Ada's birthday

 

Our grown Ada had her 19th birthday.  I was so excited that we got to celebrate with her.  She came down Friday night and we had cake and a sleepover.  Saturday, we drove up to Panda Fest.  We had lots of Asian inspired foods, watched some Japanese drums, looked at fun anime pins, etc... It looked like it was going to rain but it didn't until we were done.  Then we got dressed and drove over to the Tooelle temple to do baptisms.  It was gorgeous sitting in that little valley overlooking the lake. The people we so kind and let us do extra names and everything.  Sam and Jer were the baptizers for three different groups and then we drove up to Ada's house for a movie and dinner.  We ate at this asian market.  It was fun.  Then we played games until we drove home.  We sure love our girl.

"Banana Bread"

"Corn bread"

We stopped in SLC to look at the temple in between activities.  It's looking great.

Japan 15 and 16

 

I loved Himeji Castle. It was beautiful and original.  The other castles were all rebuilt.  This one was not.  It was a historic anomaly. Then we went to the gardens next to the castle, ate quickly and took the train quickly to Hiroshima to the museum about the bombings.  The museum was intense but important.  It had a couple of sections.  First was life in the town before the bombings, the actual bombing, the immediate aftermath, the long-term effects on the people, and then a section about nuclear testing/war/peace agreements. It was beautifully done.  I wasn't sure how well my soft-hearted kids would do.  Ada is a history connoisseur so it was interesting to her, and she wanted to know all of it. Sam was confused at how people can do things like this.  My response is that war is hell.... no matter which side you are on.  Evelyn really didn't do well until the next day when she'd had a minute to process everything.  Seth is the same age as a lot of the kids that were out doing construction when the bomb hit, so he and I read a lot about the kids his age.  

It was fun to look up and see a worker perched in the tree and trimming its branches.

Seth is in 6th grade but they are introducing Stats ideas.  I was able to teach him about medians, and some of the simpler ideas, but I never did stats in school.  The lessons that I didn't understand Jeremy and Jim did.  

We had a fancy Italian meal after the Hiroshima museum.  It was yummy but the kids didn't like the small portions.  It was a quiet corner of the restaurant, and it gave us a good opportunity to talk about WWII and the atom bombs. 

We know several down winders.... including Judy and my own Grandma.

On the train to Hiroshima.

This is the Peace bell. It's a reminder of the importance of peace in the world. Me and the 4 kids got to ring it.