For the past two months I've been teaching weekly English time at Gunge Elementary school near our home. I just finished the four lesson round with the four Fifth grade classes last week, and in thanks for teaching, each class gave me an envelope full of personal notes from the students. There are more than thirty students in each class, which means I received nearly 140 notes in all. Most of them said typical things like, "Thanks for teaching," and "Your lessons were really fun," and "We'll miss you," but a few are worth quoting verbatim.

�gDear Teacher, Learning English from you was really fun, especially your cow impersonation!�h

�gDear Teacher, Learning English with you was fun. Especially the part about not giving dead fish handshakes or monkey wrench handshakes.�h

�gEverything we learned in English class was really fun. Please come to Japan again and eat lots of delicious Japanese food.�h

�gTeacher, Your English is really good. I would have liked to learn more from you. It was fun.�h

I�fve still got five lessons with each of the four sixth grade classes at the school over the next four weeks, so I�fm sure there will be more to add to the list.

Walking into an elementary school in Japan is like being a movie star. EVERYONE stares at you, points, and waves, says hello, and goes out of their way to bow, or otherwise greet you. Some of the younger kids forget where they�fre going when they pass you in the hall and end up following you around. When you leave a classroom you are thronged by kids who want to shake your hand, give you five, carry your backpack, and get your signature. I was a little nervous at first, mostly overwhelmed by the sheer size of the classes I was teaching, but have come to enjoy my weekly visits to the school, and am beginning to recognize a lot of the kids. I have even seen a few at the grocery store, or at McDonalds and said hello to them. This is really a small town, and the more I get to know the people, the smaller it becomes.

Callan was a trooper today. He survived three hours at the Doctors office, and another three hours round trip in the Car. He played hard at the beach, and only flipped out momentarily after his bath tonight. For three nights in a row he has fallen asleep on his own, has slept the whole night in his bed, and been generally pleasant. Saturday was kind of rough because I had class in the morning at our home and Callan was having a hard time sharing with the four older students I was teaching. He melted into a tantrum, and soon after Dad and Mom both wigged out pretty bad. A general mood of yuck prevailed over the house for most of the day, and in the evening we all had a talk about how to handle "the two year old inside all of us" better. It is easy to forget that inside each of us is a two year old, and that though we've gotten bigger and learned social expectations about expressing our needs, and have found better ways to get what we want, each of us still has a tendancy to let the two year old out when things get rough. I know mine does. What kills is that Callan, for good and for bad, mimicks everything that I do. That is perhaps the greatest impetus for controlling my tongue, and my temper. He is a great kid. Today Kelly Walther, his nursery teacher said, "Callan always says please about everything." He is a very kind and thoughtful child who is always concerned about his Mommy and Daddy. Today I hit my head really hard on our hatch back door and Callan walked up to me and said, 'You alright Daddy?

Joey, waiting at a light on Route 11 in Takamatsu, after spending a warm afternoon at the Beach.

Today after spending three hours at the Doctors office for Melissa's pregnancy check up, we met up with Remey and Kelly Walther in Takamatsu and headed 25 kilometers east to Tsuda, one of two relatively scenic beaches around our area. It's just getting sunny and warm enough to bring out our dollar store sun glasses and turn on the A/C in the car. Unfortunately the A/C didn't seem to work today so we kept the windows down most of the time.

Remey and Kelly Walther. They came to Japan a week after we did, and Will Leave a week after we do. But since we're staying in Hawaii for a week, we'll actually be on the same flight as them from San Francisco to Salt Lake City. They're moving to Knoxville in the Fall to attend Vanderbilt University Law School.

It was a bit windy on the drive up, but the beach turned out very pleasant--a bit rocky--but pleasant. There was minimal litter and the water was just wavy enough to make things interesting. Ramey and I got in the water and did some swimming, and Kelly and Melissa waded a little bit. Then Ramey and Callan and I played catch with the baseball, and Kelly and Melissa sat in the sand and talked long enough to get a little pink in the shoulders.

Callan isn't as happy as he looks, he's way happier.

Callan loved the water. He was all giggles, and would have stayed at the beach all day if we let him.

