The only constant in life is change. This blog is our chronicle of our life around the world and now in the middle Las Vegas. Follow my adventures DIYing around my first home, learning to grow things in the desert, creating art, raising a family crunchy mama style, having adventures and finding the perfect imperfections in my life.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
New Job
Well I just got a new job at the Youth Center (kids ages 9-13) AND IT IS AWESOME!!!! basically they have this art room thats been locked up cause they dont have anyone to do lessons and take care of it! Enter Lisa: Super Awesome Art Room Renovation Time! So I am cleaning and organizing and making list of what we need and basically I have complete freedom to make lessons and projects and to have fun times with middle schoolers... It is AMAZING! I am having so much fun. But when I am not in the art room I am playing basketball, air hockey, pogo stick racing and getting paid for it all! Basically I am getting paid to have fun! Sweetness!!!!
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Fathers Day
This year Kona wanted to give her daddy something really special... He was hoping for surround sound but Kona's allowance is not that big. Anyways Kona thinks her daddy takes some really nice pictures and she loves hearing stories about his trip to India so she framed a bunch of pictures that he took while he was there and had me hang them on the wall in the kitchen... it was so horrible because she had this specific vision and I just could not hang the pictures in the right spots... but this is eventually what we came up with...

Here is a front view... by the way did you know if you click on the pictures you can see the full size version... I am sure you knew but I am just making sure cuase I just figured it out!
Kona thinks they turned out really good... Good job Derick!!!
Oh and we also got an entertainment center a week ago...
We got it from the green store like our DVD thing, and we got another littler DVD thing (pictured above) Anyway, the DVD things came in little flat boxes and we had to assemble them, so thats how I figured the entertainment center would come... No... It came all together... so to fit it in our car with the three people (Derick, Mike & I) who all drove 45 min to the store we had to fold down half of the backseat and push the drivers seat all the way to the front... so Derick was driving with his knees up on the dash and his arm pushed up in front on the stearing wheel like a t-rex... and to turn he had to shuffle the wheel really fast with his hands cause he couldn't move his arms... I almost peed my pants... but if I was Caitlyn I just would have thrown it on top and ran a rope through the open windows...
But the moral of the story is it worked (like I said it would... there were doubters) and it looks really nice. So I finally don't have to hear Derick complain about our old entertainment center... which he thought was great enough at one point to buy... hmm... AND I hung up my tablecloths from my wedding over our window over our couch and they look GREAT!!!
Here is a front view... by the way did you know if you click on the pictures you can see the full size version... I am sure you knew but I am just making sure cuase I just figured it out!
Oh and we also got an entertainment center a week ago...
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Air Fare
I was just looking into air fare cause people keep telling me they want to come and visit.. I searched on Kayak.com and from Kansas City to Narita Airport (outside of Tokyo) it is only $779 round trip from July 15 to Aug 12 (wednesdays are usually the cheepest I think...) Just FYI!!!!
North East Coast
On the way home from Mt. Oser…. Well let me start over… on the way to Mt. Oser there was this thick fog over the ocean and we kept seeing glimpses of it through the forest… and I kept begging Derick to pull over so I could take pictures… of course he said “we will pull over on the way back”... ughhhh… so on the way back he kept going… and going… and finally I remembered a little outlook was coming up so I yelled “PULL OVER” … what a good call… there was a fence with a little gate, pass through the gate and this is what we saw…
There was a peninsula straight out ahead and the ocean crashing in on each side, it was so amazing… oh and there were two Japanese men eating a picnic lunch... hmmm… but THEN I saw a little trail off to the left, with a little exploration I discovered a series of rope leading down some very steep very crud stairs… I of course immediately start descending… Derick of course takes 10 min. to decide if he wants to follow…
This is Derick after he finally decided to join me at the bottom…
Huge mounds of black volcanic rock, powerful waves crashing and swirling, me jumping from rock to rock trying to avoid the swells of the incoming tide!!! I loved every second of this! This place made me think of you Caitlyn… I wish you had been there, you would have LOVED it!
