The park, again

Luke took Sterling to the park this morning. It's pretty much a daily thing. These are just some random cute pictures he took. (Sorry it's been a while since we last posted).

Nagoya Port

We had Monday and Tuesday off this week, so on Tuesday we went to the Nagoya Port. It was a really beautiful day. There is an aquarium, but it was pretty expensive, so we didn't go to that, we just walked around and looked at the boats and the water. There were also some little rides that we let Sterling go on. You can see in the last picture that Luke got to ride with him! (I did too, but that picture isn't going to make it on the post, sorry!)

Speech

Here is a part of my speech: "Why are you living in Japan? Why are you studying Japan?...Christians believe in God. God is the one who created everything and he knows everything. 'God's book' is called the Bible. The Bible tells us that God made everything and he knows all. For example: can you count the number of hairs on your head? No, you can't, but the Bible says that God knows how many hairs you have. The Bible also tells us that Jesus died to forgive our sins and 3 days later he came back to life. I am 100% confident that the Bible story is true. When you know God you can live with true hope, peace and joy. Even when problems come you can have peace because God will be there to help. Christians don't worry about where they will go after they die, because the Bible says that when we believe in God we can have hope in living in heaven with God. My hope is that every person would know God. I think this is the most important thing in life...."

It was very challenging to write and give this speech. I hope to have some more follow up conversations with some people in my class; they seemed interested. And I hope to improve drastically in my language ability; in hopes of sharing this story with Japanese people. Thank you all for praying for me; please keep them coming for us.

Sorry we couldn't get any video on of Luke's speech, we tried and tried all weekend (we even let it download for hours at a time while we were gone and couldn't get it to work). So we'll probably try again, but for now, here's some new pictures.

The first is him wearing his Samurai warrior hat that he made at school. Today (Monday) is Children's Day, but it used to just be Boy's day, so the traditional thing to do is to hang the fish flags and get the boys picture taken with a samurai helmet (which Sterling did at school on Friday, but we haven't seen the picture yet). He is holding up a picture that we made together from the Sunday School class at GCC. Scott and Annie Weltz's Family have been sending us the materials from Sterling's class, which is SO awesome! I love being able to do the little Bible lessons with him and letting him do the crafts.


The next three pictures are of him eating little donut holes today. We took him to the mall and got him donut holes and chocolate milk since it was Children's day. Even though we don't think the donuts are very good here, Sterling loved them and every bite he said "mmmm, good!"




By the way, we wanted to clarify something with the sickness issue: Sterling really is well now, but we are slightly concerned about any lasting side effects it might have caused that we can't see. Because the health care here is "national health care" they won't see Sterling for a "check" or preventative medicine. It's not that the Doctor didn't catch Sterling's illness the first time we went in, it's that they don't diagnose anything unless it's absolutely obvious (like your arm is falling off or something). It's VERY different from America. So, with that said, we are going to try to find a private hospital where we could see about getting a check up for him and just run tests to make sure that he is healthy and strong. We'll let you know if we find a place to do that.

Update on Sickness

Well, I know things seemed in the clear with Sterling, and I still think everything is okay, but starting a few days ago Sterling's hands began to peel really badly. I put three pictures on, I don't know how much you will be able to tell from them, but it is really weird looking for his hands to be completely peeling away like this. I know peeling skin isn't a big deal, but the reason it concerns me a little is that this, along with diarrhea and/or vomiting is the 2nd stage of Kawasaki Disease, which is what I originally thought Sterling had because of all his symptoms. He is acting fine now, except for the peeling hands and he does have diarrhea. So I know he's getting over it and is strong, but I can't help but think he really did have Kawasaki Disease and there is only one reason that he got better so quickly- all of your prayers. This disease can be serious and can cause long term problems, but Sterling is obviously not having those kind of problems. We asked everyone to pray for us on Sunday night for us, which was Sunday morning for you all. By Monday morning when we took Sterling to the Dr., his fever was gone and he was getting back to his normal energetic self. I truly believe the Lord healed Sterling because of your prayers! Thank you very much for so faithfully praying for us as we're here in Japan- mostly unable to communicate with doctors and unable to find health care as good as what we have in America. Your prayers are carrying us through!

Random pictures

I took this last week when Sterling was wearing his underwear and riding his bike. It looked so funny and cute. He only has one pair of shorts right now, so sometimes he wears his boxers out as shorts :) And as he so often does, this day he insisted on wearing his rain boots! It was quite a combo.

