Why we do not like the Dentist

I had taken all the kids in to the dentist last week.  They wanted to see Callie to do two small fillings, and wanted to put sealants on Marian's teeth.  Irritatingly enough, the only day they offered was Thursday.   I have Body Pump class at the gym on Thursday mornings and I hate to miss it.  I planned my day carefully and took the 7am slot for Callie and 10 for Marian.


I called the dental office and let them know Callie was going to need nitrous.  I wasn't clear on what they were going to do, since none of the dentists can do nitrous.  He said the pediatric dentist would be in and it would be fine, so I crossed my fingers.


I got Callie to the dental office at 7 this morning and reminded them that she was going to need the gas.  I got a blank look and then he came back and said we would have to reschedule with the pediatric dentist.  Sigh. I'd like to say I was surprised, but I was not.  I said I would like the 10 slot so I could bring both girls in at the same time (and still make it to Body Pump!).


As soon as I got home, someone from the dental clinic called and asked me to bring Callie in at 8.  Grrr.... In hindsight I should have asked more questions like, "Do I HAVE to?"  But I assumed they had a good reason for calling to move the time. I got Callie back to the dentist at 8 and  I still do not know who called to reschedule or why, because there was apparently no real need to.  I was cross.  Cross I missed my class at the gym because some random jerk decided to juggle appointments.  


However, Callie got her nitrous, and her appointment went fine, and we were done by 8:30 with very little drama. (But still too late for for me to change and get over to Body Pump Class.)


I got Callie back to school and picked up Marian.  I told her it should be an easy appointment- no shots, no drilling, just sealants.   Nope.  This dentist looked at her teeth and said she needed fillings not sealants.  He hoped they wouldn't be too deep, but they were.  So he had to give her several shots and those were less effective than Marian or I would have liked.  Marian was so brave.  She did great, but some water may have leaked from her eyes.  I could see her feet twitching and her hands holding the chair for dear life.  But she lay there and did not complain. I was so proud of her and I wanted to cry.


It was almost 11:30 when we finished and as we left the room, I put my hand on her back and it was drenched with sweat!  My poor baby!  I took her home and gave her a few minutes to get her composure together.  I offered to let her stay home the rest of the day, but she said no, she had to go to school!  I love this kid.  I really hope she isn't traumatized for life. 

Friendship Day 2016

 Friendship Day is kind of an Airshow and Open House for Iwakuni.  The base opens the gates to all who want to come and see, and they put on an air show and have lot of booths for food and merchandise.  There are also some games and kid play stuffs... all for a fee, of course.  May 5 is the designated day and they were predicting hordes of people to come.  There were hordes, but not as much as expected.  The Kumamoto earthquakes caused the Japanese air show event to be cancelled and a lot of resources went south to Kumamoto.

It was still a jam packed place to be and we squeezed into the fun.

The flight line was full of people.  Fortunately it is huge enough it wasn't too cramped most of the time.

Posing with Callie by the static display. 

Folks picked out good spots to camp out and watch the air show. 

And I do love a good air show! 

This little yellow plane was a lot of fun to see.  Joshua was quite impressed with it's aerobatics. 

I love the Japanese.  This is a very long line to get to tour the inside of that plane. 

Yep.  I brought a stroller to haul stuff and for when Rylee's little legs got tired.  It was a LOT of walking. 

This cracked me up.  Those guys in uniform.... their job was to stand there for photos.  People stood in line to get their pictures taken with them.

 Rylee is photobombing my selfie with the plane.  And I have to tell you how much this made me laugh.  If you look closely at the plane, you can see the pilot in it.  His job was to sit there and smile and give thumbs up so everyone could take his picture.  What a great job!  If you wanted to feel like a celebrity, this was the place to be!

One last selfie on the flight line. 

Heading home and this was too cute.  These kids all helping each other was so sweet.   

Dan and Joshua walking home.  We are almost there!  Since we live on the other side of that wall on the left, we got to take the empty road home.  If you look closely, you can see the teeming throng on the other side of the green barrier. It was kind of crazy!  But a good time.

I loves my kids!

I got to attend the 4th quarter award ceremony and Marian got a certificate for achieving a 3.5-3.9 GPA.  So proud of her!

Waiting his turn....

Joshua got a good GPA award as well.

So cute to see these 3 sharing the Friend magazine before church.

Dn and I took this kid out to lunch at a Japanese "Italian" restaurant.  She liked her spaghetti.

Hiroshima Castle

 On May 2, one of our former sister missionaries came back to Japan with her parents.  She let us know she would be in Hiroshima for the afternoon, so Dan thoughtfully took the afternoon off work and we drove the hour up to the Peace Park.  We didn't stop at the Peace Park, but met our friends at an Okonomiyaki place across the street.

Lunch was lovely and it was fun to get to know (former) Sister Klein's parents. After lunch we walked over to the Hiroshima Castle, which I had never been to.  We were on a bit of a time crunch, so we hustled through the castle and didn't get too many photos.

Super cool watch-tower on the wall.  So pretty.

Tippy top of the castle. 

 The Castle was really tall!  It was hard to get the whole thing in a photo.  (And apparently impossible to get one and tourists.)

Look!  It's me!  Me and the Castle.

My darling friends.  Sister Welte was in Iwakuni for a few months, and is still missionary-ing in Hiroshima. Sister Klein (in the middle) is the one who came back to visit.  I love our sister missionaries!

Excursion Fail

There was a super-cool sounding event at the Kintai Bridge.  The premise, as I understood it, is that hundreds of years ago, the important dude who lived in the castle wanted to keep his vassals under control.  So he made a decree that they had to come see him every other year. This snowballed into a display of one-up-manship between the vassals and they all tried to out each other in their processions across the bridge to see the important guy.

April 29 commemorates this event and they reenact it.  Doesn't that sound fun?!  Joshua was going to help with the even with the Boy Scouts, and I sent him off to meet the troop and catch his ride out. Then I told the girls we were going to go as well. They were unenthusiastic.

We made the drive out just fine, and 1/2 mile from the event, we hit dead stop traffic.  We sat there for 20 minutes.  We eeked forward very slowly for another 15 minutes.  We were  almost to the traffic light where we could actually see the bridge when the Japanese police cane down the line of traffic and told us we had to turn around. (Not sure if parking was full or the parade would pass that way.) Everything ahead was apparently being closed off.

Since there had been much murmuring and unhappiness from the backseat, I made the executive decision to abort.

The girls were mostly appeased by a stop at 7-11 for delicious food and ice cream.

(Joshua had a great time.)

So close!  I could see the castle from the car! 

But on th plus side, I finally got a photo of this shrine.  We drive by it to Kintai and I always want to stop and check it out.  We sat in front of it for way too long this day.