Derick and I and the vast Pacific Ocean!
This is our friend Mike up on the peninsula while we were down in the canyon…
The way back up was a little harder but the ropes really made it easy…
This is the trail out onto the tip of the peninsula… I just cant express how beautiful, and simple, and complex, and the smell of the ocean, and the sound of the crashing waves, the cries of the seagulls, it was so primal and simple yet so complex and rich and I felt like I could stay out there for hours and not feel like any time had passed.
This is looking back down into the canyon that we had climbed down into, you can see the pretty big areas of gushing ocean that we had to jump over to get out onto the rocks!
The pictures speak for themselves…
This was a “rornery rirry” (lonely lilly) that I found out on one of the cliffs, it reminds me of something from Hinds Feet on High Places… or the lilies of the valley who don’t worry… God takes care of everything!
And after our big day out in Japan… we ate at our favorite noodle house… The Cheese Roll… we all are great big plates of Yakisoba… yumm… yakisoba is a noodle dish made with buckwheat noodles, its delicious!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Entrance to Hell
This past weekend we (Derick and I and six of our friends) took a road trip up north (about two hours) to Mt. Oserezan. This place is one of the three holiest sites in all of Japan. In the center of the area is Lake Usori, surrounded by white sand and 8 peaks of mountains. This represents a lotus flower with 8 petals (the symbol of the world of Buddha) In this central area there are 108 ponds of boiling mud and sulfur representing the 108 worldly desires and the hells linked to each one. Side by side with this hellish view are the woods and lake, which suggest the beauty of paradise.
The Buddha figure at this temple is called Jizo. Jizo has “vowed to suffer hell himself to alleviate the pain from those condemned to hell, to free human beings from the illusions of life and death in this world and lead them into eternal salvation.”… Sounds familiar. There was one part that really struck me…
“The sulphurous valley in the depth of this mountainous area becomes a land of salvation, where absolute peace and happiness are freely given, Here one can listen to an inaudible sermon, which teaches that any place is Paradise so far as Jizo it there.” I think that is how we should all look at life, at least this is my new goal, if you really listen you can hear an “inaudible sermon”… this land cries the glories of our God! We just have to take the time to listen… and any place is paradise as long as God is there, and where is he not? I don’t know if it is being in this place surrounded by ancient forests, the endless crashing ocean, thick mists and huge mountains but there is something deeply spiritual about this place, something deeper and more vast then I will ever begin to understand…
Anyway… take a look at what we found at Mt. Oser!
Driving there we took the road up the coast with the ocean on one side and hills and forests on the other, and occasionally there was room for a rice patty or two. I love the homemade fences right next to the giant power lines. We live pretty close to a nuclear power plant, the people that live off base actually get a check from the Japanese government each year as an “I’m sorry you are going to get cancer cause you live within 100 k of a nuclear power plant.“… I think its like 80 dollars.
This is right before we got to the mountain, this is actually part of Lake Usori, we just didn’t realize we were that close, but it definitely smelled of sulfur at this point.
This is a sign with the name of the lake written in kanji. You can see how clear the water was. It was so gorgeous and that looks like a walkway or a dock or something that used to extend out into the lake.
This is getting ready to walk into the main temple area, there were these statues on each side, slightly ridiculous looking, here is Derick taking a picture of one with his camera… (we don’t do well when we have to share a camera)
This is he main temple, it was very gorgeous, I love the rooflines. Apparently there are snow monkeys living in the forest behind the temple, we did not see any monkeys but we did hear them calling to each other.
This is the entrance to the walkway to “hell”, it was really cool, and not as stinky as I thought it was going to be, we kinda got used to it. I love how old and worn this marker is. It was quite light outside despite the ominous looking clouds and makes for great pictures.
This is one of the vent where hot sulfurous air poured out, if you look closely all around the opening and down the side are coins, some are so old they have changed color and some have become charred from the intense heat and whatever else is coming out of that hole, I thought they looked really cool.
