Airport Field Trip

To go a bit out-of-order... This weekend, we dropped off Chloe's Grandpa and Grandma Wildboer at the airport. Here they are saying good-bye to the happily unconscious babe... And here's a little family picture of the three of us...

And now for some Weird Japan! After seeing Mom and Dad to the gate, we decided to grab some Starbucks before heading home. The airport was having a little fair or something in their restaurant-and-shopping area - they seem to do this a lot on weekends - complete with the weird mascot below. This is the mascot for NHK, Japan's national television corporation. NHK is known for stalking and harrassing foreigners to try to get them to pay for the Japanese television they don't watch. See why they need a scary mascot? :) They have little toy action figures of this guy all over... but some things just shouldn't be life-size!

We also saw this man performing on some traditional Asian instrument. I don't know what it is, but I saw an old man on the street playing something similar in Taiwan many years ago. It was beautiful.

Wherein Things Begin to go Downhill

Station 7, at at last! It is now 11:20 a.m., and we've been hiking for over four hours. We began our hike a bit under 2000 meters above sea level, and are now at 3000 meters with 776 left to go. It's raining. We continued on a bit beyond this point, but decided to turn back before too long. You can see a photo of us at our turning point at Ben's blog, here. (And I'm in that photo! Click on it to zoom in and see how wet we really were.) Our reasoning? We knew that we still had a few hours to go before reaching the top, and a long hike down as well. We had no idea whether or not the weather would clear. Four hours of climbing in the rain with no guarantee of any kind of view once we finally did get to the top wasn't too inspiring - especially since we were already wet to the skin. We were disappointed not to have made it all the way to the top, but we all agreed that it was the right choice in the end - especially since the clouds only increased, both on our hike-day and into the next. Turning around saved it from being an altogether miserable experience. Instead, it's something that I can look back on and still say, "That was a lot of fun! We had a couple rough spots, but what a great experience!"

Hi Mike!

This is Mike. :) He's eating pistachios, which we learned that Sam is allergic to. If you look very closely, and maybe if you zoom in on this picture, you can see some little dots on the slope behind Mike right around his waist level. These are people heading down the down path, which you'll see us on shortly. 

Hi Ben!

This is Ben. :) Notice how steep the slope is, and how the trail winds up it. (You can see Station 6.5 a good bit below.) It's much faster going down than up because they take out most of these curves on the downward trail. It's quite steep. 

Well on our way!

It's 5:50 in the morning, and after a bit of fun with Japanese maps we're well on our way up the mountain - yup, the sun rises early here! We start our hike at Station 5 on the Subashiri trail, which seems to be the thing to do (starting at Station 5, I mean). I would actually say that we started at Station 4.5 because the nearest available parking spot was quite a way down the mountain and we got well-warmed-up on our way to Station 5. In this photo, we're giving our poor 1995 Mitsubishi Galant a well-deserved rest on the way up the hill to prevent it from overheating. We could smell the heat coming off all the cars that passed us here - our heater was running full-blast most of the way up. We probably wouldn't have made it to our goal if the car hadn't had low gear (one below D2 for those of you who, like me, wouldn't have a clue) - we were maxing out at about 20kph by the time we parked! Mike did a great job managing the vehicle on this tough climb.

The Happy Couple

Here are Ben and Sam, standing in front of Nagoya Castle. You can't really tell how insanely hot it is in this picture! Aren't they cute, though?? 

Our Jet-Lagged Friends

Ben and Sam arrived on a Thursday night. Friday night we took in a somewhat lackluster performance by the local baseball team, the Nagoya Dragons (they did win, it was just a really slow game). But the crowds made up for it! Ben and Sam were troopers and shocked their sleepy systems into accepting Japan time straightaway. 

The Happy Couple

Awwww! They've been married for about seventy minute now, and so far everything is going just great!!! 

A Private Moment...

...captured forever! Spying on the happy couple... 

GQ

Sara and Mark are considering their future careers as GQ models. And this kid wonders why there are so many weird pictures of him on the internet. :D Hee hee, just kidding, Mark! 

Kickin' Back...

And having a good ol' time! 

The Newlyweds

Awwwwwww... :) 

After the Wedding

The wedding party stops at the University of Michigan's Law Quad for some photos! It was hot, but really pretty - not to mention popular! There were three or four other wedding parties there at the same time we were. 

Sooooo proud!

The father of the groom is very proud! 

Rehearsing...

Groom and mommy ace the walk down the aisle. 

I feel pretty, oh so pretty...

Mark is also willing to make the switch from groomsman to bridesmaid. In addition to being a stellar fashion model, Mark showed off a bit of his physical therapy training with us (he will be graduating in December)! I discovered that it's not tight muscles that are keeping me from touching my toes, but rather the dura around my nerves! I also learned that my already-sore tailbone is a sign of some pregnancy stuff that I'm not going to share. :) I must say, I was quite impressed with my little brother.

The Br-Oom

And the groom thinks, "Hmm, maybe it'd be more fun to be the bride after all..." 

Father of the Groom

While the father-of-the-groom opts for the high-water-white-socks look. Hey, you never know when those dikes'll break! 

The Best Man

Our little brother - and the best man - Mark decides that flip-flops are his stylin' footwear of choice. 

Wedding!

Well, here it is a full month after Ben and Sam's wedding, they're here for a visit, and I haven't even posted any wedding pictures yet! So here's an appetizer - a photo of the Favor Party, where we put together the favors that you happily consumed.