Birt's Visit to Japan

Sorry for how long it's taken to get this post on here. I've been trying for three days now to get pictures on and blogger has not been working. Even this post I've had to put on each picture individually (what a pain!) Hope you enjoy seeing a little of what we've been doing. We are having a great time and I can't believe they're leaving tomorrow. :(
Grandad and Sterling riding on the train.


Dad and Kara trying on the Samurai helmets in the Samurai museum.


Sterling inside the Samurai museum


In front of the Okazaki castle.

Grandad and Sterling playing with blocks.

"Indy 500" Party

Yesterday we had a BBQ with Japanese friends and our team at a park and it was SO much fun! Tony was in charge of grilling the meat and we brought some sides as well as all the decorations and fun stuff. We had intended to have an Indy 500 party over Memorial Day weekend, but I hadn't been feeling well all week and didn't pull it off. So instead we had it this weekend and it was perfect! MANY thanks to my Grandma and Grandad Birt and my Aunt Carolyn and Cousin Miranda who sent all of the goodies for the party!

This is the invitation we gave to people.

Here is Sterling drinking from the race car cups. He had only been there a little while and he was already hot and sweaty!

This is everyone playing a yard game that Jay made up. It was a version of bean bag toss, and obviously Sterling thinks he's one of the big kids :)

Here is Sterling and Brayden with the race flags. They had tons of fun with them, and Luke got a video of this too, which we'll put on later this week.

Here he is playing on some of the playground equipment. He was so excited that it was a bulldozer because he's been very into construction equipment lately.

Here is Sterling and Brayden chowing down on some veggies and dip. The Japanese girls just thought they were too cute. They just watched Sterling and talked to him all day long!

Here is one of the girls playing race cars with him. Instead of using this as a table cloth, the boys used it to race their cars.

Here they are running around with the flag balloons. It was fun for a while, but they kept blowing away!

Here is Sterling actually trying to play the bean bag game, but all he really ended up doing was throwing them at this guy he was playing with. Then Sterling started to chase him and throw the bean bags at him...so the bean bag toss wasn't too successful, but Sterling thought it was a fun game anyways! (I apologize, I can't think of the guy's name that is playing with Sterling...)

And this is on the way home from the park. We got started around 10:30-11:00 and we didn't leave the park until 4:45. Sterling ran and played the whole time, so needless to say he was exhausted after such a fun day!

Sterling and Miku

Yesterday we were playing outside with Sterling's friend Miku. If you listen closely you can hear them say each other's names which is really cute. And also, if you're wondering about Sterling's outfit- he has been obsessed with blue lately. He will only wear 2 pairs of blue b-ball shorts and a couple of different blue t-shirts he owns. It's getting old already!

Frog Video

Trash and Playing with the Girls

Well, these are kind of in a random order, but basically we had a really fun day today playing with our neighbors. In the morning the kids just ran around and played with Sterling's toys- it was hilarious to see them playing with all his farm stuff. They liked all the animals and the trucks. Even one of the dad's was really impressed that Sterling had a little Dodge truck because they don't have those here in Japan. They also played a little bit of baseball. Then this afternoon we got a little pool for Sterling so he was playing in that. This evening they all got out and played bubbles together, so it's just been one big day of playing outside for Sterling! He had tons of fun and it was really fun for us to hang out with all the parents as well. We obviously still have a language barrier, but we got along the best that we could.
The other pictures that are in the middle are from Sterling and Luke taking the trash out the other day. They are all in separate bags according to what kind of trash they are- Sterling has the PET bottles. We can only take them out on Fridays, so it gets a little trashy in our house, but we're getting better at the trash system, luckily :)

Narai Park

It was our 5 year anniversary yesterday, so we went out to eat at a Thai restaurant while Andy and Tony watched Sterling for us. They had a lot of fun and so did we!

Every time Sterling gets out of the bath/shower he has to wrap his towel around himself like this and run around for a while. I think he thinks he's being like Luke.

We got a box from my grandma and papa and this is Sterling sitting inside of it eating the Cheerios that they sent! He thought it was a perfect little seat.

The next three pictures are from the park we went to today. There is a little water area where the kids can play. It's like a little stream running through the concrete- a pretty cute idea and Sterling loves it. And in the last picture he's holding everyone up as he slowly gets down off the slide :)

First Field Trip!

These first pictures are Sterling playing with his new cars and the box that they go in from his Granny and Papa Tom. He really loves them and plays with them ALL the time. Except last night he got in trouble so Luke took them away- We're hoping that will be effective in modifying his behavior :)


This was just a funny moment that I had to get a picture of. Sterling in his rain boots, shorts that are too big on him, and his monster truck hat...too cute, I thought. And he obviously didn't want to be holding Luke's hand!

The last two pictures are from this morning (Wed.). He is going on his first field trip today! They are just going to the park right near our house (the one with the rides and stuff), but I'm still sad that I don't get to go with him on his first trip. (I don't know if there are any parents going, but they didn't offer for us to go, it's hard enough just to communicate the basics!) They are going to ride on a little bus and everything! They told us to make sure that he wore his hat and he talked all morning about how he was going on a trip with his sensei's. He was very excited!

A Rainy Day

We had a rainy day last week, so we went to the play place at Wing Town again, and here's a little video of Sterling playing there.

This Week

These are just some pretty random pictures from this last week. The first is Sterling drawing on a piece of paper, which so rarely happens that I had to capture it in a picture. He usually has no patience for drawing.

Today we went to McDonald's with the Parsons' kids and we all got ice cream. Sterling and Owen esp. got really hot in the play area, so the ice cream was a nice cool down.

These are the neighbor girls that Sterling always plays with. Miku is in the middle and Yuu is on the right. Sterling was being very nice and sharing his pringles with them :)

My mom and dad sent Sterling a magazine (actually it was for all of us because it had an article in it about Japanese beef). It had all kinds of John Deere tractors and combines and he sat looking at it for a really long time tonight! I was surprised actually at how long he sat there just looking at all the pictures.

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.