Jonas and Liz's Japanese Adventures: Summer Begins At Last!

The kids arrived safely after about a 6 day ordeal of being stuck in Hawaii. The "free" military air flight kept being pushed back (and pushed back and pushed back) and after relying heavily on the kindness of strangers for a few days, J decided it was time to say Uncle and purchase commercial tickets. So, needless to say, last minute plane tickets for 4 people from Hawaii to Japan are not cheap, so we have had to modify the plans for the
rest of the summer, including canceling our trip to Disney. :( While this saddens me (and the kids), it couldn't really be avoided and thankfully we still have 2 more summers here with them...plenty of time to explore Disney!

Let me step back and expound upon the "relying heavily on the kindness of strangers" bit up above. J and kids were having to camp out in the military air terminal for several days due to it being Hawaii in the summer and there being absolutely zero rooms available (who knew Hawaii in the summer would be popular?). So, while walking from the terminal to the beach (with all their baggage in tow) determined to have fun despite being stuck, a kind woman stopped and asked if they needed help...and of course, J refused politely. She drove away, but returned about 15 minutes later with her husband and their truck, scooping up J and the kids and taking them to their house to stay. They fed them, gave them their truck to borrow, as well as snorkeling gear so they could go have some fun while they waited another day for the plane to take off. So, not only were they well taken care of for their last 2-1/2 days, but they were absolutely saved.
What a complete Blessing they were to our family and we are very grateful to the family as well as their church. They told J over and over that they now have an Aloha Family and to please let them know if he is flying through HI again and if he needs anything. How amazing is that, I ask you?!

So, finally, J and kids arrived last Wednesday and we have tried to hit the ground running to make up for those few lost days of summer! This past weekend was jam-packed: we enjoyed the Trick Art Museum in Takao as well as the Father/Daughter Dance on Saturday and the Hinohara waterfall on Sunday! The Trick Art Museum was even better than we had expected; we found some
online coupons so the price wasn't bad and neither was the drive. The museum was filled with rooms decorated in 3D/optical illusion murals that were SO fun to explore and pose with for pictures. My favorite room was what I called the "cloud room" that was painted like a semi-crumbling Egyptian ruins that edged the sky...so we all had fun posing for awesome pics of everyone "falling" and even fake sky-diving (as you'll see below). The pictures pretty much speak for themselves, but it was so fun to see such attention to detail and artistry for the sake of fun.

J and the girls enjoyed the Father/Daughter Dance, sponsored by the Enlisted Spouse's Club. They had a good time getting dressed up, dancing, and playing games...and both the girls won door prizes, which was really cute. It was fun for them to get to experience something like this with their dad, as he sadly has to miss out on a lot of these kinds of activities with the girls.
I was really happy that they got to have a little date together. And Connor and I went to see Man of Steel in 3D while they were partying and it was AWESOME! I was not at all prepared for how much I liked that movie and I am usually kinda meh about 3D but I thought it really rocked. We are all looking forward to Monsters University and World War Z in 3D coming up this weekend!

After church on Sunday, we traveled to Hinohara to visit their waterfall (technically they have more than 1 but we only had time to hike up to the main one near the parking lot lol). It was pretty much perfect weather for light hiking and we managed to avoid the rain until we were almost back to the car! The whole area was really gorgeous and we were drinking in all the
mountains and huge trees...it was really nice. I really love the way the mountains just appear literally around the corner from the busy city here...I'm sure it's like that in other places in the world, but I can't remember anywhere else I've visited where the contrast is as stark as it is here.

So, there's a quick synopsis of our last few days. The only other thing is that I injured my knee and I have had to scale back my running to a rehab run/walk program for the next 4 weeks....which is a huge bummer, but apparently I am so inexperienced at running that I didn't know how important the stretching afterwards is and I messed up my Illiotibial band (huge band of muscle that stretches from your hip, across your femur to the front of
your lower leg...around your knee, which is where my pain has been) and now I have to kinda start all over in my training. I am on week 2 of the rehab running program and my pain is kind of not really changing much, kind of a dull 1 or 2 on a scale of 1-10 pretty much all the time. So, we'll see what the next few weeks does and of course I'll be going back to the doctor if
I'm not 100% because I'm serious about this "running thing." I seriously love it and I don't want to give up. Anyway, stay tuned for more summer fun as it develops. I hope all our dear readers are enjoying their summer so far. Lots of love, as always!

J+L+C+M+A :)