This is looking at the “paradise” area from the “hell” area. The lake was so pretty and it
had the most gorgeous aqua blue water. And you can see the incredibly dense monkey ridden forest surrounding this area.
Here is one of the many many sulfur streams running through the area, they were a variety of colors, and all stinky, but super cool looking.
A great big statue of Buddha, at the back edge of the hell area next to the forest, this looks pretty new, I don’t know how long its been there.
Here is one of the boiling sulfur ponds, I read on wikitravel that the ponds are all colors from sulfur yellow all the way to blood red ones, but we never found the blood red one, I was really disappointed.
Derick and I on the back edge of the “hell” area, you can see the back of the Buddha behind us, you can see how big he is compared to us and he is really far away, and somewhere in between is where the boiling yellow sulfur pond is.
On the way down to the beach we came upon this reflecting pool, and I am sure what I am doing is super sacrilegious, but its not my religion and nobody else could see me so, I did anyway, and I think it is hilarious!
The white sand beach, but don’t let the beauty fool you, even the lake was bubbling and had sulfurous yellow stains in the bottom, I doubt much lives in that lake…
There were piles of rocks everywhere, just random piles of rocks… now I heard a few different stories… one was that when people had small children die they came here to mourn the death and would build a pile of rocks for them, the other version said the spirits of the dead children would come here and build the piles and wait there for their parents to come join the child in death. Either way its pretty sad and there was a whole area just for stillborn babies, and at the foot of a statue in this area was of course a bunch of rocks and mixed in the rocks were these little statues, I assume when a family has a child die they buy a little statue and leave it in their honor. So sad….
Well Mt. Oser was really cool but the place we stopped on the drive back was equally as cool… check back later cause I am posting those photos next!!!!
The Buddha figure at this temple is called Jizo. Jizo has “vowed to suffer hell himself to alleviate the pain from those condemned to hell, to free human beings from the illusions of life and death in this world and lead them into eternal salvation.”… Sounds familiar. There was one part that really struck me…
“The sulphurous valley in the depth of this mountainous area becomes a land of salvation, where absolute peace and happiness are freely given, Here one can listen to an inaudible sermon, which teaches that any place is Paradise so far as Jizo it there.” I think that is how we should all look at life, at least this is my new goal, if you really listen you can hear an “inaudible sermon”… this land cries the glories of our God! We just have to take the time to listen… and any place is paradise as long as God is there, and where is he not? I don’t know if it is being in this place surrounded by ancient forests, the endless crashing ocean, thick mists and huge mountains but there is something deeply spiritual about this place, something deeper and more vast then I will ever begin to understand…
Anyway… take a look at what we found at Mt. Oser!
had the most gorgeous aqua blue water. And you can see the incredibly dense monkey ridden forest surrounding this area.
Well Mt. Oser was really cool but the place we stopped on the drive back was equally as cool… check back later cause I am posting those photos next!!!!
More of the House…
I finally got all of the boxes unpacked and all of the odds and ends put away… It only took me a week and a half… for organizing my whole life that’s not bad… I also found out my whole life weighs 6300 pounds.
Here is my new studio… with my super awesome easel and of course my pig intestine and rusted barbed wire sculptures
Here is the other corner of my studio… with my favorite chair in the whole world… that is also a bed… that has mini mouse sheets on it… notice the beads hanging from my curtains… I thought that was genius!
Guest bedroom, I have lots of room for anyone who wants to come and visit!!! HINT HINT!!! And look at all of the gorgeous trees in my back yard!!! I love it so much.
Giant closet in guest room, this is really Sebastian’s bedroom, he sleeps in here all day before he goes out at night, I think cause Kona never looks in there.
