Here is a slide show of our camping trip in Tazawako. I wrote a few captions. If you want to read them, click on the slideshow and it will take you to our Picasa albums. We had so much fun camping with Mike and Lisa. The weather was perfect, the area was beautiful and the company was great fun.
(We've found some great T-shirts for Jonas here in Japan. This one says "A Lump of Nature" on the front, and something nonsensical on the back. One of the kids at Jonas's daycare, actually my favorite kid who calls himself "comedian," was wearing a shirt the other day that said "Bear or Panda?").
We went to the beach last weekend and Jonas loved it. He has no fear. He'd walk as far as we'd let him into the water, almost up to his neck. Every so often a wave would hit him and send him tumbling, and this still didn't give him pause. He also enjoyed collecting the driftwood on the beach and throwing it back in the water, as you can see. 
After the beach, we bought some cheap crabs and made crab cakes out of them for dinner. They were surprisingly good, considering neither of us had ever cooked crab before. 
Jonas made a friend at the beach, and then her grandfather carted her off, Japanese style. 
And finally, one of the Japanese roadside ice cream stands, that are everywhere and almost always in the middle of nowhere. At least I think its ice cream they're selling.
Uncle Mike and Aunt Lisa made this video of Jonas's birthday party in the park. Thanks to them for making this special video. We love it.
We have many pictures to post from Mike's and Lisa's trip and we will get to that, but for tonight, it seemed more manageable to post these. Hours before Mike and Lisa arrived, I took Jonas to one of my schools to visit my supervisor. Jonas loved running in the wide and beautiful hallways (the school is the newest and most beautiful school that I have seen in Japan; ask Jason and he will tell you too, most of the school buildings are old, old in our area). We happened upon a classroom (it was after school) with a few students studying. Jonas found the chalkboard, which was a dream come true for the little guy. The chalkboard moves up and down, and luckily for Jonas, you can move it down pretty far. He loves to draw and recently was in a circle drawing stage, which he seems to be moving out of this week. Anyway, he discovered that there were multiple colors of chalk and then he was really happy. 
The students were funny and there was a lot of squealing and picture taking, the general fanfare that Jonas attracts here in Japan, that he won't attract in the states. 
This school was an all girls school until a couple of months ago when the new year started and 40 boys were admitted. The second year students are still exclusively all girls and I taught in their classes today. In one of the classes the Japanese teacher left (we team teach) and the students were preparing for exams. I said something along the lines of please raise your hand if you have questions. Well, I meant about English, but they started asking questions about Jason. They wanted to know how we met, how long have we been married, do I love him and other assorted information. At the end of the questioning session, they concluded that I love love Jason. Yes, I intended to type love twice. That is what they said. They also told me Jason is 'cool.' It was pretty funny. Actually students have asked me quite a few times if I love Jason. They have also asked who do I love more - Jonas or Jason. Funny questions.
We leave Japan in about 5 weeks. The 5 week mark hit me tonight while I was at yoga class. I started going to this yoga class in February and have gone almost every Wednesday for the past 5 months. (Thanks to Jason for putting Jonas to bed every Wednesday without me. You got to love love him for that.) I remember thinking that we were about half way through our year here when I started the class and it was snowy and cold and now it is warm and sunny. I am sort of just rambling here about time and how it moves. But anyway, I also reflected on how unique this time is for us. Jason and I both miss home and are looking forward to being back, but I will miss the slowness of our life here. My job has been a lot less stressful than my last job at home and I can feel this difference every day. I also have enjoyed all the time we have had as a family and know that our lives will get busy and more jam-packed with stuff when we get back. That stuff is a lot of stuff we miss, but the lack of stuff has been nice too. Of course, we have done a lot of fun stuff this year.
Enough stuff about stuff.
One last note, Jason turns 34 in 7 minutes (Japan time). He is sleeping, as I should be. I don't think he wants me to wake him up to tell him Happy Birthday (I woke him up for 2nd earthquake the other night and he told me the next day that it wasn't necessary. It was small and there was no damage, so I can see his point.)
Okay, I will go to sleep now...
I began my day by rolling over to Jason's open laptop at 6 in the morning. Jonas was still asleep (surprise) and Jason was awake watching the US Open (not a surprise). He has been known to wake up in the middle of the night to catch a US sporting event. Jonas woke up soon after and I remained half asleep for a bit while Jason and Jonas drew pictures (you can only remain half asleep in this small apartment when the other parent is 'on duty.'). A few hours later, after breakfast, we felt an earthquake. I picked up Jonas who was happily playing with his legos and had the idea that we should all go outside. Nobody else was outside and afterwards I read on the internet that going outside is what NOT to do. When I picked up Jonas he started to cry a bit. I thought maybe the earthquake scared him; Jason thought he was just mad that I was taking him away from his legos. I think Jason was right.
The earthquake's epicenter was a couple of hours south of our home and we did not see any damage here in Akita City. It was Jason's and Jonas's first earthquake, my second. I felt one in El Salvador when I spent a summer there about 10 years ago.
Over the past month I had started to ask my co-workers a lot of questions about earthquakes and even talked to Jason about what our plan would be if there was one while we were at work and Jonas was at daycare. (Of course this caused Jason to wonder why I was waiting until a few weeks before our departure to decide we needed this plan.) We were lucky, because the earthquake did not affect us except for a minute of shaking and we were all at home together.
Switching gears, I will post a few pictures of Jonas with Uncle Mike and Aunt Lisa. They are safely back in the US visiting family in Texas after nearly 30 hours of travel (train, plane and automobile).
This is one of the reasons uncles are so much fun. They put you in laundry carts and push you around.
Aunt Lisa loves swimming and lakes and so does Jonas. She got in the freezing water with Jonas and he loved it.
This is at our campsite where Jonas split his time between exploring the area, playing with ants and drawing pictures.
Jonas turned 2 last week (June 5) and the next day my brother Michael and sister-in-law Lisa arrived in Akita City! We have been a whirlwind of activity since they arrived and they just left this morning. It was so great to have family here with us. Jonas was visibly excited to have them here too.
We went to a small festival, camping, visited samurai houses and celebrated Jonas' birthday in the park. It was fun. This visit reminded me just how much I miss all my family and friends at home. We will post more later, but here is a picture from the park. Michael and Lisa gave Jonas art supplies for his birthday. In this picture he is drawing with some markers that he loved. His favorite activity these days is drawing. He is a prolific artist and we have pages and pages of his work.
