Random

Here are a few random pictures I never got around to posting. Enjoy.

Spring Planting

We had a beautiful spring break this year. With Bob's help and manual labor I decided to plant in the front yard.  It is so nice to have our own house. This first picture is the before. You can see my lovely cherry blossom tree in bloom. I've had that in a pot for almost two years and it is still small. I was hoping that it would grow more once it was in the ground.

Next is the after picture. I tried hard to plant things that don't need a lot of light and that the deer will leave along. We also added a walkway from the drive4way and a path around to the side of the house. I'm pretty happy wit how it turned out and I can't wait to see how everything grows over the next few years.

Two princesses helping us buy stones. We underestimated the amount we needed twice and ended up having to go three times.

Remember the cherry blossom tree from the first picture? The deer destroyed it! I tried to tape the branches back on but I do not think it will work. I'm so mad at the deer. I got this disgusting deer spray but it smells so badly I don't know how often I can spray it.

Cinder and Stormy

Meet Cinder and Stormy, our new kittens!

We promised the kids we would get cats after we moved into our new house. We wanted low maitenence pets and having a cat in Japan worked well for us. It has taken a few months because the humane society is only open during the week and we have been busy. But we had a no school day and I told the kids we would go check. 

We knew we wanted a bonded pair of kittens and sure enough they had one friendly set of kittens ready for us to bring home.

At first I thought we should come back another day and see if they have others. These two look almost exactly the same and they are solid grey. But the kids really wanted these kittens.

They have grown on me. 

But not the litter box. So I'm ready for them to move to the garage. So far they have been inside. But ideally they will also go outside and spend time in the garage hunting mice. Hopefully we can have a smooth transition.

Cinder has the red collar and is a bit more adventurous. Stormy has the blue collar and is more shy. They play fight with each other all the time and are a little skiddish. But they do like petting and never skratch or bite us so everyone is pretty happy with them.

Hanami

We met friends at a local park to have a picnic under the cherry blossom trees, aka hanami.

We had a good time and I used it as an opportunity to take a couple nice pictures of the kids.

Tucker Graduation/Mission

Back in June my oldest child graduated high school! Bob and I are super proud of him and can't believe that he is 18!

We had a graduation party with our close friends whose oldest also graduated.

After a way to quick summer Tucker moved to South Korea to serve a two year church mission.

We miss him so much. But we are also so proud of him and know he is doing good work.