Summer summary

Okay, so here’s most of July in a nutshell and not necessarily in sequential order.  Most of what we’ve been doing involves places we’ve been/you’ve seen before, with the exception of the Yamada Stone Bridge hike which will get its own post later/soon.

We came home to find this monster in our banana plants in the backyard.  This thing was huge!  I was tempted to put my hand behind it to give you a size comparison, but they are supposed to be mildly poisonous and I didn’t want to mess with that.  You’re just going to have to trust me; it was BIG!

We took Jake to Kurashiki Dam because he’d never been before—we’ve always gone on weekdays, usually in conjunction with a trip to the nearby farmers’ market.  Turns out that it’s much more crowded on the weekend!

It never takes Logan long to make friends.  I find the lack of language barrier at his age both interesting and amusing.

Another day, another beach/playground combo.  This one is Tropical Beach, where we were surprised to find that the playground had been replaced while we were in the States.

Logan shows off his fancy new beach gear: shades (with Tigger on them), swim shirt (SPF 45 built-in), and sandals (which we had to buy after Logan threw his old pair out of the stroller and Mommy didn’t notice).

Logan opened his train set at G-ma and G-pa Wilde’s, but then they were kind enough to mail it to us.  This thing has been a huge hit since we got it; we play trains everyday, sometimes twice a day and it holds Logan’s attention longer than any other toy so far. 

Many, many thanks to Henry and Janet for providing hours of classic fun!

Random gorgeous day at Araha Beach.  In case you’ve forgotten my stated intention of spending most of the summer floating my pregnant belly in the ocean, let this be a reminder to you—you can expect to see a lot more beach pictures from now through September!

Logan certainly looks ready for adventure!

We’ve got to come home and dry out sometime.  This arrangement has become very typical in our backyard. 

Also typical in the backyard are these.  The red ones are much harder to photograph as they have a bit of gloss to their petals which always makes the pictures turn out funky.  This is the first shot of a red one that I’m really pleased with!  And besides, I haven’t shown you a hibiscus in quite a while :)

  The Wonder Museum updated one of its displays with a “Let’s Sport!” theme, so we had to go check it out.  In addition to what you see here, they had a timed track for a 10-meter dash, a series of really cool balance/agility games, and a virtual battle cage!

Logan is all ready to help Daddy mow the lawn!

Oura Wan beach, up at Camp Schwab on the northern end of the island.  Jake gets up here for work about once a month, but this is the first time Logan and I went with him. 

This is (unfortunately) the beach that is probably getting covered up by the new airfield if/when that gets built.

But until then, it’s ours to enjoy!

 Last but not least, my new car!  We discovered right before we left for the States that my old car (the blue Mazda Premacy) needed a new transmission and a new water pump; it was going to cost us almost as much to fix it as we paid for it in the first place. It wasn’t worth it, not when we could get a new (used) car for the same price as the repairs.  So we junked the old one and got this instead!

It’s a 2002 Honda Stream.  We actually paid a little less for it than we paid for the Mazda, even though it’s two years newer.  (I managed to get them to knock $700 off their asking price—I’m quite proud of that fact!)  It is classified as a compact MPV and in size it’s like a longer version of the Honda Fit or a smaller version of the Honda Odyssey; it seats seven but it’s a small family car, not a van.  We can easily fit two car seats and keep the third row folded down for lots of cargo space for groceries and trips up to Okuma!

So, like I said, that covers most of July.  I still have to catch you up on our hike, which was pretty spectacular.  Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying your summer also.  If I haven’t talked to you recently, expect to hear from me soon!  Miss you all!