On Sunday afternoon, we stopped at this park to let Callan stretch his legs.

This is the only park in our entire city with a public basketball court.

Japanese parks are full of all sorts of playground equipment (like merry-go-rounds, teeter-todders, sliding rope swings, gigantic jungle gyms) that law suits have rendered impractical in the united States.

On Sunday after church we went in search of a good beach to play at on our day off. This shrine was on a hill above a really awful beach we found in the next town over, called Tadotsu. The Shrine behind Melissa�fs was actually a fairly simple structure at the center of a large complex built into the side of a hill that looked as if it was once a grand place. However, when we were there the signs of Neglect rendered void any tranquil qualities of the compound. There were, to its credit, beautiful flowers, and quite a view of the inland sea.

Thankfully the sunset makes the beach less than visible, otherwise you would clearly see the excess of litter that floats in on almost every strip of beach within 20 kilometers of a major port. This beach was not going to work for a beach trip, and there was no way we were going to get in the water.

The purple Iris is Melissa's favorite flower, and it is Iris season here, so they're everywhere!

In the Case of a Bum it is Hurt and Paining

(The title: When you use google translation to translate Japanese web pages into English, as I often do, you often get understandable but ridiculous sentances like this one. I created my own for this occasion though!)

The best part of the park was a big play structure built into the side of the mountain. It had two very long and twisting slides made of roller bars. It makes a great sound when you get all those bars rolling but ouch! Adult bums are not use to this kind of beating! It took a few days to stop being sore but we both agree we'd do it it again, sore bum and all! It was exactly the kind of park you would never want to leave as a kid. In fact, there was a little girl in the parking lot screaming about how she didn't want to leave!

Mannou Kouen

This park is huge and so much fun! I really want to go back soon. And I know Callan would love to go back too. It looks a little like I'm standing on a mountain of snow but it's really a soft, air-filled jumping mountain. THe signs say adults can only go on with their kids, well lucky for us! It was much more fun than a trampoline and Joey and I both said afterwards, "Where do we buy one of these!" Callan loved jumping on it too, and took a little tumble between the humps on top and gave himslef his first bloody nose. oops! (Grandmas: don't worry, it was very small, he didn't even notice)
Callan is climbing through some rope tunnels but it's more like a big rope tent on top, kids can climb all over it.
The park has a lake, camping cabins, a man-made waterfall, acres of grass to play on, gardens and forest hiking.

Park(s) Day!

(This was supposed to be posted Monday May 15th)
Today started out with a trip to a new little park in Marugame (new to us anyway). And then a failed check-up at the doctor for me. We had forgotten to go to the city hall and pick up the pregnancy record booklet which the patient keeps and the doctor writes in every time. They told us to come back when we had picked up the book! After a 30 min round trip back home and picking up Callan we decided to go to the doctor another day (I guess that's a convience of national health care, you just show up and get in line for the doctor whenever you want, no appointments. But lots of waiting if you show up at the same time as everyone else!) Here's the little park. We loved the long slide but it was nothing compared to the slides at Mannou Kouen later in the day.

Last monday Callan and Melissa and I went to the Takashima's for FHE and hometeaching. They live an hour away, and very near a great swimming beach. Despite looking like a dismal Oregon Coast, the water was pleasant it was a good primer for getting excited about going to the beach when it gets hotter. If you notice, Callan is falling in this picture.

The sand was fun, but as soon as I took Callan in the water, that's all he wanted to do.

Callan loved the beach. We couldn't keep him out of the water.

Tonight, after having 12 people over to our house for a hawaiin haystack potluck, after eating too much cake and pie, after saying goodbye to everyone, after a long evening walk through our neighborhood, after a pillow fight, and while watching figure skating on television, Callan and Melissa called it quits. It was 9:30 PM when I took this picture tonight, and now its almost eleven thirty. Melissa finally moved from the couch to our bed, Callan is tucked in in his room, and I am seriously considering leaving the dishes for the morning.

Here is a picture of Inoyama, the mountain we finally climbed. This shot was taken back in September of 2005, just a little over a month after we got to Marugame. I remember saying to Melissa that I wanted to climbe the mountain when I took this picture. Last monday we finally did.

