncles. My parents of course came over from Iowa and made it another long weekend vacation as it was the kiddos spring break!

My grandparents have a farm (now run by my uncle since their deceased) on the farm were over 400 baby chicks!! A Easter to remember!

Claire enjoying some MN UV

And Brooke is still doing good...!

Love Me Some Madison!

This last week the kiddos were off Friday-Tuesday for inservice and conference days. We decided to take advantage of the extra long weekend and visit our old stomping grounds and our amazing friends! 

We lived in Madison for one quick year 2012-2013 while Andy did grad school. For such a quick year we fell in love with the city and made life long friends.

It was a weeeeee bit cold, but that didn't stop us from checking out Winterfest 2015 around the capital. This consisted of several races, ice sculpting compatitions, and snow building contest. The capital always has a great vibe going on!

We taught Drew and Rowe how to play shuffle board!!

Rowe and Drew are the same age and Jane and Claire are the same age!! Both sets of personalities couldn't be a better match!!

We made a stop at the Union! The Unionis probably my second favorite spot next to the capital! The outside (when it's nice) is full of colorful chairs on the lake with live music playing usually! We tried to catch people kite boarding on the lake and missed it! 

It was a great weekend full of laughter!