Andrew's birthday

Andrew had his birthday party this last Saturday.  He is six years old and he had a huge party.

Layne and Malachi rented a covered picnic area at Bradley Lake Park and one of the ball fields.

There was tons of food and after everyone ate we played baseball.  Here is an interesting picture with Andrew playing first base and Tucker on the base after batting.

Now we have the reverse with Tucker playing first base and Andrew on the base after hitting.

Mallory got to bat too and has a nice swing.

She didn't take being out in the field as serious though.  Here she was playing third base.  Watch out Mallory the ball might come your way.

Then it was time for presents.

There was a great turn out at the party and Andrew got lots of presents.

I think he had a great time.  He certainly did seem happy.

Happy Birthday Andrew, we love you.

Penelope's Birthday

We went to see Doranda and her family this weekend and it was Penelope's birthday.

 Penelope is three years old.

 We also went to Tucker's soccer game and watched him play soccer.

Here's a picture of Tucker's cheering section.  Penelope's birthday is the first day of Fall and you can see we had to dress warmly. 

Then we went to Chucky Cheese for Penelope.  She got to meet Bob the Builder.

 Barney the dinasaur.

 Chuchy Cheese himself.

 Then back to Doranda's house for presents.  James was there too, you can see him behind Tucker.

Happy Birthday Penelope.  She is now officially three years old.  She is growing up fast.

Empty House - Caleb gone to college

We took Caleb off to college earlier this month and now we have an empty house.  Sure seems strange without any children running around every day.

We've been watching more TV.  We went to see a movie, but it wasn't very good, and we went out to dinner at Red Lobster on Monday, which was very good.  All you can eat shrimp.  Sure seems different at home with no children.

 We dropped Caleb off at BYU-Idaho for college.  Really a beautiful campus.

Here you can see on a map where it's located.  It was a 300 mile drive to Tianna's house in Spokane the first night and then a 500 mile drive the next day to BYU in Rexburg, Idaho.

Caleb is living in the dorms at Lamprecht Hall.  The dorm rooms have two bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, and living room.  His roommate is from Maine.  The two in the other bedroom are from Hawaii and Pasco, Washington.  They seemed like nice guys.

Caleb's room is on the ground floor on the left just past the second set of stairs going up the grass.  He has the top half of a bunk bed and a desk.  We helped him set his computer all up and went grocery shopping and got him all stocked up with food.  He can also eat one meal a day at the cafeteria on Monday through Saturday.

On the left is the building where the bookstore and student center is located.  The buildings were all very modern and new looking.

We had time to walk around to find all his classes, each in different building scattered across the campus.  This is the devotional building.  The campus really clean and beautifully landscaped and nice.

We had a meeting in the conference center which was enormous for a college campus.  They've built what they called a world class video broadcast center.  It has a 15,000 seat auditorium.

 We saw the temple right next to the campus.

And here's Caleb off to a new life on his own at college.  Good luck Caleb.  We love you.

Wedding Anniversary

August 31st was our Wedding Anniversary.  We've been married for 33 years.  I love Jacquelyn with all my heart.

 

 

I don't know how I could have every been so lucky to get such a pretty girl to marry me.  And smart too.

Modern Japan

Japan is very modern also and there is a strong pop culture.  So in this post I'm putting up pictures of that side of Japan which we saw.  In Kobe they have this giant statue of a robot, which they call "28 Robot"  It was huge.

Lots of shopping malls.  Some were streets that were covered.

We went to the Kobe Motomachi which is a museum sponsored by Kawasaki.

Isaac on a motorcycle.

Caleb on a jetski.

Kobe and most of the other cities are big ports.  We went to a maritime museum in Kobe.

Caleb in front of one of the many fountains we saw around the cities.

We went to a big aquarium in Osaka which is easily the biggest I've ever seen and went down for several stories.

There were lots of giant fish in the aquarium.

The train stations were interesting too.  The Kyoto station was very modern.

Inside the Kyoto Station, it was incredibly huge.

We rode the bullet train.

Isaac getting on a train.  We rode lots of trains and subways.  At one stop Isaac left his briefcase behind and had to sprint back to get it.

While climbing Mount Fuji we saw two Power Rangers who were also climbing Mt. Fuji.

We went to a fish market which was full of all kinds of interesting seafood that had been caught and brought into the port to feed all the people.  Metropolitan Tokyo is the largest city in the world and millions of people live there.

Some of the seafood did not look that appetizing to us.

Lots of parks and water and rivers all through the cities.

Church at Narita.  The church building was large and very modern and nice.

A Sega Store in the electronics section of Tokyo.

A shopping district for electronics called Akihabara.

Crazy signs on the buildings.

A strange girl winking at Caleb.

Famous Scramble Crossing where everyone gets to go in all directions all at once crossing the busy intersection.

Shibuya 109, a giant store of about 20 stories just for teenage girls.

Caleb with the statue of Hachiko Dog.  This dog greeted his master every day when he got off the train from work to come home.  Then after his master died he kept returning to the train station every day for years and years waiting for his master to come home again, who never did because he was dead.

Harajuku Fashion area.

Lots of interesting things in the stores.  We spent a lot of time in 1000 yen stores, which are the equivalent of our dollar stores.

Isaac and Caleb when we visited the Pokemon Center.

We had a great time in Japan and got to see a lot.