Last Monday, May eighth, we took advantage of the cool spring weather and hiked to the top of 'Sanuki Fuji' mountain, so called because it looks like a mini mount fuji. It is the most symetrical little hill I've ever seen, and can bee seen from most places in our little city. The trail is 2200 meters each way (about five and a half times around a high school track one way) and takes the average adult 45 minutes to reach the summit. With Callan it took us about an hour and a half, but the weather was great, the other hikers were friendly, and the veiw was fantastic.

Callan looks sad in this picture, but he is actually just protecting himself from the giant bee like insects that gathered everytime we stopped. About the size of a AA battery with wings, the 'bees' weren't actually dangerous, according to a hiker wer spoke to, but they were annoying.

Callan and Mom at a rare clearing on the Inoyama trail where much of the southern portion of our valley can be seen. As you can see, it is just about rice planting season around here.

Callan did great for most of the trip up, and only asked to be carried a few times. One great distraction for him was playing train with the sticks. He always wanted to be the driver, and mom went ahead of us to 'lay down the track.' It was also very effective when he began to talk about going home or sittingdown to suggest we race. He liked running up the trail, and it kept us going at a fairly good pace.

There were more of those huge bee looking bugs at the summit, but by then we'd gotten used to them. Callan is chewing on a haichew candy in this picture. They are like mambas, but way better and come in lots of different fruit flavors.

Callan asked for a snack most of the hike up, so he was glad to reach the top so he could have some of these cashews.

At the summit, we wrote our names in a summit journal at the shrine there, ate a few snacks, and got some water.

On the way down the Mountain, the sky cleared and we got great views like this of the Seto Bridge and the Inland sea. Callan, who did so well all the way up the mountain, asked me to hold him about two hundred yards into our return trip, he asked me to carry him. He promptly fell asleep and slept on my shoulder all the way down the mountain.

Mother's Day

This morning for Mother’s day breakfast we had chocolate crepes with fresh strawberries, kiwi, banana, and vanilla yogurt.  Callan and Dad made little notes for mom and posted them around the house.  When Dad fails to wax poetic, he tends to wax cheesy, and this morning was no exception.  On the fridge was a note that said, “Thanks for always keeping your cool,” and on the sink was another that read, ‘Without you we’d sink for sure!’  On the bathroom mirror was one that read, ‘You’re looking at a great mom,’ and my personal favorite, on the inside of the toilet room door, ‘If you were a poker hand, you’d be a royal flush.’  We finished breakfast at 8:30, and then Mom put some finishing touches on her talk for church, and hopped in the shower while Dad whipped out a chocolate cream pie for the potluck dinner after church.

Melissa spoke on Motherhood in Sacrament meeting and did a great job.  She referred to Sherri Dew’s conference talk from October 2001 about the motherly role of all women.  She talked about the divine role of women in nurturing not only their own children, but all young people, and about the special gifts and traits women have been blessed with that make them such able care givers.  She bore testimony about the powerful example of her own mother and how with Callan, she is realizing how much the good example of caring women has influenced her own parenting abilities.  

She stood at the pulpit with her English scriptures and gave her talk, and I stood next to her with my Japanese scriptures and translated for her. It is unifying to share opportunities like this, and provides the added challenge of trying to internalize what Melissa is trying to say well enough to reproduce it reasonably approximate Japanese.

One thing that caught my attention is that, as Melissa pointed out in her talk, Eve was called the ‘Mother of all living’ before she had children.  Mothering is a divinely given trait, and all woman possess it. She also shared Doctrine and Covenants 138:56 about each of us getting our first lessons for mortality in the pre existence, and commented that surely, among the noble and great ones were mothers and motherly women whose influence for good would be so necessary in this world.  

Whether we had a kind and supportive mother, an absentee mother, or no mother at all, each of us has been affected by the positive nurturing of godly, mothering women.  My own home was built upon, framed by, roofed with, and warmed through the selfless work of my dedicated mother.  I have heard her voice regrets, common to mothers who wish so much for their children and forget that each of us is human and must make decisions for ourselves, but I know that each us, her seven children, owe all that is good in our lives to her example, her faith, and her dedication.  

