Japan, Nicaragua, North Carolina

A little bit of travel, culture and globe trotting happened mid-January. What a fun way to ring in the new year!

And for fun, I hang out with this cutie during Sunday School while his mom teaches a youth Sunday School class.  He's such a good baby and so cute!


First off, the cultural part.  Some friends from church were hosting Japanese dancers at their home over the holidays.  Before they left for Japan they graciously performed for us at our church.  There was a nice, big turnout too.  It was fun to see some dances from their heritage. 


They let some kids come up to do sumo wrestling too.  Shanna just walked on up when it was time for the girls.


Shanna's opponent.


Face off!  Not sure what the correct term is...


The chaperone of the trip performed for us too.  He had a neat thing of sticks that he did all sorts of tricks with.




There were three-legged races too.




And some shoulder combat.  Shanna vs. Elden.


We enjoyed their fun talents!


For the globe-trotting part, Lee went to Nicaragua.  I guess that's not a whole lot of globe trotting, but more than I've done lately!  For many years we talked about him (and eventually me and the kids) traveling with him internationally to do a vision mission trip.  I looked online over a year ago, and found that VOSH (Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity) was hosting a vision trip in Nicaragua!  And in a town that we've both visited!  Lee made the necessary arrangements and several months later was on a plane to Managua.  Lee served his two-year mission there for our church.  He will do a guest post soon on the blog of all the cool things he saw and did.  Next year Clark and I plan on attending with him.  I admit I was a little jealous of the 90 degree, clear sky weather he had at a beach town!  He and seven other doctors and many students saw over 3200 people during the four days their clinic was set up.  


After I dropped off Lee at the airport I visited Steph and Maggie for a little bit.  Steph made a yummy lunch, and it was fun playing with Maggie. 




I was a little nervous about Lee being gone for the week for one reason: wake-up time.  Lee gets all of us up in the morning.....me included.  I wondered how we'd get out the door on time every morning!  We somehow made it through the week.  Lee rarely travels with out us, let alone traveling for over a week.  He was gone nine days.  I'm excited that I'll be going with him next time!

While Lee was gone I fixed the kids ramen.  We haven't eaten it for a really long time.  They were quite excited. 


Since Lee was gone, we decided to take our own little trip.  I was talking to my sister-in-law and she mentioned that is was my nephew Anthon's birthday and that we should come down to North Carolina.  Ummm, yes!  We went down on a Friday night and had a great weekend there.  Saturday we went on a walk.




There was a little flooding on the trail and you can see the bridge is somewhat flooded.








Right at the END of the walk, Elden slipped and landed on the muddy floor of that bridge you saw earlier that was partially flooded out.  Ugh.....


It was great being there for Anthon's birthday!


A teenager!!!


We stayed for church and left a couple hours after.  We had a great time as always with Daniel, Amy and family.  Thankfully the drive to and from was uneventful, especially since I was driving by myself and Lee wasn't at home to come to my rescue if needed.

For your cultural edification: an Elden Selfie.  It's so funny finding random pictures on my phone. Like this one.


Last couple of random pictures: Elden decided to write a new last name on his school reading book.  I think it was Shanna who said "Well, at least he can spell Robinson".  I didn't notice till Lee pointed it out, that he didn't even spell Robinson right, ha ha. 


While Lee was in Nicaragua I decided to put away the Christmas decorations.  It was a sad day.  I don't have a lot of house decorations so my home feels empty when they're put away!  Plus Lee pampers me and puts them away every year.  I bit the bullet and went ahead and did it. 


Shanna and her friend helped me some too. (Bonus for having twin dress up clothes....your friend can match you too!) This tree was super fast to take down.  I was surprised!