This is for my husband mostly. My dad is a huge woodcarver and has carved and made tons of things out of wood. He has made a couple of totem poles and one of them had Japanese characters on it. When we moved here, Eric told me that I ought to carve us a Japanese totem pole while he was gone. I kind of laughed and thought to myself, sure I will! Well, I knew Eric didn't think I would make us one and I decided to prove him wrong. So here is the finished product and I think it turned out pretty dang good--so Eric, I did do it!!! Many thanks to my dad who helped me immensely. The characters say God, Father, Mother, Children, Love, Peace, Harmony. It stands a little over 6' tall and is made out a log we found in the backyard. I have to admit that I really enjoyed this project and if I had more time and the tools I think I really could get into wood carving. Thanks Dad for all of your help!!
A work in progress
FINISHED PROJECT--YEAH!!
***Also, update on our moving plans, we found out last week that our plans to move to Japan have been postponed a couple of months, so we are actually now moving back to Connecticut and hopefully will be headed to Japan sometime this fall. I have to admit that I am excited to go back to Connecticut-it is so fun during the summer and I plan to spend lots of time at the beach with the kids and we still have so many great friends there. I have learned in our short Navy career that you can never plan on anything the Navy tells you, because it almost always changes--good thing we are flexible!***
Saturday it was a pretty nice day and my parents had a lot of yard work that they wanted to get done. The biggest thing they wanted to get done was to clean up the fish pond (they have a fish pond in their backyard.) Well, someone had to get in the pond to get some plants out, rearrange plants, etc. My dad has a broken foot, so he couldn't get in, and my mom gets cold pretty easily, so I was volunteered. So here I am having my first swim of the year...in very cold water. The temperature outside was in the mid 60s, but it has been in the 40s-50s the last week, so I expected the water to be a lot colder. I do have to admit I went numb after a couple of minutes, but it wasn't too bad.
We started out the morning with Easter baskets. Ethan was quite nice to open everything in his basket and Kailey's! By the way, Kailey started crawling this week. I have mixed feelings, it is nice that she can crawl, but now that opens a lot of new problems. The biggest is that she loves to crawl over to Ethan and try to play with whatever he is or she pulls his hair--needless to say, Ethan is not thrilled. On the other hand, she is just so happy that she is mobile.
different bugs. The really fun part is that they have a big conservatory that has thousands of butterflies flying freely through it. It is so fun to walk through--first off, it feels great at a balmy 85 degrees, and they have water running through it, trees, it is really pretty and they butterflies just swarm all over. There are so many different types of butterflies and they are all so 
colorful and pretty. They even have a place
where you can watch butterflies emerge from their chrysalis. Of course, Ethan's favorite part was the bugs, but Kailey loved the butterflies--she kept trying to grab them.
egg-coloring (which we did not participate in--I knew that Ethan would come away more colored than the eggs!) We had such a fun time. The kids are always such great sports when we go to visit because the minute we walk in the retirement center, they are mobbed by little old ladies and men who want to pinch their cheeks and give them kisses. However, the kids seem to really enjoy going to visit (I think because G.G. always has great treats) and we always have so much fun!
Yesterday we took the kids to a place called "Purina Farms." Purina Farms is
where they train dogs, have dog shows, etc. They also have tons of farm animals to pet and it is a fun place to walk around. We started out by sitting on the Easter Bunny's lap--as you can tell from the picture, Ethan wasn't too thrilled. Next they had a place where you could play with tractors in corn. We love corn and tractors so we couldn't pass that up--the kids had fun playing in that. Next, for Easter, they had an area where you could go pet baby animals. So we petted baby ducks, chicks, lambs, dogs, cats, and I am sure more things. Purina Farms also has daily cow milking demonstrations where you actually get to milk the cow. We were lucky because we walked up at
the end and didn't have to wait in line. I thought Ethan would be scared, but he hopped right up on the guy's lap and stuck his hand up to milk the cow. I have to admit I was jealous. Call it a crazy desire but I have always wanted to milk a cow--I know bizarre. I have always thought it looked like fun-I know who thinks pulling on a cow's teat is fun, but I have always wanted to do it. Anyways, so Ethan can cross something off his list that I can't.
