My little Girl Scout!

 Delaney joined the Girl Scouts here.  I have never been interested in it, but she wanted to and I have discovered it isn't as bad as I thought it would be.  She loves it so far.  On Wednesday she had an "Investiture" Ceremony.  She got to be formally welcomed into Girl Scouts and it was very exciting for her.

Trying to get the girls organized for the program.

Delaney helping.

Getting her certificate. 

All her friends!

Hiroshima Peace Memorial

Monday was Nov 10, the Marine Corps Birthday, so Dan had the day off, but the kids still had school. Once the kids were gone, we went out on an adventure.  Dan and I headed up to Hiroshima.  You can cut 20-30 minutes off the drive if you take the Sanyo, which is the toll road.  However, the toll road is pricy!  We opted to go there for free and took the surface roads all the way in.  Wow.  You see on the map that it is only 25 miles, but when you are driving in kilometers, and the traffic is slow, it takes you over an hour to get there.  Crazy, I know!

We were able to find our destination, but had a little difficulty navigating to the parking.  We eventually got where we needed to be, with only an extra lap or two around the park.  I was a wee bit dismayed to see the parking area- it was tiny, all in Japanese, and locked your car in till you paid.  I had visions of net being able to figure out how to get our parking paid for and the car released!  No worries, all was well. (Although with the tight quarters, I had to do a 200 point turn in inch increments to get out!)

We walked to the park, visited the museum, and then visited the memorials.  It was interesting.  It was also sad and slightly depressing and a little intense.  I did not take any photos in the museum.  It felt a little wrong to do that.  There was a lot of info in there and a lot of personal stories.  While I would recommend it, I would not recommend taking kids.  The awfulness of the bombing and its effects is a little too descriptively shown there.  The thing I got out of the visit is that an atomic bomb is a truly horrible thing. The deaths of so many people in such a horrible way was incredibly awful and depressing.  However, I loved the Japanese people's message there- one of peace.  Let us live in harmony so this never happens again.

The memorials were lovely and the entire park was tranquil and peaceful, even with a bunch of school kids roaming around.  It was a beautiful day and a lovely trip.

The machine to pay for your parking.  It did have some directions in English, but there was a little guesswork as well.  You parked, then entered the parking space number into the machine.  It did not give you a receipt or anything.  It then locked your car in.  When you returned, you entered your parking space number, it told you how much to pay and you paid.  Then it released your car.

This is the locking mechanism.  The flap under your car lifts up so you can't drive back out till 

you've paid.

The river we crossed over to get to the Peace Park.  This does not do it justice.  The trees alone were gorgeous.  And it is a little odd to have all this hustle and bustle and busy city, then you cross this bridge and suddenly it is peaceful and quiet with no cars or big buildings.

Entrance to the museum.

It was 50 yen to go in (about $.50) and we sprung the extra 300 yen ($3) each for the headphones that gave info in English.  They were kind of unnecessary, since nearly everything in the museum was also written in English, but it did have more stories and a little more embellishment on what you read.

The view of the main memorial and the park from the second floor of the museum.

The little arch on the right sits over the center of where the bomb hit.  The big dome building in the back is one of the only buildings left standing in a 2K radius after the bomb went off. They have left it as is for a memorial.

This is the spot where the bomb detonated 600 meters directly overhead. 

I was trying to get the flame memorial behind it, but you really can't see it. 

The plaque in the fountain around it. 

This was one of the sad stories.  If you can biggify it enough to ready it, you should.  This is the Children's Memorial.  It was erected after a girl died of cancer due to the bomb. 

There was a class of school kids carrying what looked kind of like a length of flowers and they were having some sort of ceremony. 

The big bombed building.  And me.  Dan got me with my eyes closed. 

It was a fascinating building. 

Check it out. 

This shot was for the birds, for Kera. 

The backside of the building.  No, you could not go into it.  It was fenced off. 

And then we had a lovely drive home.  This was the view for part of it. 

