What a Great Birthday!

I feel like it's been ages since I (James) have written the blog. Well, last week we had the awesome experience of celebrating my birthday - and yes, it was awesome! So we have a few pictures to sum up most of the excitement. Funny how most of the pictures are of food.

We had so much fun  finding ways to use the peppers we have been growing in our garden. This was one of my favorites! We made some yummy crescent roll delights with cream cheese and jalapeno peppers inside. 

We went out to this Italian place called Mazzi's for dinner one night and it was pretty amazing - as you can tell from my facial expression in the picture. I enjoyed both my fettuccine alfredo as well as Emily's raviolis.

I don't remember if there was anything particularly special inside Emily's salad, but they used a pesto dressing on top that was fabulous!

I know this doesn't look as good as it was, but I asked for ice cream cake for my birthday and we decided to make it. So we made some ice cream and then put it inside the cake we baked. It turned out better than I thought it would. Although it was super delicious, it was also very very very sweet so we could only have a piece at a time.

Among the cards and gifts and what not, this was one of my favorite presents... Legos! I'm such a nerd. I felt like I should collect a few of the City ones and started with the Coast Guard ship.

Emily made my pancakes for my birthday as well. Isn't she the cutest!

After work, we went up to the LDS temple in Portland and then went out to Fuddruckers. It was my first time going there and I must say that they have great burgers! 

Another cool birthday gift, Dr. Pepper flavored bubble gum! We had a bubble blowing contest.

As you can tell from the size of Emily's bubble, she won.

Our time since coming back from Hawaii has been super busy! I started working at my new job at Bridgeway House working with autistic high school students. It has its challenges, but has been much easier than working with the elementary level like I did last year. There are still plenty of things to learn! Emily started her new GTF (Graduate Teaching Fellowship) job this past week and has been enjoying that. She starts classes this upcoming week as well. Life doesn't really seem to be slowing down a whole lot and I am already feeling like we need another vacation. :D

Summer has gone and Fall is here. Hope we will get back on a schedule and post a few more of our adventures! Much love!

Confucius say, "Share your happiness!"

 Quick photo update from this week.

How to make pumpkin puree. Minus the college apartment kitchen, this cheesy face could appear on a cooking show. I should do some career exploration in that realm...

Bake pumpkin face down at about 375 for about an hour. Unless you have a super oven like me that burns everything if you leave it in for the suggested time...then do 45 min.

Scrape out the innards. Discard (or compost!) the outtards. Yes, it's a word...now.

Puree! And make sure you make a mess while you do it. I am planning to use it for pumpkin soup this week and maybe even a pumpkin pie next week. We'll see how it turns out!

James and I passed Panda Express yesterday on our way to do a little window shopping. At the stop light, James turned to me and nearly shouted, "Panda Express?! Now?!!" How could I refuse? This was our fortune.

This was definitely James's happiness...and he did share it with me.

And this is a small sampling of  MY happiness...I have discovered a new obsession with the used books section at Goodwill where they sell books like Pride and Prejudice for 49 cents! And a used bookstore that we visited for date night turned out to be very useful because I bought a conflict resolution book for $1 AND found James's Christmas present. We are also the proud owners of a library card, which is responsible for the rest of the mess....research books for class.

James walked into the living room one night and happened upon this sight. It was homework time, and I was in my groove. The phrase, "bug in a rug" has taken on new meaning. Thanks to my awesome mother-in-law for the snuggly blanket that gets used EVERY day.

And one more bit of happiness that doesn't have a photo yet...James and I are yet again proud uncle and auntie! Congratulations, Janet and Bo! We are so excited to see baby Makenna in a couple weeks when we go home for Thanksgiving. Wishing all of you a happy week!

The Miracle of Life...and Chickens

This week, I (Emily) watched an egg hatch for the first time. It was pretty amazing to watch. The little guy (with the giant foot!) in the video below had been working to get out of his shell for over five hours. I was lucky enough to see the last hour of him breaking out of his shell. I took a short video of the climactic moment for you to enjoy:

Yesterday, our awesome American friends took us to Urabandai and the five colored lakes. Bandai mountain was a volcano that erupted in 1888 (and was supposedly due for another eruption a hundred years later...uh oh), and blew a crater in its top. Here are some pictures from our adventure.