Mater bedroom, this room is so big we do not have enough furniture or stuff to fill it up. Right outside that window there is a tree about 4 feet away from the roof, when Sebastian is done for the night he climbs up the tree, jumps to the room, opens the sliding screen on the window and come gets in bed with us… thank goodness no more 5 am crying to wake us up to let him in…
Our tiny little bed, all of our friends see it and say “wow you guys must really love each other”… Nope Lisa is just too cheep to let Derick buy a bigger one… No I really like our small bed... its nice… But notice there is nothing hanging on the wall above the bed… that’s because of all the earthquakes… we have had two since I have been here and I slept through one and was on a bus during the other so I haven’t felt any… I am so mad…
Our giant closet!!! Derick thought we had a lot of clothes till we looked into our neighbors house… THEY have a lot of clothes… thank goodness now he’s not trying to get me to get rid of mine.
Dining room table… getting ready for a dinner with some friends… I just thought it looked so cute!
Our little breakfast nook are with coffee pot (the promise of an eventual espresso machine) teapots, tea, sugar… its super convenient!
Monday, June 15, 2009
American Day
Every year the Air Base puts on “American Day.” People come from all over Japan to attend American day. There are booths outside the base with food from many different states… Missouri of course was the funnel cake booth… we are so fat… there were hamburgers, hot dogs, French fries, tacos, brisket, all kinds of stuff. Then further into town the Japanese have their own booths too and a Parade runs in-between the two. It was rainy and a little cold but very much fun!
Derick, Kona and I went out at like 10 am when it first started and walked around… not everything was open so we looked around a little bit and decided to come back later in the day. But while we were there we got a little group of Japanese kids following kona… old people are scared of her and little kids think she is amazing. These kids were so cute I just had to take a picture with them. They had so much fun petting Kona. An old lady was watching and came up like she wanted to pet Kona but she was so scared to just stared for like 5 min. and finally she came up with the courage to touch Kona’s tail. It was really cute and hilarious.
So I decided it was too cold to look cute in my little jacket and umbrella (and its too hard to shove funnel cake in your mouth if one hand is holding an umbrella) so I changed into a hat and hoodie and we headed back out. First we went to the hanger on base that was showing the Japanese F2 and the American F16. This is us with the F2.
This is me and Derick in front of the F16.
This is over in the Japanese booths… notice the mini octopus (dipped in batter and fried up fresh for your order) right next to the chocolate covered bananas on a stick!
Derick bought me a miniature candy covered apple… I did not realize candy apples were hard… it was a slightly unpleasant surprise… but in the end it wasn’t all that bad!
At the local gym off base they had sports games like volleyball and tug of war for any adults and in this one room they had wheely things for kids… I thought it was awesome… Derick was not so impressed.
These are more pictures of the types of foods in the Japanese booths. They love to put things on sticks and so naturally they love corndogs
I am not really sure what all of this is but it smelled great!
It was a pretty nasty day but the turnout was great! There were so many people anyway. We had so much fun and ate lots of great Japanese and American food!
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Oh Japan…
Random photos that I think are blog worthy:
Its funny enough that Japanese people cannot pronounce L’s and replace them with R’s… even funnier is that they often do this in their writing as well… Actual sign in a town probably the size of Columbia “Low Cost Rog House!” Even funnier I think is that they got one right just not both…
Me and Derick playing “Mario Cart” in a Japanese arcade! What could be more fun then mario cart with a steering wheel and pedals!!! I dont know... plus they took our pictures and posted our faces on top of our characters faces (we both chose Yoshi) and we looked AMAZING... well Derick looked special... but they didnt have alot to work with!
We bought a rack to hold our DVD’s at the Green Store (large furniture store called the green store by Americans because the sign is green and we cant read the real name) and this is how all the pieces came… perfectly labeled and arranged! AMAZING! I love the Japanese!
Finished DVD rack.. I think we might need another!
Two super cute floor mats I got at the green store… only 799 yen! I know amazing!
No this kiwi is not funky… it is yellow… and delicious… we found these at Universe our favorite local grocery store… They were sweeter then green kiwis... I make fruit salad alot here... I dont know why... fruit is way expensive here... not as expensive as lettuce though... I have started eating salad with out lettuce.. just a pile of carrots, cucumber, onion and feta... still good!
Oh herrooo kiwi!
Kona sleeps all day… what is new?
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