Getting Out and Going for a Walk

Since the report on the birthdays, we have welcomed two great additions to our home, gates. They do a wonderful job of keeping Maika out of her "off limits" places. She is now fully walking and that is making life more and more interesting. Today Yoko took her to the kids' play area at the mall, and the space that used to contain Maika is now of no use as she has found that anything but the kids' area is way more fun. A funny thing about Maika's walking is that it seems she wants to run at times but just can't figure out how to do it. She then resembles a mini Frankenstein. Oh, the endless entertainment that a baby provides.

Erik got a few days off from work, and we all headed to the western side of Mount Fuji for our church's kids' camp. It was held at a YMCA lodge (English website) (日本語 website) (video of the lodge). We were there 3 days and 2 nights. Maika was the second youngest kid attending. There were 70 people in total with about 40 of them being kids mostly between the ages of 4 and 15. For half of the events we were divided into small groups according to the age of the child for activities that were age appropriate. Maika fell into the preschool/kindergarten group. The other half of the activities were mixed age activities where the older kids had to be in charge and help the little kids with what we were doing. We went on hikes, made curry, had a bonfire, watched the sunrise (twice), made kites. The theme of the camp was that everyone is a "wonderful treasure" because God made them. It was a great time in a very nice setting.
Maika found a way to keep herself entertained at kids' camp. Mount Fuji prior to sunrise.Waiting around for the sun to come up. This day the clouds rolled in just before sunrise so most of us went out the next morning to see the sun rise right over the top of the mountain.Can't say Maika enjoyed getting up at 4:30 to go hang out outside.Sleeping in the stink bug position.