This is our fish flag for Children's day, which is Monday. The fish represent swimming upstream and being strong through difficulties. They are supposed to represent the father, mother and children in the family. This week in Japan is called Golden Week because there are 4 different holidays and everyone gets off work for about 10 days...except us! We don't get out of school at all this week, but we get next Monday and Tuesday off. Hopefully we will get to do something fun on our 4 day weekend.

I just took this the other night because we were all watching a movie that my Grandma Nelson sent over to us (Cheaper by the Dozen) and Sterling fell asleep just like that beside Luke. It was really adorable, but I think it was only because that was when he was really sick :)

Speech!!!

This Wednesday morning (Tuesday night in America) Luke will be giving a speech in his class. His entire class is taking turns giving 3-minute speeches. The topic for these speeches is wide open, so of course this is a great opportunity to practice in Japanese talking about Jesus. So, say a prayer for Luke and his first 'sermon' in Japanese. We're going to try and video tape it; so if that works out we might be able to post some of it. Thanks.

The Slide at the Park

The Park

We had a pretty relaxed weekend, but we got a lot accomplished, which always makes me feel good. So Sunday we took Sterling to the park to play, and as you can tell he had a great time. He went down the slides, he climbed with Luke, and he rode a ride with each of us too. It was a really fun afternoon and I'll put a video on later of him going down the slide.

Sick...

Well, I think a lot of you know that Sterling has been pretty sick this weekend, and we're not sure what's been wrong, but things are looking much better today. He had a fever around 102-103 all weekend (even tylenol wouldn't bring it down) and had a rash the whole time. The rash got worse as the weekend went on, spreading from his chest and back to his bottom, neck, feet and hands. We took him to the Dr. today because we were worried about this one specific sickness that is predominant in Japan, but the dr. visit was kind of disappointing. He took one very quick look in sterling's mouth and said that he had a common cold. I kept asking about the rash but the dr. said it was fine and would go away. So he gave me an antibiotic for his "red throat" (that's what the dr. said) and if it's not better in three days I'm supposed to go back. The good thing is that the fever hasn't returned today and he's been much more lively than over the weekend. He still has the rash all over but I'm hoping that within the next couple of days it will go away too. If not, we'll take him back to the dr.!
This is a picture of him drinking an Aquarius, which is a drink here that is similar to Gatorade. Our neighbors with the little girl named Miku brought it to him because they knew he was sick and said they hoped he felt better. I thought that was so kind of them. Sterling thought it was really great too :)

Ice Cream

This is just a little video I took the other day when Sterling was eating an ice cream bar and being kind of funny.

Luke's B-day and a new haircut

A couple of days before Luke's birthday, we went to Nagoya with Tony and Andy to get our visas taken care of at immigration (we can now stay legally for three years) so afterward we went to Outback to celebrate. It was really fun because they brought out tambourines and ice cream and we all sang to him.

We went over to Jay and Caitlin's on Saturday night because Caitlin's family had sent her some Mexican food and they wanted to share with us. I had to take a picture because it was really good and we can't get any Mexican here! It was still a little funny because we had to use spaghetti sauce in the enchilada sauce, but it was still really good and Caitlin is an amazing cook! While we were sitting around and talking with them, Sterling watched Sesame Street on their computer with Jay's headphones. I think he looks hilarious.


Sterling and I were playing Superman the other night and we had capes on. He wanted us both to wear them for the rest of the night, so here we are reading books with our capes on.

And here is Sterling's new hair cut! Luke buzzed it last night. He got this computer from Grandpa and Grandma Chase for Christmas and he loves it! He plays with it ALL the time now. It plays all kinds of different noises and games and songs and he just never gets tired of it.

Sterling has been putting on my boots lately and walks around in them. (Although it's pretty hard for him to walk in the high heels!) He always says he's wearing Mommy's cow boots :) I think he looks like he's trying to model in this picture. One of these days he's going to be mad at me for taking this picture!

Sterling's new friends

These are the neighbor girls that Sterling likes to play with. They are really just so cute all together. Their names are Rio, Yuu and Miku, and they just love Sterling! It's been harder to see them since we've started school, but hopefully we'll still get to hang out with them.

Fluoride...

