A Birthday and a Trip

July saw Maika turn two, and August found us at our church's family camp near Mt. Fuji. With there being 8 family related events from the beginning of May through the end of July we are kept quite busy with doing things for each. With Maika's birthday being the second to last of the events, we made sure she was uniquely celebrated. This year we had a small party but were blessed with a lot of tasty food and thoughtful gifts. The birthday girl showing how old she is. She can say how old she is in Japanese "ni sai" (ni = two and sai = years old).

The party is about to start. Erik's parents joined in via Skype and all Maika's stuffed animal friends can be see hanging out is the background.

Yummy birthday cupcakes

Birthday balloons that amazingly last over 3 weeks. The box they came in ended up being Maika's favorite thing to play in, on and with for quite a while.

Hard at work opening the thoughtful birthday gifts.

In the middle of August we went with our church to the east of Mt. Fuji for family camp. It was held at the same place we went last year. Click here for the link to last year's blog post. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't all that good and we rarely had a glimpse of the mountain. We did however, get to know the area a little better and if we go there again, we have some new places we would like to visit. We had a good time being with the other families and spending time together. On the second day we went to a farm nearby, and all of the following pictures are from that farm.

The last time we were at a farm was in June and Maika wasn't all that keen on interacting with the animals, but this time she wanted to get up close and personal with them.

This farm had wallabies and they were quite used to people as the following pictures show.