Easter

Before we knew when Easter was, we planned a trip to mainland Japan with Justin's parents. It wasn't until after we bought our plane tickets and made hotel reservations, that we found out we would be traveling on Easter. Not ideal. So, we decided to celebrate Easter early. The Monday before we left, we  had a nice dinner, followed by a lesson about the Savior's resurrection and we ended with Easter baskets. Good thing I wrote the Easter bunny a letter letting him know that we would be out of town and that he needed to bring our baskets early. :)

Fast forward to the following day... Tuesday, I was asked to be the Young Women's president in our branch. I was extremely shocked and slightly overwhelmed. Sis. Oscarson, the general Young Women's president, was coming to Okinawa for a training the day after we were supposed to be flying out. Now that I was going to be the president, I was desperate for some guidance and felt like I would be crazy to miss the opportunity to receive training from Sis. Oscarson herself. So I changed my ticket. Justin still left on Easter with Jack and Anderson so they would be there to meet up with Bob and Denise. Taylor and I stayed behind and went to Easter dinner at the Hurst's house. The next day was the training, which was amazing and completely worth staying behind for. I felt very inspired and was so glad that I changed my ticket. We left straight from the training to the airport. As soon as I got to the airport, I started feeling sick. I thought it was because I hadn't eaten all day so I ordered a sandwich after I got on the plane. I ate the sandwich and the nausea kept getting worse as the flight went on. I kept thinking, how will I go to the bathroom and throw up if I have Taylor in my arms?? I survived the plane ride but had to get on a 40 minute train ride after that. The nausea continues to get worse! After the first train ride, Justin came and met up with me to help me through the subways and to show me how to get the hotel. I was thanking Heavenly Father that he decided to do that. I was soooo sick! The rest of the way was on a subway. I had tears rolling down my cheeks and I was praying in my head that I would not throw up on the subway. It was so hot and there were so many people on there. Thankfully I made it to our stop. We walked up out of the subway and I immediately ran to the edge of the sidewalk and left my sandwich I had eaten between a street cone and a flower pot. I was quite the site to be seen. It was midnight, and I was sick as a dog, throwing up on the street corner in Tokyo, in the rain! I have never been that sick in my entire life. I can only remember throwing up one other time in the last 12 years. Come to find out that almost every single person that ate Easter dinner together was doing the exact same thing I was doing! It was food poisoning. We have no idea what part of our meal was bad. It all tasted so good! It was definitely an Easter to remember.

 Here are a couple pictures I took of Taylor after church that day. I spent probably 20 minutes deciding what he was going to wear for his first Easter. I was hoping to be early to church and as I went to put him in his car seat to leave, I noticed he was bright yellow from his knees to his shoulders. He had the worst blowout! So we had an emergency bath and no clothes to wear. Most of his clothes were packed and Justin had taken his suitcase with him so I wouldn't have to carry another suitcase. So, he wore shorts to church. That's what I get for spending so much time on his outfit. One more reason that this was a memorable Easter.

Cute little drool monster. :)

IE Island Half Marathon

 I have been wanting to do a half marathon for a long time. I originally set this goal four years ago, after I had Anderson. Something happened the night before the race and I didn't run. I went through all the training and never got the glory of the race. It has always bothered me. I toyed with the idea of running this same race last year, but was 8 weeks pregnant with Taylor and sick as a dog. So, since I wasn't pregnant, and had no more excuses, I decided this year was it! I would do it, and crossed my fingers that nothing happened to keep me from finishing my goal. As soon as I told Justin that I wanted to do it, he immediately jumped on board so we could do it together. The race is on IE Island (pronounced ee-ay). We left Jack and Anderson with some friends and brought a babysitter to watch Taylor while we ran. We left early and hopped on the ferry.

 Emi, our awesome babysitter.

 The race was at 2:30 in the afternoon. A TERRIBLE time to start a race. We got there a couple hours early and had some yakisoba for lunch. Then we just hung around and enjoyed people watching.

 Okinawan people have a funny style. We were getting a kick out of the stuff they were wearing. Apparently it helps you run faster if you wear...

