Setsubun - Happy end of winter!

Yesterday (Feb. 3rd) was the last day of winter according to the lunar calendar. In Japan it is called Setsubun (Parting of the Season.) It is a very big deal here and on the evening of the day a religious ceremony called Mamemaki (bean throwing) occurs at shrines and temples throughout Japan. You throw beans at O-NE (devils or goblins) who symbolize evil spirits to get them to go away and then FUKU appear who symbolize happiness. Although this is a religious rite it has become more of an event for children. On Tuesday Ben threw beans at his school at the "grumpy monster." He brought a package of the beans home and they were quite tasty! Last night we actually went to a shrine to observe a Setsubun event.

Ben right after he got off the bus with his hat on from the art show.

The kids with their package of beans and their basket from the bean throwing at school.

At the shrine before the Setsubun ceremony.

Our tour guide Erico explaining the event.

You can see the monster in the background.

O-NE!!

Another O-NE!

The O-NE playing the drums during the ceremony.

This lady played with Jo the entire time! It was so cute!

Ben loves to play with Jo too!

So the ceremony got a little long and the kids were getting restless so we had to leave...

On the way back to the car we saw this group practicing their dragon dance.

Sk8ter Boy

Ben must have seen something on tv this morning dealing with skateboarding because he was very insistent on skating this morning. Luckily he does have a mini skateboard so I let him use it for a bit before school. I think he has been watching our neighbor Caleb skate because he actually kind of knew what to do. Of course he never really rode the board but he did a few tricks and chased it around.

New pillow!

This cruise has not been the easiest for Ben and I have been brainstorming ways to make it better for him. He still doesn't seem to grasp that daddy is on the ship and won't be home for awhile. I was searching around on different sites and noticed a photo pillowcase. I looked through my pics of Ben and Grant and found this cool one of the day Grant came home last time. They are standing in front of the ship with the welcome home sign. I ordered the pillowcase and it came yesterday. Very cool!!

Of course I had to wash it so he could sleep on it last night. He also has been wanting to sleep on my floor so I pulled out his Lightening McQueen sleeping bag and let him sleep there. I don't know if he enjoys sleeping on the floor since that is where they take naps at school or what but he actually did really well!

Getting ready to have his "kisses" from daddy before bedtime.

The family portrait

Ben received window crayons from Grandee and Grandpa awhile back and I pulled them out for the first time yesterday. I wasn't sure what they would be like. They were a ton of fun but very messy. Imagine using large eyeliner pencils on a window.

He started out by drawing a dragon and then went on to draw me and eventually the whole family.

The green circle with a mohawk is me. I was impressed because this was the first time I have seen him draw anything with arms and legs. The orange in the upper right is him.

So if you look right to left you have an orange Ben, a green dragon, a green Sallie, a black Piper, white Nate and brown Grant. You can tell that after me he started to fizzle out on the actual people drawing. Piper did have legs but noone else had any recognizable features.

Ben's photography

Ben loves to get ahold of my camera and take pictures. Sometimes he does get a few good shots. He didn't really get any this time but I thought they were still fun.

Ben can always get Nate to laugh!

Peace! Look at that big baby belly!

You can tell I had just fed the babies. Nate still has squash in his eyebrow!

Lake Isanoura

On Sunday we took another adventure. This time we hit up a lake about a half hour away. You can walk around the lake and rent cabins there. It was very pretty.

You can walk right down into the water... Well not really - I don't think you are supposed to swim in the water. I'm not sure what was up with the steps.

The dam - scarey!!!

Trying to get all the kids to pose proved to be quite difficult...

This little shrine was tucked up on top of a large rock.

The cabins looked really neat and very peaceful.

See the swan? The swan looks happy doesn't he/she?? The kids were feeding the swans crackers and having a good time talking to them until...

they started feeding them poop! As the kids were playing around the swans started to wander off so the kids moved on to throwing rocks out into the water. When we looked over we noticed they were getting "rocks" out of this nicely formed pile. Too bad it was animal poop.

GGGRRROOOOSSSS!!!

When we sat down to eat lunch there was a group having a cookout next to us. It was interesting to watch them with their grills because all the men had white gloves on and had hand fans which they kept waving at the grill. I guess to start the fire but they sure did keep doing it for a long time.

Later that night we were over at Jane's and Ben was doing what boys do best and got a nice egg and cut on his head, plus a double bloody nose. Hey, what's a day in Ben's life without some type of injury?

Sick Day - Yuck!

This morning Ben and I were supposed to go to his art show at school. Unfortunately he had the stomach flu last night so we had to cancel our plans. I even had a babysitter for the babies! Jane was so helpful though and took pictures of Ben's artwork that was on display. I am so disappointed we missed the event but happy we got pictures!

Ben loves to hold the babies and today really wanted to hold both of them. He did a great job although we ready pretty quickly to put them down. They love to watch their big brother and have him hold them!

Ben was up most of the night but you would never had known it throughout the day today. Kids are so resilient. I was so tired but he wasn't! Finally I got him to lay down for a bit this afternoon and once he did he immediately fell asleep! Hopefully this was the 24 hour bug and the babies and I don't get it!!!!!