our new car

Well we finally broke down and got a new car. We did not want to but one way or the other we would have to spend a lot of money. It is a 1998 Nissan Runessa. I actually like it and it is the roomiest japanese car I have been in. The back seat can move forward or back, depending on where we want Cole and the front seats can turn all the way around and face the back. The arm rest also moves back and becomes a table. It is the gray car. I like it because of the room and it is up higher than normal cars and it has tinted windows.
I will post pictures of the inside as soon as I take them, but who knows when that will be.

Today at lunch I asked Cole if he wanted to bless the food, which he was more than willing to do. He folds his arms and closes his eyes by putting his arms over his eyes. I got him started then he started to go on his own so I just let him to see what he would say. He was doing very good, then out of the blue he started to count. I wanted to see how high he would go so I let him keep going. He ended up counting up to 10 and some of the teens. He can't quite get the right words out for the teens but he knows they are there. I was laughing so hard and had a very hard time helping him finish our food prayer. It was really cute to hear him try to pray and I am proud of his accomplishments.

some pictures from Guam

Here is one view of the ocean from the road. We are just a few miles away from the ocean.














Cole playing in the sand. I love the view and the color of the water.







Can you believe this was in Feb. The temp was perfect. It would be cloudy and rain for a few minutes, then it would be nice the rest of the day.

perfect pancake?

Don't you think this looks like the perfect pancake? We had pancakes for breakfast and I left the batter sitting out because it was pretty much gone and while I was cutting Derrick's hair Cole decided he wanted to have a snack. His snack ended up being this pancake he tried to make. I must say he did a pretty good job, he was just a little too short. I was surprised there were only a few drops of batter on the floor.
Speaking of batter on the floor. Cole had dipped a measuring spoon in the batter while I was making pancakes for breakfast and he spilled some on the floor so I said to him, " lets clean it up." I went to get a paper towel and Cole got down on his hands and knees and licked the batter off the floor, it shows how much Cole likes pancake batter. I just had to laugh at what he did.

Last night I went to a baby shower for a girl in our branch and I sure was surprised how Cole was. At first he was quiet and stayed by me, but it did not take long for him to warm up. After being there for a while (it started at 7 and I try to put him to bed at 8) Cole started to get a little hyper. Things were kind of settling down, but there was still talking going on and out of the blue Cole yelled, "Party,party, party." This is not the only time either. I am sure it shocked all the people there because they see him just as this quiet little boy. He was going all over and would not hold still. It was pretty funny to watch him be so active, it was almost as if I had a different little boy

Fuji Safari Park

This last saturday we decided to take a trip to Fuji Safari Park to do one last fun thing before Derrick went to the ship. According to the map we had it would take about 1 hr 40 min to get there. It was not a bad drive at all, in fact we ended up seeing Mt. Fuji pretty close and also ended up driving in a forest. They actually have them here in Japan.
When we got there we wanted to park but had no idea where to go and they had a few japanese people pointing and telling us where to go. We ended up going to a part where you stay in your car and drive around and see lions, tigers, bears etc... as they roamed around. It was fun, but as we were waiting in line to drive through the oil light in the car came on. That was kind of scary, driving with all these animals not knowing if the car would make it through. I also thought about making the drive home and depending on traffic it could take over 2 hours to get home. We did however make it through the little safari area and had a wonderful time at the park.
It was all very hands on and I was able to be up close to animals, I never would have imagined. I have included the pictures below. There are quite a few of some of the animals we were able to feed and touch.
Before we left Derrick checked the oil and the car had oil, so he had no idea why the oil light came on. Here was the test now to see if we were going to make it home. I am so grateful for prayer and that I was taught the importance of prayer. We did say a prayer that we would be able to make it home safe. As we made our way home we ran into traffic, which I was expecting because we left right at rush traffic time, but we had no other choice because the park closed. WE ended up stopping at the Gotembo outlet mall, which was very expensive and was nothing like an outlet mall in the U.S. It was nice because by the time we were done looking at things and made our way back home there has hardly any traffic at all and were able to make it home pretty quickly with no problems and no oil light coming on. It has not come back on and it has been almost a week, but I have not driven it very much at all.
That saturday sure was sure was eventful and it was fun to see more of Japan.

This is a very close-up of Mt. Fuji. I did not think Fuji Safari Park would have been so close to Mt. Fuji. It was not until Derrick pulled it up on google maps and we were able to see how close we were going to be to it. We can also climb it, but it is only open for around a month to climb. I have wanted to climb it, but the times it is open to climb Derrick is out on the ship. I heard from others who climbed that it is a pretty tough hike without trees, but volcanic rock. I am glad I was able to get this close to it.

This is kind of a close-up of Mt. Fuji. Mt. Fuji is an active volcano that has not erupted for quite some time. I don't remember how long it has been exactly since it last erupted, but for some reason 300 years is in my mind. We can see this from our kitchen window, only it is not as big.

This dog was pretty big next to Cole. They had 2 of them that were just walking around for kids to pet them. Cole was so cute with it and everytime he saw it he wanted to go up to it. They were also very good dogs and did not mind the kids at all.

I hope this picture comes out clear, because it wasn't clear when I cropped it. If you look close there is a joey in the pouch of the kangaroo. That was really fun to see that in real life and not just on tv.

Yep here he is feeding a different kangaroo. Cole ended up getting some food off the ground to feed it.

Cole feeding the kangaroo. How fun it was to actually get to feed them

This is the sign they had by all the gates as we entered the cage.

Look how cute this little horse is. When we found out it was ok for Cole to go on a carriage ride, we decided to do it. We had no idea if he was big or old enough because all the directions were in japanese and with the employees speaking very little or no english we were able to get an answer. They had a pony Cole probably could have had a ride on but it was 500 yen (which is around 5 dollars) to ride the carriage. It was also fun that Derrick was able to pull him around.

I thought this was cool. We happened to walk up to the hippos right as kids were getting ready to feed them. How fun for the kids to actually feed them. The hippo's are so used to being fed by people that they actually held their mouth open.

He only needed a little help holding the rabbit.

I was really surprised to see how Cole was with this rabbit. He was very happy to be holding it and did not want to let it go. We never knew he liked animals this much

We bought some food to feed the sheep with, which we had no idea what Cole would do with it, but he loved it and wanted to keep feeding them, but we ran out of food. He was so excited and was having everyone around him laughing because of the noises he made due to excitement.

I know it is not very easy to tell what this animal is Cole is petting, but it is a Kangaroo. We were able to go in the cage with the kangaroos. Cole loved it and followed them around just so he could pet them.

About a week ago we decided to go on a walk to this obstacle course that is right next to the base. This is one of the obstacles they had and Derrick decided to try it out. If you look close he is actually upside down and almost stuck, but he was able to make it through.















As he got to the end there was a little Japanese girl waiting for him to get out. As he was getting out I looked over at the picture and saw that he did the obstacle backwards. We kept walking doing some of the obstacles and we noticed we were going against everyone. Come to find out we did almost the whole course backwards. Derrick actually did the obstacles because I was helping Cole and as he was doing them we noticed no adults were doing them, just the kids. Needless to say Derrick stopped. As we left the obstacle course we looked at the sign which we think may have had a weight limit but don't know because we can't read Japanese and all the weights were in kg. It was fun to watch all the kids and how good they are at doing these.