Christmas plans

We're beginning to book our two week long road trip over Christmas and New Year's. Our destination is the island of Hokkaido which is supposed to be beautiful in the winter with ice sculpting festivals in the cities and amazing scenery throughout. Nathan would like to hit the northernmost point of Hokkaido - about 25 miles from Russia! I am thinking we will stop in Sapporo and have more time to sightsee along the way. This will probably be our only trip north of Tokyo and our only time to Hokkaido, so we're really excited.  We are saving Tokyo for another trip.

Here's how it's shaping up so far - gleep!

Flower song

Here is Wilson singing a Japanese song he learned at his school.

 

 



99 Islands

The whole coast of Sasebo and for miles to the north and south of the city is a national park called 99 Islands. It's really over 200 islands that are dotted all along the coast. Only 2 are inhabited and the rest are part of the national park. They are so beautiful! Part of our season pass to the Sasebo Aquarium includes free boat tours through the park. We've been meaning to go on this tour for a while, but have either had crummy weather or been out of town. This past weekend we finally did it and it was great!

 

There are 2 boats you can choose from. We took the Pearl Queen for the sunset cruise.

 

 

Here is the other option - the pirate boat! Apparently the crew dresses up like pirates and it's interactive. We'll take this one next time.

 

 

Nathan and I really enjoyed the great views. This island is called Lion Island.

 

 

The boys mostly just wanted to explore the boat.

 

 

 

They had a cute dress up corner that the boys had fun with. I was relieved since I was feeling pretty guilty for not have a matching sailor outfit for Wilson!

 

 

 

Wilson took his role as Captain very seriously and started ordering his first mate to do some work around the boat.

 

 

Pretty fun boat ride! We'll be back.

 

 



Pajama party

About once a month the childcare center on base will stay open late and offer a parents night out babysitting opportunity. Nathan and I always take advantage of it and drop the boys off.  Wilson calls it a Pajama Party since they go in pj's in case we're out past bedtime. It's a nice alternative to having a babysitter here and they love being with the other kids and fun new toys.

 

This month they were excited to wear their Halloween pj's!

 



We actually have to take Leo's off before he goes to bed because they glow in the dark and the first night he wore them he woke up at 2 am screaming. Oops, sorry Leo!

 





Kagoshima

This past 3 day weekend we took a trip to Kagoshima, one of Kyushu's southernmost cities. It was the furthest we've been from Sasebo and it was quite the road trip. We took toll roads the whole way down and it took us about 6 hours and $90 to get there. We were happily surprised that the tolls weren't more than that.

 

Our first stop once we got to Kagoshima was a ferris wheel that the boys loved. They really partied on it!  It offered some pretty cool views of the city and of the volcano across the bay, Sakurajima.

 

 

 

Early on Sunday, we hopped aboard a car ferry that took us to the volcano. It was Leo's first ferry ride and he was a bit nervous. 

 

 

He warmed up to the idea and the boys scoped out the volcano we were headed to. 

  

 

Sakurajima was pretty awesome with tons of stuff to do once we got there. There were lookout towers, foot baths, hiking trails, parks and more. About 5,000 people live on the volcano year round and it's constantly billowing out ash, so everything is covered in it. The last major eruption was in 1914 and there is a shrine you can visit that is half buried in lava because of it.

 

Here was one of the viewing platforms.

 

 

We spent a lot of time at an awesome dinosaur park. The boys LOVED it!
 



 

 

 

 

Besides dinosaurs, there was the longest roller slide we'd ever seen and some pretty neat jungle gyms. And great views of course!

 

 

 

After the volcano, we drove about 3 more hours south to the southernmost point of Kyushu Island. Cape Sata was amazing! You drive as far as you can and then...

 

...hike through a tunnel to the other side of the mountain...

 

 

...through the woods...

 

 

...past a shrine...

 

 

...past some amazing views...

 

  

 

...past an abandoned restaurant that your mom will tell you to stay away from and your dad will tell you to go have fun in...

 

 

...then you're there!

 

 

It was a really neat walk - we were so glad we made the long drive down to the cape.  On the way back, we found this shrine on a beach alongside the road. The boys had fun playing in the water a bit and I just thought the Torii arch looked so cool on the beach.

 

 

 

The view of Sakurajima as we headed back was pretty neat.

 

Leo got brave on our last ferry of the day!

 

 

The next day we spent mostly in the car enjoying a beautiful drive up the western coast of Kyushu. It was all very mountainous with tons of rocky beaches and beautiful views. We took our third and final ferry from Kumamoto to Shimabara on our way home. We had a great time on this trip and are really starting to feel like we know a lot about our island. We've yet to find a spot that isn't breathtakingly beautiful and we've found tons of spots (especially on this trip!) that we're sure to go back to.

 

 



Leo's room

Leo's room is one of the more interesting rooms in our house. It is one of the smaller bedrooms upstairs, but it has a cool loft in it with a twin sized tatami area on top. It's too bad Wilson's not a little older, because this would be a really cool room for an older kid to sleep in.

Decorating has been a challenge since in our lease it says we're not supposed to hang anything up with more than a thumbtack since there is very neutral colored wallpaper on every wall and ceiling (yes, ceiling!). I like a little more color in the boys' rooms, especially with the white furniture, but I'm pretty happy with Leo's little room. The blanket hanging here is covering up a weird built in mirror - I may have used very, very thin nails to keep it up - shhh!

 

Here is the loft area that we're just using as storage for things we don't want to put all the way in the attic.

 

 

I'm using the steps as a place to keep all my cloth diaper stuff, which also acts as a deterrent to any climbing the boys might think looks fun.

 

 

The room has a built in desk that is the perfect height for a changing table. This is much more practical than the built in desk in our bedroom that Nathan is using as an awkwardly high nightstand!

 

 

Even though we're not taking advantage of the loft, Leo seems to like his new place. Wilson's room is up next!