Haname... or, Picnicking under the Cherry Blossoms

 All the First Grade classes had a picnic with their parents under the cherry blossoms.  I joined Rylee for it and she was delighted.  It was worth torturing my sinuses and letting my allergies try to destroy me to be there for her.  We enjoyed our lunches and watched the other kids run amok while we hung out in the shade and I debated napping right there.  It was a warm, sunny perfect day.

Me and my girl!

Snacking on her oranges. 

I love this kid! 

Check out her lost top tooth.  She's too cute! 

Lining up, ready to go.  She said she wanted me to come spend the rest of the day with her.  Such a sweetie-pie.

A Potpurri of Photos

Some pictures just need to be taken and may need to be shared, but do not rate their own blog post.  So I will lump all those together here.

Levi was lying with his head on the cans in the bag.  He immediately moved when I got ready to take a picture!

The kids were awesome for General Conference.  They had a blast coloring in coloring books while they listened. 

A photo of Joshua's teeth.  I sent this to Adam to enjoy and thought I might want to retain it for posterity.  

This cracked me up. It is a price tag at the commissary in front of the flour telling me it is on sale.  I'm so happy to see I'm saving money..... wait, no I'm not. 

 Levi was super excited to go for a car ride.  He loves the car.

This is how he rides in it.  Nose out, madly sniffing all the smells.

Glorious Cherry Blossoms!

 I absolutely LOVE Sakura season!  The Cherry Blossoms are so gorgeous.  They last only 2 weeks, from bloom to gone, so you gotta enjoy them while they are here.  When we went a week earlier with our guests, they blossoms were barely peeping out.  I went on Monday with the Sister missionaries and the flowers were in full glory.  So I HAD to take more pictures of them.  They make me happy!

Spring Break: Universal Studios (The adventure Home)

We left the Park with plenty of time to get to the Shin station.  We managed to get on all the correct trains to get us there, which was nice.  We arrived to the Shin station in plenty of time.  The kids slept a bit on the ride.  We got on the 9:32pm Shin.

Getting a little zonked on the local train.

There was a 10 minute wait to get on as it was closed for cleaning. 

 It was right about this time that we realized this was the last train of the night and it stopped at... Hiroshima.  It did not continue past Hiroshima. We knew that trains stopped around midnight, but had assumed if they sold us freaking tickets to Iwakuni that they would have made sure we got there the same night.  Nope.  No other Shin was leaving to go to Iwakuni till morning.  Gulp!  Our train pulled in to Hiroshima at 11:44pm and was done for the night.  When showed the conductor our tickets from Hiroshima to Iwakuni he said, "First train at morning".  Not helpful.  He suggested the 12:08am local JR train.

Our problem was that the van was parked out at Shin Iwakuni.  We did take the local train home (1 hour vs the 10 minutes on the Shin), and we arrived at 1am to the Iwakuni  JR train station (which is NOT the Shin Iwakuni statin.  That is 30 minutes away).  My darling friend Hope had texted to see if we needed a ride home.  We did.

I took 3 kids and grabbed a cab ($14).  Hope took 4 others and dropped them off at home.  Then she went back and picked up Dan and took him all the way out to the Shin station to collect the van.... at 1:30am!  I love her!  So it was a very veery late night for all!

Spring Break: Universal Studios (Part 2)

 Rylee and Delaney and I went to the kiddie area.  They enjoyed all the rides, and I was glad the wait times were only 30 minutes or so.

We rode the teacups, which were Cupcakes here.  And we went very fast!

Posing with the toy car. 

Delaney cracks me up! 

Rylee really wanted to ride the carousel.  She was a little disappointed that we were the last ones on and had to ride the not-moving rooster.  Although she was happy to ride the rooster.

Jenn texted me this gem of hanging out with the big kids. 

This was a hot air balloon ride.  You can't tell that we are high above the ground. 

The girls thought this was so fun! 

They had a great time here.  And the competition to get a duck was fierce! 

They had this awesome "ride"!  Only for kids, and they drove these cars on a real track. 

They loved it and had so much fun.  They felt very grown up because they got to drive. 

Blurry selfie with my lovelies. 

 This one is for my dad!

We met back up with everyone and found an awesome anime section. 

Much fun to pose with this. 

Even more awesome to pose with this.  Although no one wanted to play it up. 

And this kid with is little daggers was too cute.  Josh coveted his side gear. 

Guess where we went for dinner?! 

The kids were very excited to go to an American restaurant. 

It was good, but yikes!  So pricy!! (2/10 would go again.) 

Heading home.