smorgasbord

I am pretty much the worst blogger but oh well I guess.
Here is just a little glimpse of what Austin and I have been up to...

Last month was my birthday, it was so wonderful. After Austin picked me up from school he surprised me with a clean house and beautiful flowers. We spent some time with my fam then he cooked me delicious mushroom soup.

Austin pulled out my anatomy lab goggles to cut the onions (now they are the onion goggles :)

I'm not sure how Austin did this but somehow he got a fortune inside a fortune cookie and packaged it all up. It says, "You will live happily ever after." I have to admit he is quite the romantic!

After a couple extremely stressful weeks of projects, papers, and finals it was Austins birthday.

Woot for a new bike. There will be hundreds of bike rides in Arkansas this summer,
I can hardly wait! We also bought a bike rack and feel super hippy-ish with it on the yaris.

Then we both quit our jobs for the summer and took a 10-day trip to Japan to visit the fam one last time before they move back to the states. Can I just say I absolutely love Japan?! Austin and I would move here in a heart beat if given the opportunity. 10 reasons why... (ok maybe only 5 or nobody will get through this incredibly long post, the last 5 can be saved for another post)

1. It is so, so, so clean here. It is the largest city in the world and there is zero trash on the streets, in the subways, anywhere! The ironic thing there isn't any trash cans on the street either, or in the subways (who knows where they put their trash).

2. It is the safest place ever. The crime rate is incredibly low here. It is so crazy to me to see tiny kids (probably 4 or 5) riding the subway by themselves to school, but nobody bothers them and they mind their own business. The policemen don't really have much to do so they sit and blow their whistle at stop lights to direct traffic (even though traffic doesn't need to be directed).

3. The people here are so polite and helpful. Whenever you need help or have a question the people bend over backwards to make sure you are taken care of. They are super genuine too.

4. The sun comes up at 3:30 in the morning during spring and summer. I mean who wouldn't love that. We would get up at like 5 and go running and it seemed like it was noon, then we'd go to bed at 8 or 9. Best lifestyle ever.

5. The people here dress way more modestly and classily (if that's even a word). I don't want my girls to be skanks- and lets face it girls in the US, even in Utah dress a little skankily.

Here is a couple pics of our ventures.

We spent one day at Disney Sea. It was way fun: Indiana Jones, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Tower of Terror, Gondola rides and more. Everything was in Japanese so it was a little weird sometimes to not know what was going on.

We also got to visit a ton of really cool gardens and shrines.
With tons of super cool, really old bonzai trees.

We also went to see a baseball game. In the Tokyo Dome!

Ok so I look a little frightening in the picture because it was raining all day but check out the kid in the background. He was so, so hilarious. He knew every single cheer (they even had one in english "Let's go Gi-ants" it took us awhile to catch on it was english and second to figure out what they were saying). When the Giants were up to bat he nicely packed his food up and set it under his chair so he could cheer. So like I said the Japanese people are super polite. When the other team is up to bat they sit there quietly or if it gets a little intense they just get up and walk around outside. Then when their team is up to bat then they cheer.

A lot of Japenese aren't married or if they are don't have kids becuase their careers. Instead they have dogs and treat them as children (or maybe better). They carry them in purses, babyslings, and yes even push them in strollers. This is a smiling dog.

We tried two days in a row to get sumo wrestling tickets but both days we got there just barely too late (they give them away and once they are gone, then that's that). But we did get to see lots of sumos in their robes walking into the stadium.

Austin's parents live in an apartment right in Tokyo. Ever wonder what the U.S ambassador's house in Japan looks like? Well you can see it right out their window so here is your chance... I want to live there.

Outside their window you can also see the Tokyo tower. It's bigger than the Eiffel Tower and I'd say it's cooler too.
We also got to see Conner off to the prom. Dunnerz looked pretty sharp and was just 4 votes shy of being the prom king.

One of the highlights of our trip to Japan was seeing the Napierski's! We ran into them at church. For a long time they were like my second family. I've missed seeing them and watching their kids grow up. I babysat little Cole when he was just 5 weeks old until they moved. Savi is taller than me now- they are the cutest bunch ever.

Now if you made it this far... you must love me. or be really bored. I have a little secret- the mom would flip if she knew this but there was a little quakin' in Japan while we were here. Pretty sweet, or maybe frightening.

These two kiddos are now moving to Arkansas. Don't miss me too much. It'll be quite the adventure, I have a full time job at a kids sports camp thing so I'll be busy, hopefully it'll keep me from being homesick, ha. Anyway ciao, peace, see-ya or in Japanese さようなら.