The first lake. Some people rented canoes and paddled out on the lake. We didn't rent a canoe, but we were lucky to enjoy perfect weather the whole day.

There were five different colors of lakes as a result of the mineral run off from the volcano. They were all beautiful, but the blue was definitely our favorite.

The water was so beautiful in contrast to the greenery around it.

Part of the red lake/pond. Everything it it looked rusted. Not very pretty, but interesting.

Pretty moss.

These ferns were everywhere, and all of them grew in a perfect circle like this one. I felt like I was walking through a jungle.

For date night on Friday, James and I made homemade tortillas again with yummy black beans. Beans, and black beans especially, are a rarity in Japan, so it is a treat when we can find them.

After dinner, our activity was painting...we are very talented artists (*snort*) as you can see below:

Mine. Not finished yet, but I'm definitely going for more of an abstract feel here.

James is much more artistically-gifted than me, though you would never know it because I uploaded his picture upside-down :) 

That's about all for us this week. Love to all of our family and friends!

Moving to Oregon?

Talk about awesome... Emily just heard from the last school that she applied to for graduate school. After lots of thinking, hard work and waiting, she was accepted to all three of the programs she has applied to; University of Denver, Portland State University, and University of Oregon. We are very excited to be a little closer to knowing where we will be having our adventures next year. Although we still don't know where we will be going, Emily is leaning towards the program at University of Oregon. Stay tuned for more details. :)


This week we also went and sang karaoke again and also went bowling. If you have ever wondered about what it was like to bowl in Japan, we took a few pictures to illustrate the fun experience.

These are the awesome Velcro shoes that we were given at the bowling alley for 300 yen. Can you guess who's shoes are whose? If you guessed that Emily's are the bright and colorful ones, you would be wrong folks... Those were mine... 

We had some coupons (play 2 games and get a third free). I started with a warm up for my first frame (bowled 2 gutter balls) while Emily got right into things and started with a strike! It wasn't looking good for me... However, the bowling alley provides a little tambourine to help encourage people, like me. Or maybe they are for celebrating strikes. Needless to say, we used it on numerous occasions. As you can see in the background, the actual lanes look the same. :P 

We also had some coupons to get 2 free drinks, so in between frames, we got to enjoy our ginger ale.

This was the final scoreboard. Top one says Jeemuzu (James in Japanese) and the bottom says Emirii (Emily in Japanese). Consequently, these were our best scores. I will say that Emily did beat me the first game by quite a bit, but I caught up in the 2nd and 3rd games. You also notice that Emily got a strike in the first frame for this game as well. Her only strikes were in the first frames... Crazy. Anyways, you can see that the bowling experience in Japan is not all that different than the US. It was such a blast!

To sum up some other things from the week...

We made some homemade pizza this week (bacon and pineapple) and it was so delicious! The one further is the before we cooked it, and the one closer is the after we cooked it. So yummy!

Emily also made some carbonara and it was pretty awesome.

This month's bulletin board at Emily's school that she made. So pretty!

I think we have explained this about half a year ago, but here in Japan, we watch General Conference a week later than the US because of the time difference. We really enjoyed Conference and the messages that were shared by the Prophet and other Church leaders. Because Easter is today, I want to mention a talk shared in Sunday morning's session by D. Todd Christofferson titled, The Doctrine of Christ. If you have time, it's a short talk in which I invite you to either read or watch.


With all the love we can muster, we hope that everyone has an awesome Easter Sunday and enjoys the upcoming week! 

Ice Cream: A Good Sub for Exercise

The highlight of this week was definitely being able to watch the first session of General Conference this weekend. Usually, in Japan, General Conference is broadcast the following week in a city that is about an hour away. Fortunately for us English-speaking-technology-addicts, we can watch it online the same day from the comfort of our own bed. We haven't been able to watch the whole conference yet, so feel free to comment and tell us which talks we should be listening extra carefully for. What was your favorite?


