February - April

If you were wondering if we dropped off the face of the earth, well we are still here. This post has a number of pictures from the past three months. In the last three months we finally saw Spring arrive, and we took a trip to Kyoto. Day to day life continues at a quick pace. Maika likes to be on the go. We fondly refer to her as "Mighty Maika" and are amazed by how powerful she is. She is not just powerful in being active but also in personality. She is definitely her own unique person that we are daily thankful that the Lord has put in our lives. Our challenge is to love her in the way our Lord and Savior loves us especially when she has her moments. Thankfully we have His example in how He loves us when we have our moments. The big difference is that we know better; Maika is still learning. We are thankful God's mercy is abundant because if He removed it from us for a moment we would not have a leg to stand on.------------------ -Spring was late in springing this year, but when it finally got around to it, it was beautiful. Yoko and Maika got out to several parks to enjoy the cherry blossoms. Erik went out one morning in an attempt to capture the amazing beauty of God's hand at work.

The end of March beginning of April found us in Kyoto. We have some good friends who live there, and they kindly opened their home to us. We had a great time visiting with them, eating good food, hiking, and seeing Lake Biwa, the largest lake in Japan. We mentioned good food. Our friends took us to a great ramen shop. Not only was the ramen delicious, it was resonably priced, smoke free, and very kid friendly. We don't have any pcitures of our own of it, but here is a link to someone who wrote a nice review of it. It is call Takayasu.------ Taking a break during our hike to get a kiss from Mommy.

What to do after our hike?

How about playing in the creek. The water was cold, but Maika really enjoyed it.

Hiking and playing in the water finally got the best of "Mighty Maika".

A video is especially fun to watch while chewing on a table. Maika does her best to put everything that is within reach in her mouth.

In mid March we visited one of our favorite parks in our area and were pleased to see the plum trees blooming.

Don't confuse this picture with someone who is deep in thought, it really is just Maika demonstrating that bad habits don't fall far from the tree.

Fun at a small local park with Mommy.

Maika and blueberries still have regular meetings with varied results.

On the move in "exercise class". Maika is still swimming on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday and going to exercise class on Tuesday and Friday.