First Email

We are fine. we found an unsecured Internet connection and are sending this fast message to you to let you know that we are fine and enjoying Kumamoto. we are in an incredible apartment--top floor, (8th) large with a view of sunsets eve. We also are right next door to the church.

Our YSA outreach will start Feb 2nd so we are spending the time getting our apartment set up, meeting members, learning how to cook in Japan, learning how to drive on the left and just generally having fun.

It is quite amazing to be on a mission and know that you will be in an area for 18 months and that dreaded transfer day (tomorrow for our mission) does not apply to us.

Sorry about the errors. We are afraid we will lose the connection.

Please forward to anyone and everyone.

We love you and miss you and are showing your pictures to everyone. They are all impressed at what a handsome family we have.

Love, MOM and DAD

Pictures from Houston and Comments on my Colonoscopy

Here we have Keith and Scarlett on the tram at the NASA Space Museum in Houston:
At the cafeteria--notice Scarlett and my matching haircuts:
Jonathan was enthralled with all of the interesting exhibits at the NASA Space museum:
As was Paul:

BrookLyn and the moon: Guess who I think shines the brighter?

Today's big news: my first colonoscopy is over and I am fine. A little groggy--all of that clear liquid and mild sedative (and probably stress and worry about the whole thing). Since they sedate you, Aunt Dianne had to take me there and bring me home. She even had to walk me into the house where I nearly lost my balance and had to sit down on the chair I placed right by the door. (Handy for changing shoes so that I could do the snow shoveling--see the previous entry.) So I went to bed and slept for several hours and now feel much better. I am instructed to eat a soft, low fiber diet for the next two days and to "not drive, operate machinery, make critical decisions, or do activities that require coordination or balance for 24 hours."

Perhaps that explains how I came to burn my hand on the oven cooking fish for dinner (low-fiber, soft diet). I think I will stick to blogging and reading until the 24 hours is up.

I promised Ashlee that I would add a photo to this blog, just to show that I know how. So here is one:

or six, as it turns out; but I still don't know how to put things in the right order.

First Snow

Beautiful snow fall today. about 10 inches. Lots of shoveling, by me (Keith is in Moscow getting the last of the graduate students through their research and theses defense). Took almost 2 hours. I am pretty sure that I want a snow blower.

One postive note from the shoveling--I found the garage door opener that works! It was under the snow shovel(??). Now I can actually open the garage door while still sitting in the car!! Isn't that remarkable? What will they think of next?

Previous procedure for getting car in and out of garage--unlock side door of garage, (there is no door into the garage directly from inside the house) open garage door from inside the garage, back car out of garage, leave warm, dry car and go back into garage to close garage door, relock side door and get back into car, once again walking through rain, snow, blowing wind, and then leave. This procedure of course had to be reversed when I came home--not fun in the snow.

But today, garage door opener with me in the car, I could actually open the garage door from inside the car, drive into the garage without getting out into the snow, and then walk into the house without getting blown to pieces or even getting wet. I hope you can feel the excitement bubbling through in my writing. I love garages that have room for cars and have garage door openers. Probably even worth all two hours of snow shoveling.

From Houston

With Ashlee's superb help, you will notice a much improved looking web-site here. We are in Houston this week-end for Halloween, trick-or-treating, zoo, NASA, and stake conference. You will notice that Ashlee actually got us all in costume. No one had a camera for the zoo, but we will try to remember the camera for NASA.

Pittsburgh Pictures

October 8-16th saw us in Murreysville, Pennsylvania for a wonderful visit with Becky and Matt and boys. Here are some of the fun things that we did:



Donna and John playing at the park.

Donna Marie and Becky at the park

A train ride

Becky and Matt's home teacher volunteers at a train on Saturdays. We were able to buy tickets for the short ride from the home depot out for about 20 minutes and then back. We all enjoyed our beautiful outdoor seats and the changing autumn leaves in the surrounding scenery.

Gettysburg

The trip to Gettysburg was very humbling and impressive--all of those young men who died for their beliefs--hard to comprehend without tears:

John at the cemetary.

Matt at Little Round Top

Donna and John at Little Round Top.

John and Grandma Kandie at lunch, coloring of course.

Becky and Michael coloring at lunch

All of us taking a break between tours, (Keith is on the camera).