A couple other fun things that happened this week included a lunch outing with Sonoka, a friend from BYU-Hawaii. Who would have guessed that a few short years on some obscure island in the middle of the ocean would turn out to be such a life-changing experience? And that it would result in having friends literally all over the globe? 


I (Emily) have been attending a weekly Zumba class when I can for the past couple months, and I have dragged a couple friends into it with me. This past week, our friend Chizuko and I tried to go together, but found out that it was cancelled. We thought it was a waste to get out and not do something fun together, so we substituted (see below). Perhaps not as healthy for the body, but definitely needed for the soul :)

Yummy!

We are so lucky to have such a good friend in Chizuko. She has been a lifesaver on multiple occasions. We love her!

James went bowling this week with the missionaries and some friends. I was at work, so I didn't get to go, but we are going tomorrow for Family Home Evening. I've sworn to beat James in at least one game, so stay tuned!

Spring weather is so crazy! We had two beautiful days this week where all of the snow melted, the sun came out, and the breeze was semi-warm. We had to take advantage of it, so we had a romantic dinner for two out on our back balcony for date night.

That's all for this week. Love to all our family and friends!!!

If I could describe the perfect date...

Last Monday was one of the best days I (Emily) have had since coming to Japan...and that is saying something because we have had a lot of fun days here. For Valentine's Day, James gave me a homemade coupon for a free ski trip, so I cashed it in this week and took a day off work to hit the slopes. Though the trip was far from free (wow - who knew hurdling yourself and two sharp metal poles down a hill with boards strapped dangerously tight to your feet could be so pricey?!), it was worth every cent...or yen. It was the first time for both of us, so it was a great adventure to take together.  


Skiing is a lot of work! My legs felt like Jell-O a few times during the day, but it was so fun that I didn't want to stop (and let's face it - even if I had wanted to stop, I didn't really know how!). Amazing day that I hope I remember forever. Here are a few videos and pictures from the perfect day.

There were not very many people there, which was probably a really good thing because we didn't really know what we were doing at first. Can you see the fresh powder?! So awesome!

All decked out and ready to go! Oh wait, how do you put the skis on?!

Gotta love him! He was so handsome in all his winter gear and made the day so perfect for me.

Probably my favorite picture of James...ever.

Probably James's favorite picture of me. No, this is not how I spent most of the day, but when I fell, it was EXTREMELY difficult to get back up...obviously. 

Yes, we are riding on two different lift chairs. Why? Because the first time we went up the lift, we tried to ride together and ended up with James smashed on top of me and a bent ski pole. That's why. We eventually mastered the lift and rode together. I swear that was the hardest part though...

The next night, we had the missionaries and a couple friends over for dinner. Tomomi, a teacher from my base school and probably one of my best friends here, came over to learn how to make pie crust. We experimented with real banana cream pie (only because I couldn't find pudding mix here!). You can find the recipe here. I strongly recommend it.

I had an end-of-year party this week with the teachers from one of my schools. This school was a "satellite" school that was evacuated from the west side of Japan last March after the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear meltdown disaster. After this month, this school is being disbanded and the students will integrate into surrounding schools in the area. That means that many of the teachers aren't sure what their jobs will be next year or where they will be living. Needless to say, this end-of-year party was a bit emotional. These teachers are great and I'm really going to miss them. The party was fun - can you see all the food?!! It didn't even all fit on the table!

And a couple other random goodies. James and I decided to make smores for date night. I don't know if we were too giddy about it or what, but it resulted in some pretty horrid pictures that I just had to post because I thought they were so funny.

And finally, The Grad School Update: I had a great interview with the University of Oregon this week. It just solidified my excitement for grad school in general, and made me even more excited about the possibility of grad school in Oregon! I should hear back in about three weeks, so keep your fingers crossed for me!!! I'm also applying for a couple graduate teaching fellowships which would be a huge blessing to get, so if you could send a few prayers this way, it would be much appreciated.


Love to all our family and friends! Thanks for your support!