Winter Festival

This weekend we had a special treat. The town where we live had a winter festival that ran fri, sat and sun. On Friday as Rebecca taught an English class at Meg's school, Kevin and Titus went down to the train station to see if they could see any trains and for some special boy time. Instead they got to see a marching band and get a brief look at some of the ice sculptures that were on display. Realizing it was the weekend we had read about quite a while ago and wanting to take the kids to see what it was all about- we all ventured out Saturday. We started with the ice sculptures and when we got to the clown Meg freaked out so we headed indoors where there was a cake decorating contest.

At this point it was nice because we ran into one of the boys in Meg's school and were able to talk for a couple of minutes. It was a very limited conversation as the mother's English was limited and my Japanese is Very limited. Once we warmed up and the clown had moved on we went back outside and headed to what had looked like (at a distance) a huge snow fort. It turned out to be a huge ice slide where the kids sat on this little sled thing and slide down. (sorry no pics of this- my battery had just died.) The same little boy from Meg's class was there and it was wonderful as I was able to talk a little more with the mother, and Meg would not have gone down that thing if it had not been for this boy. She was So excited to see him again and wanted to do what he was doing. (It has been very nice as different places in the community we run into people we have met and are able to practice our little Japanese we know and begin to form relationships with them.) This activity made the children's pant legs wet so we headed home for the day.

Later Saturday evening Kevin took Meg back for the fireworks. They ate popcorn and took pictures and had a great time talking to people they have met in the community or people who just wanted to talk to a foreigner. While it was a fun day for the kids and us, we feel like it was a great day of meeting people and having the opportunity to talk more with some of those we have very basic relationships with already.

This is cotton candy- believe it or not. It was HUGE!

Meg enjoying the cotton candy- she wound up with it all over her face!
Titus would not even let us get it near him.

Birds flying around the world

Meg all bundled up!