fall... sigh...

I love fall, so does Derick. We did not want to miss all the fall leaves since we are leaving TODAY for New Zealand, so yesterday we went out with our friends the Nation's to see the leaves in Oirase Gorge... it was SO worth it!

Kuji Sea Cliffs

My friend Kate took me rock climbing at the Kuji Sea Cliffs. I did my first lead climb. 

"Lead climbing is a climbing technique used to ascend a route. Lead climbing is an advanced aspect of rock climbing and is not often practiced by novice climbers, and involves a lead climber attaching themselves to a length of dynamic (elastic) climbing rope and ascending a route whilst periodically attaching protection to the face of the route and "clipping in" to it. The lead climber must have another person acting as a belayer. The belayer has multiple roles: holding the rope in the event of a fall, and paying out or taking up rope as the climber moves."

The scarry part about lead climbing is you have to climb above the spot that you are clipped into until you reach the next clip. On this climb there were spots where the clips were maybe 10 feet apart, so if you fall 10 feet above the last clip you really end up falling 20 feet before your belayer can catch you! Dont worry Mom, Kate let me wear her helmet!

Here is Chris doing the same rout I did as a lead climb. 

It is rated an 8... or  5.8... I dont know. 

I think the coolest part about this area is that the ocean is crashing in on the cliffs as you are climbing...

 it was so epic feeling!

Here I am climbing a 10a... but I am top roping it, which means the rope connected through an anchor at the top, so I cant really fall... hopefully a couple more times top roping this route and I will be able to lead climb it!

Beachy Beach

Some pictures of one of our many family excursions to the beach... well, we left Sabastian at home... but he hates water anyways! 

I am going to be so sad when we don't live by the ocean anymore, especially a  freaking awesome ocean with great surf, great sand, and NO PEOPLE!

 I have a new found love of feathers... Someone told me once they were full of nasty bird bacteria... so I was always scared to touch them... but I have changed my mind and I always come home with at least one!

Kona loves her beach time! Her life is SO hard! 

I love our beach time too... my life is SO hard!

Derick... well... his life is SUPER hard!

Look at Kona's face! She loves to play fetch... especially when water is involved!

The waves don't even phase her!

I love how in this picture Derick is looking at Kona and Kona is looking at Derick!

Korean Bar

We just had the "Far East Bazaar" here at Misawa (where vendors from all over the world come and try to get us to buy their crap)... this is HUGE event that alot of my friends worked A LONG time on to make happen! I however only donated 48 muffins so I could go to the pre-sale... Anyways when we first got here we saw these bars that are pretty cool, they are on wheels so you can roll them to where ever you are needing some drinks and keeps everything in one convenient location! So we decided we wanted one before we leave, and since we are not sure anymore when we are leaving we decided better safe then sorry and went ahead and got one. Most were super ornately carved and had lots of detail... not my thing, this was the only one that was simple plain and fantastic!

AND here it is... this is why I had to get the mirror on the wall... So I could fit our bar where it had been leaning... but now I don't know where the christmas tree is going...
I'll figure that out when the time comes!

This is what it looks like all opened up... we obviously need more wine... The doors open all the way and the top folds over on top to make a large bar/ serving area!

The red wine glasses in the center are on a panel that rotates so that would normally just be a wooden panel unless you rotated it to get a glass.

Ocean Rage!

We went camping on a Friday night with our friends the Nations with the hopes to surf the next morning. It was a gorgeous night but the next day was gray, rainy, the the ocean was bigger then I have ever seen it before... and not in a good way... it was just solid whitewater. So we thought... lets try again Sunday. These pictures are from Sunday... the ocean was still just as big. We later found out there was a typhoon!

New Living room Feng Shui

I have always loved the idea of Feng Shui... although I probably have a simplified understanding of the concept I still enjoy it...

Feng shui is an ancient Chinese system of aesthetics believed to use the laws of both Heaven (astronomy) and Earth (geography) to help one improve life by receiving positive qi.

Anyways sometimes I find myself needing to change everything, or at least some things... I arrange my furnature and painting and photos how  I think they look best and enjoy them like that until one day I just think "THIS IS SO WRONG" and I know exactly what to do to fix it... Maybe its good that I have to move every three years and get to change EVERYTHING! I think if i lived in the same house for 20 years I would end up repainting and changing everything about every three years anyway.

BUT the whole point is I changed my living room... I realize now... looking for old photos of my living room, you guys never really saw it... so I will tell you what changed... cause it looks WAY better!

I hung up my Thailand Paintings, hung up my shelf I made out of a piece of a shipwreck, moved some glass bottles onto it, hung up my mirror on the right and moved the splatter paintings from the right wall to the left wall... I think they look better against the red!

I found this piece of wood at shipwreck beach, I think it used to be part of one of the shipwrecks... I sanded it down, dug out all the rotten parts, and mounted it on these brackets I found at Homac... Those bottles are all bottles I found on beaches here in Japan and I want to put some sand in the clear ones... probably some black sand from the beach right by us.

On this wall is where the splatter paintings used to be and the mirror was leaning on the wall by the door to the kitchen... I finally got the balls to try to hang this thing... it is so heavy and we don't have wooden studs.. we have metal ones... SO our friends the Nations were over while I was contemplating what to do, he saw me measuring and marking and measuring and thinking, and asked what I was doing... he eventually told me about butterfly screws where you put he scew in the wall then it expands behind the wall so you can mount heavy things on the wall without studs... SCORE... so another two trips (I got the wrong ones the first time) to Homac later... the mirror is hung.

Where the splatter painting are now is where our diplomas used to be. Our diplomas are now above the computer... that door is where the mirror used to sit on the floor. We want to buy a bar (they look kinda like THIS) at the Bazaar and we want to put it behind the couch, so good thing the mirror is gone!

There is a giant blank spot on the wall cause that is where our clock was supposed to go but I hung it before I hung a couple other things and when I was hammering it fell off and shattered everywhere... it had a glass face... I think I still have glass embedded in my foot... my bad.

Beef & Garlic Festival

Pulling up to the Beef & Garlic Festival there were all these scarecrow looking guys with garlic faces... this one had a garlic face painted like a cow that is licking its face... so weird..

Inside the main grilling building... it was pretty smokey. They were also grilling half a cow on a rotisserie thing in here... it was huge!

Since it was so smokey we grilled outside! It was such an awesome fall day, cool, cloudy, and super fun!

 LOOK AT HOW BIG THOSE GARLICS ARE! One of those giant weaves of huge garlic is 9,000 yen... or about $110!!!!

Masks from a vendor at the festival

 To see the rest of the photos click HERE