Kids being kids!

Here are some pictures of our kids just playing around. Claire loves to play outside, if you can't tell. :)

Rice Planting!

 Previously, we experienced harvesting rice. This time we learned how to plant it!

 It was nice to see Takuya and his dad again. They took us to a beach next to his father's house. It was a little too cold and windy, but at least we got to see another part of Japan.

 We were excited to see the rice planting process. We hope to eventually have our own rice patty.

 Here are the seedlings growing before planting. I was surprised at the density of the rice.

 This was a cool little shrine place in the woods near there. You see these cool shrine things all over Japan. It's pretty cool!

 They have a cool planter machine that takes a little chunk out of the seedlings and plants them. Then they do a quick walk through of the field to make sure that nowhere was missed or didn't get enough seedlings in that one area.

 Our kids loved riding on the planter. It did look pretty neat!

 The corners have to get planted by hand because the machine can't reach there. The kids had a fantastic time finding creatures in the water.

 Here is our group of planters! We had a fantastic time!

Flower Parks!

 We took another trip to the azalea flower park. It is so pretty there.

 We got a good family picture even though it was raining!

 I am so glad that we decided to make the drive up to this wisteria park. It smelled unbelievably good.

 On the drive back to Takuya's Dad's house, we saw some interesting things. We saw the longest bathroom line at a rest stop. It was crazy long! It went out the bathroom, down the length of the rest stop and out to the edge of the road where you pull off to enter the rest stop. We traveled during Golden Week and there were a lot of people out.