But this is mostly what we saw.

Where I ran on Saturday

An evening with the family

 I made a tactical error Monday night.  I forgot to put dinner in the crock pot and left for a very busy day.  It was nearly 5pm before I realized there was going to be a problem, and there wasn't a thing I could get done for dinner by 6, especially since I was not home when I had this epiphany.  After a Murphey's Law chain of events, we ended up all going out to the food court for dinner.

That in and of itself is an adventure.  Everyone wants something different for dinner.  Despite the supposition of them being "fast food", they are not.  And they car very little for your customer satisfaction, or how long you may wait.  It is a process to get everyone what they want and situated and eating.  But I got delicious curry chicken, so I was happy.

Delaney got a Bento Bowl of Orange Chicken and was delighted with it.

KFC for Callie, Pizza Hut for Rylee and Subway for Marian. Yes, all were pleased with their dinners.

And it was good to walk back home, since I think everyone overindulged.   

Much fun was had playing on the rocks as we made our (digestively overextended) way home.

A little Cinderella at the Ball

 The Marine Corps Birthday is this week, and in honor of that, we attended the Marine Corps Ball Friday night. It was a great Ball!  Due to a lack of venues able to accommodate such an event, it was held at the gym, and I was impressed!  They did an amazing job of making it look elegant and beautiful and nice.  They even offered shuttle bus services to the gym, since there was definitely not sufficient parking.  It was a little weird to walk to the bus stop all dressed up, but at least it wasn't a pumpkin!

I'm all dressed and ready to go!

I'm starting to think it is time to make Dan pay money for photos.  It is time we had some good ones.  Although Callie did her best and this one isn't awful, it would be nice to see the details of my lovely dress though.  And something from an appropriate angle would be good.

Here we are on the bus.  Whoo-hoo! I'm off to the Ball!

Since Dan is all special now, we were invited to the big-wigs cocktail area.  We'd planned skip that hour, but with a special invite, we had to go.  It wasn't bad.  I was disappointed that the "light refreshments" was mostly full-on sushi, but with my dress and confining undergarment, there was no room to put it anyway.  I am really sad I didn't take pictures, but that seemed a little ..... uncouth with all the important people standing around.  No one else busted out the camera, so I was afraid they'd point and gasp is I did, so I have no proof of the delightful aesthetics we enjoyed. It was less awkward than I had anticipated it would be. There were enough ladies I knew that I had people to chat with and didn't feel totally alone, and we shmoozed away the time.   We headed to the Ballroom at 6:45 and found our table.

 I assume this was a appetizer?  It was on the table when we came in.  I was surprised that Dan declined to eat mine, since he likes shrimp.  I declined because I very much do not!

They kicked off the program at 7pm.  I love the Marine Corps, and its pomp and circumstance.  The music is so motivating too!  There was the usual ceremonial stuff, which I enjoyed.  The keynote speaker went a little overtime, which is fairly traditional as well.  But dinner was served not too long after 8pm.  The salad was good, and the main course was passable.  

The cake looked unimpressive, but was amazingly delicious!

This was too funny.  Once the music got going, folks loosened up a lot.  These 2 ladies from Dan's work are serenading Sylvie with their carnations.  It was unexpected and awesome!

We tried to get some photos, but it really was just too dark in there.  This is Dan and some of the guys he works with though.

This was what they transformed the entry of the gym into.  Pretty fantastic, isn't it?!  I love how men are the same.  As we exited on out way home, a cute couple was out here and I offered to take their photo.  The girl was a gorgeous Japanese lady in full kimono.  (Now I wish I had gotten a photo of her!)  I got their picture taken here- a close up and one that showed the full facade.  The Marine offered to take our picture and snapped this.  Then he walked over to hand back the camera as his date was saying, oh no, one more picture!  It was too late, Dan was already walking away as well.  Sigh.  But that is why there are so very few pictures of us!

Oh, an after- pic of my fancy-shmancy hair.