So here's my latest dilemna. The water here is not fluoridated like it is in the United States. All the adults here have horrible teeth and I think it is probably partly due to the fact that they don't have fluoride in their water or their toothpaste. I've tried to research this on the internet because I'm worried about Sterling. I know we will be fine, but he's definitely still in the age range where we need to be thinking about it. I found some research that said water fluoridation was one of the greatest medical feats of the 20th century (it literally said that, I'm not exagerrating), other things that said you shouldn't worry about babies/toddlers having fluoride in their water, toothpaste should be enough. Well, right now we're using non-fluoride toothpaste for Sterling because that is what they told me to do in the US! So I'm confused. If anyone knows anything about this, I would appreciate some reliable information. If you know a dentist, please ask for us! :) Also, if we are supposed to use fluouride tablets-- one of the administrators here suggested we do this for our kids-- we are going to need them sent to us. I don't know if they sell them here, and even if they did, I would have no idea where to find them or what they looked like or how to read the directions! Thanks in advance for all of your advice :)

Playing Outside

We're back to school this week, but we still have pictures from last week when we were on break that I wanted to put on here. It was such a gift that the weather was gorgeous while we were on break, but of course, now that we're back to school it's rainy and cold again. These first two pictures are from a morning that Erin and I took Sterling and Brayden to Minami Park to play. It is the same park that I posted pictures from before- there is open fields for playing as well as rides for the kids. Brayden and Sterling had a great time together sharing snacks and riding rides! I need to clarify- in the second picture we were not letting Brayden and Sterling ride alone, Erin just stepped out of the picture so that I could get a cute shot of them! The ride hadn't even started yet, we don't want you thinking we're bad moms :)


We've been playing outside with our neighbors quite a bit and these are two of the girls that Sterling plays with- Rio and Yuu (there was a third girl, Miku, that was too shy to be in the picture.) They have so much fun together even though Sterling is the only boy :) I have a video that I will put on tomorrow of them all playing together.

And these pictures are of us playing in our little yard! Even though it's small we love it. The Weltz family sent us markers, so we play with the markers outside, as well as bubbles that the Kendall family sent.


We went to a rugby game on Sunday to watch Tony and Mike, so this is a picture of Sterling and Brayden attempting to play!

Cherry Blossoms

Every year at this time it is a major event for Japanese people to do "Ohanami" which is going and having a picnic under cherry blossom trees. During the day it is a family event and is pretty simple; you just bring your lunch and let the kids play. At night it is more like a festival with vendors selling food, drinks and souvenirs. You still do the same thing at night though- you sit under the trees and eat! So we've done this a couple of times during our break and it has been really beautiful and fun.

This picture is from when we got our whole team together to try to get new pictures for the website and newsletters. Sterling and Owen were running around like crazy with their dress clothes on, so Luke had to round them up.

We also got to go to Ohanami with some Japanese friends. Andy was actually the first to meet them, but they are really friendly and have invited us to do a couple of different things with them. The next two pictures show the night we went with them to the Okazaki castle for Ohanami- you can see in the second picture how the trees were all lit up at night.


We also just went as a family and had ice cream under the trees, so we took pictures of one another. We really tried to get one with Sterling in it, but he was exhausted and refused to take any pictures. We put him in his stroller and he fell asleep within 10 seconds!

Tokyo Trip

This first picture isn't actually from the Tokyo trip, but a day or two before. I just thought Sterling was really cute on the back of Luke's bike with his "Sterling" hat on.

This is them at an intersection when we were trying to find our hotel. We literally walked miles before we finally found it (with the help of two or three friendly Japanese men). Luke was trying to help Sterling deal with the long journey we were having!

These next three pictures are all from this temple we went to. It is the largest Buddhist Temple in Japan. It was really crazy how many people were there, how huge it was, how people just threw money into a big well, and how strongly it smelled of incense. Sterling and Brayden obviously were bored with the whole thing!



These two pictures are from Shibuya (a section of Tokyo) which is the busiest intersection in the world. The second picture is taken from the 2nd floor of a Starbucks (which I wasn't supposed to take pictures here, but I didn't know it until I'd already done it, so here it is!) It was amazing because no matter what time of day or night, there is always this many people streaming through here- it's crazy!


These little Japanese cartoon figures were near our hotel, I actually don't even know the name of this little character, but Sterling liked it.

On Sunday morning we went to the Jesus Lifehouse church and it was so much fun. I didn't expect much, but I was totally amazed once I got there. The church was full of people from all over the world, they did the services in Japanese and English, and there were tons of little kids around Sterling's age! It just felt so good to be in church and worshipping with other believers since we haven't done that in over three months. Almost everyone there was around our age and just so cool and nice to us- we loved it! Some of the people that either started this church or help run it are from the Australian church that has Hillsong for those of you who know that music- so needless to say the music was awesome!

So overall we had a great trip, except that it rained during the last night and day that we were there. So that really dampened our fun and we ended up leaving earlier than planned because there was literally nothing to do without getting soaked. But the train ride there and back was nice- it took about two hours.

easter egg hunt

Peek-a-Boo!

As you can see: Sterling has become quite skilled at Peek-a-Boo!