Easter

 We had wonderful weather for our first Easter in Japan! Spring is here and there are flowers blooming all around town. This beautiful tree is in our front yard.

We dyed our eggs in the morning.

The Easter Bunny came during nap time and when the boys woke up they checked out their loot.

Then we headed to the end of our street to hunt for some eggs.

The boys had fun finding all the eggs and baseball cards.

Dad helped out a little - apparently the Easter Bunny's pretty tall!

Happy Easter!

Stitches

Leo spiced up an otherwise normal and relaxing Thursday night by taking us on a trip to the ER. He fell backwards on a little car right into the corner of the coffee table. It was a real gusher. That and the screaming both stopped after about 5 minutes. We considered not even bringing him in, but the cut looked pretty big. He ended up getting three stitches. The procedure looked pretty painful at the clinic, but he woke up this morning with no complaints. 

I think I'll let his crazy bedhead slide for today :)

Trips to the ER

Leo - 2   Wilson - 0

First haircut

 Leo finally got his first haircut! It took two years to get it long enough to consider. We knew it was time when many, many people started started assuming he was a girl. You've seen the pictures - I really don't dress him girly! The best comment came when we were at the beach in Hawaii with Leo in his swim trunks and someone told me 'she' was so cute. Guess the long hair had to go.

Here is one side done and the other still curling out... miss those curls!

We were happy that Wally and Charlotte joined in on the fun. 

Leo took Charlotte out for a spin.

The boys and their new haircuts. They looked good, but we agreed we missed the long locks a little.

While we were there, I couldn't help but think about Wilson's first haircut. He didn't make it to a year old before we had to tame his head of hair. Here's a little flashback...

3rd Trimester

The babe and I are getting bigger. 

We're getting really excited (and a little nervous!) for June.

Spring Break

Japan's school year begins in April, so this month Wilson's class put on an end of the year performance for the parents. It was really cute. I'm sure Wilson would have been a super star had it not been held on the day he returned to school after being gone for a month on vacation. Wilson made the most out of his little practice and made up for it with enthusiasm. Here's a little clip that was taken right after Leo fell off a chair he was standing on to see. I'm assuming that distracted Wilson and that's why he's in the front row when the rest of his color hats have moved to the back row. Also, please try to ignore the kid next to Wilson - I'm sure he just thought that was his pocket. Anyway, enjoy! I sure did :)

I'm saving the extended version to inflict only on grandparents through email, but let me know if you're interested and I can send it along!

Now our cutie has a two week Spring Break until he moves to his new class. Here he is on the last day he can wear his normal clothes to school. We just got the uniforms for next year and they are pretty darn adorable. 

Good job finishing up your first year of school, Wilson! 

We're so proud of you.

Seoul, South Korea

Our February flight back to the States left and came in to South Korea. Since we were flying standby, we left a few days on either end of the trip just in case we didn't get our first choice of flights. We ended up making both the flights (!) so on our return to Asia we had a few days to be tourists in South Korea before we flew back to Japan. This was a pretty great way to readjust to the time zone, which is almost completely opposite from the States, and see our first Asian country besides Japan.

We spent the first day on a really cool bus ride around Seoul's highlights. It was a hop on hop off bus, so we got a chance to get out at a few cool sights. We walked around the palace of Changdeokgung. It was beautifully restored.

 We went to the National Museum which was huge and very nice. You can see the Seoul Tower on a mountain through the opening of the museum entrance.

 There was a great children's museum area inside. The boys had a ball!

 On our second sightseeing day, we ditched the kids with a babysitter at the hotel and had a fun date day exploring a few of Seoul's many cute neighborhoods. Seoul is so big that there are many neighborhoods that take on different personalities. Nathan and I researched the ones that sounded neat and ended up making it to three of them.

First was Insadong. It's an artist's neighborhood that has traditional Korean crafts, tea houses and restaurants. There were tons of really cool alleys to explore and get lost in.

Just a short walk from Insadong was Bukchon Village which had many blocks of restored historical homes that are still lived in. It was a very ritzy part of the city with great views.

The last neighborhood we visited was Itaewon, which is a pretty seedy neighborhood that sprung up right next to the military base, Yongsan, where we were staying. It's a pretty hopping area with lots of really cheap things to buy - like leather jackets, tailored suits, knockoff name brand stuff, etc. There are a lot of different types of restaurants. We had trouble finding a Korean place to eat, but saw restaurants from just about every other country in the world. The neighborhood also has a red light district and is known for having pretty rowdy weekends with the American military base so close. It was definitely not as classy as the first two neighborhoods we wandered through, but it was still really interesting. 

Here Nathan considers some of Itaewon's waxing services.

Hate to leave you with the above picture in your head, but that was pretty much it for our time in Korea. It was very short but sweet - we had a lot of fun and are big fans of Seoul!

Oregon in February

 

We had fun at the Oregon Coast with Nathan's family!

We were at the beach almost a week with the whole gang and also got to spend a few days relaxing in Sisters, OR with Grandma and Grandpa Hydes.

We love going to Sisters. It's a beautiful area with tons of stuff to do. We spent one day exploring the Redmond caves. Wilson loved it so much he asked to go back every day we were there!

The boys got to see tons of deer roaming the neighborhood.

After our time in Sisters, we stopped by Salem to visit Nathan's grandma. We also had fun meeting up with Aunt Cindy, Aunt Candy and cousin Sarah with her family. 

For the week at the coast, we rented a beautiful house that had an okay view :) 

Here's a picture from the backyard.

We took a bunch of chilly walks on the beach. The boys of course didn't mind the weather and loved running away from the waves, throwing rocks and playing in the sand.

We spent a lot of time inside just hanging out and having fun.

Ely got into character with his beard and spent some time crabbing and clamming. The guys all braved the rain at midnight one night to join him.

Leo helped Uncle Ely shell the catch for a lovely Crab Louie salad.

Nathan's best friend from high school, Willy, came to the beach for a day of baseball. We always love seeing Willy and they had a lot of fun catching up.

We visited the Rogue Brewery one afternoon for some samplers and lunch.

We did a murder mystery dinner one night. Cynthia's goth costume was so good that she scared the kids until we told them it was her and Dave turned out to be one smooth criminal!

The boys spent a lot of time getting rowdy with Grandpa and big cousin Grant...

..cuddling with Grandma...

...and showing Uncle Ely and his lovely fiancee Lauren a preview of 5 years from now with help from sweet cousin Eleanor.

Nathan of course loved his time with his brothers.

We were sad to say goodbye and leave the beach to catch our flight home from Seattle. We are so excited that Grandma and Grandpa Hydes are planning a visit to Japan for later this year!