 ...a mask

 ...2 pairs of pants and partial sleeves

 ...high heel gold tennis shoes and tights

 ...a man bag (a Japanese essential!! You are not a man, if you don't have a man bag.)

 ...toe socks

 ....a crazy, uneven, weird looking beard. And yes, he was totally picking his nose! Nasty. This guy didn't actually run, but he was too weird to leave out.

 ...and a hat with an airplane on top. These are just a few of the crazy things people were running in. One guy was in hot pink from head, to toe. Another one with a bright yellow spandex outfit, complete with a yellow hat and a rubber duck attached to the top. Or there was the guy in a nacho libre outfit. It was very entertaining.

 Here we are...ready to go! 

There were only a handful of Americans in the race. Probably less than ten, including us. During the race we passed by lots of Japanese people sitting out on the road cheering everyone on. They were so friendly and excited for everyone. It was a really neat experience. The race went around the majority of the island and we had a beautiful view of the coast most of the way.

 Taylor was a champion for Emi while we were running. He had a HUGE blowout before the race and we were so glad that he didn't do it while Emi was watching him. It was definitely a two man job.

Here we are coming in to the finish line! I'll admit, this wasn't my best run. I felt tired and my knees were hurting pretty bad. But I finished, and I never stopped! Justin was nice and stayed with me the whole time cheering me on. I'm so glad we were able to do it together, the race and the training. Now we can check that off of our bucket list!

Catch Up

I'm still falling behind on this blog, so I decided to speed things up with a catch up post of random things we've been up to. 

In April, Taylor turned 4 months old. Time has been flying by with this little guy! We love seeing him grow and change, but part of me wants him to stay little forever. He has been such a good baby. At 4 months, he was still waking up, but usually just once in the night to eat. He does not like to be held when falling asleep. He likes to be swaddled and left alone to fall asleep on his own. Which is good, but I wish he would snuggle more and sometimes fall asleep in my arms. He takes 3 naps a day and in between is so happy and smiling. He loves to play on the floor and loves having his brothers entertain him. Jack will sit by him and play with him for 20 minutes or more sometimes. The older boys absolutely love having him around. They say every day that "Tay Tay is the cutest baby in the whole world!"

Justin participated in "Mustache March", as you can see in this picture below. He had fun growing it out and we chuckled at the responses he got from people. Our friend April said she couldn't take anything he said seriously while he had it. As for me, let's just say I was happy when he shaved it off!

 Justin and Jack went whale watching together. At first, Jack was really scared and nervous to be on the boat, but after he got settled in he had a great time. They saw tons of whales and the guide said it was the best trip that she had ever done. They were so lucky!

 These two cuties are keeping me busy during the day. Anderson will be in preschool in the fall and it will be weird to just have Taylor at home.

 We went geocaching with the Fryar's in Yomitan.

  We were unsuccessful at finding them, but were so excited to see some whales waving at us while we were enjoying the view!

Jack had a "Famous Americans" play at school. He was Babe Ruth. He memorized his part and did a great job in his performance. A couple weeks later, they had a literacy parade. They were supposed to dress up as a character from a book. His teacher didn't send an email out until the night before, so we went looking through the Halloween box that morning and he ended up as a dragon. I'm sure there's a dragon in a book somewhere, right? Puff the Magic Dragon? Jack said there is a dragon in an Iron Man book that he has, so I guess we could go with that as well. 

 Taylor had his first taste of cereal. He wasn't too impressed with it and we have struggled to get him to eat it since then. Hopefully he will be a little more interested in it soon so we can move on to fruits and veggies.

We went exploring around Zakimi castle, which is also in Yomitan. It was a gorgeous day and a perfect spot for the kids to run around and enjoy being outside. I want to spend as much time outside as we can before it gets too hot. The summer is creeping up on us and so is the blazing heat and humidity. Ugh.

 That face. :)

 The boys thought this huge husky dog was super cool. A little bigger than Winston.

After the castle we ate at Ocean's Pizza. It had really strange Japanese pizza, but we found some that we liked. My favorite had potatoes and corn on it. The view from the restaurant was unbelievable. So beautiful.

Love this little Tay bug.