As I look forward to the motherly influences that my children and I will rely upon throughout our life, I am grateful to be married to Melissa, and to already be feeling the effects of generations of gentle mothering done by mothers who used their god given talents to bless the lives of their children.  My children and grandchildren and their children will for years to come feel the power of the steady, loving, gentle mothering that I see in my home every day.  Somewhere in the distant future, a young man is lying beside his small child, singing a gentle lullaby as the sun sinks into the horizon, and in the soothing sway of the melody, that small child feels the grace of generations of sweet mothers, and that child wonders, as he looks at the fuzzy chin of his father, why he should be so lucky.  

Callan and mom with big Osaka-Nanba in the Background. An overly helpful gentlemen helped us find our way around and tried to hard to speak to us in english. Here in Nanba we bought a few japanese dishes to take back to America and I tried to get a 'foreigner discount' on some sushi plates, but no one was interested.

Callan, asleep at the Caruther's house.

We arrived in Nanba on Friday morning at about 9AM and Callan needed breakfast. Good thing he likes Japanese food. He ate a rice onigiri and a half pint of milk while we sat on a curb in downtown nanba.

In Osaka, we did little more than window shop (since there isn' much else to do in Osaka). We did go to a famous market in Japan where merchants sell everything you would ever need to start your own Japanese restaurant, including this case of fake plastic sushi used for menu displays that are infront of most restaurants. We bought a shrimp sushi on a key chain to hang on our Christmas tree this year.

On Friday we visited Nanba City and Umeda inside Osaka. It was a bit warm, and as we found out after an hour long walk around Namba, much of Osaka is designed with the shopper in mind, and not the tourist. Since we didn't want to buy american import clothing, or anything for that matter, there was little to do in this part of Osaka. (It was here, by the way that I first realized that we lost our keys, and I spent a half hour on the phone trying in vane to track them down.

This is the huge kabuki theater in osaka, which we would have loved to see, but the tickets where 3000 yen each, and the show lasted two and a half hours (much too long for Callan). We opted for the photograph.

While Melissa and Callan waited on the roof of hte train station for me to figure out if we could find my keys, Callan got to ride on a lot of amusement rides. He is not old enough to insist we put coins in the machines though, so we let him ride all he wants. This boy was already riding by himself when Callan decided he was going to hop on the brown horse that was trotting along without a rider. I apoligized to the paying parents who shrugged and motioned for Callan to help himself. He got tired of it before the ride ended though, and I pulled him off.

This is the view from the 35th floor observation tower of the Umeda Sky building.

We arrived in Umeda with two and a half hours to kill before we had to be on the bus back to Marugame, so we decided to walk a few blocks to the Osaka Umeda Sky Building. The problem is we went the long way and half way through we decided there was no way we were going to make it to the building alive so I hailed a taxi (something I have never done before) and asked the driver to take us to the huge building, which we could see in plain sight. He chuckled, but agreed and gave us three minute ride to the building for a total of 660 yen (well worth it in our opinion). Now we have officially taken a train, a bus, a tour bus, a ferry, a high speed boat, a taxi, a local tram, a trolly, a bullet train, and gandola since coming here.

For children's day, these carp flags are hung up all over the country, and they made quite a sight, swaying in the breeze beneath the towering heights of the Sky building.

More carp shots.

Callan insisted that we play on this large blow up structure, which was set up at the base of the building, along with a small stage for some musical performers and some information about volunteer work.

Our last stop in Kyoto before gettin dinner at a department store and driving back to Osaka was Kiyomizu temple. The trees in this picture are all sakura cherry blossoms in the early spring, and brilliantly orange and red and yellow in the fall. In early summer, as pictured here, they are very green and only minorly impressive. The building itself is gigantic, and is built without any nails (The japanese are incredible when it comes to joinery). There were just too many people at this shrine to take in the atmosphere of the place. After our trip to Kyoto, our consensus was that Kyoto is best visited in the off season.

Kiyomizu temple stands at the base of a large green hill, and is flanked by thousands and thousands of family grave stones like these.