Hearts Full of Joy

tokyo rush

lexi (with silly hair) & "tom"

lexi is back from japan. and while she, and the rest of us, are all adjusting to that (lexi is a force to be reckoned with).....lexi sat me down last night and showed me a slide show of the photos she took while there - 190 of them. i am so touched....so happy....so sad....so grateful....just plain emotional. and here is why....

in front of the tokyo temple, ready to do baptisms  - notice the cherry blossoms (lexi in center, enjoying her sense of tokyo fashion again)

one year ago when we were suddenly moving back to the u.s., we promised lexi that she could fly back to japan to visit, if she earned the money herself. one of the first things she did on arriving here was to find a job, and she has been working ever since (wouldn't have had to work so hard, if she didn't love to spend so much, but i wander). tashi is planning her own trip too. for this trip, lexi took her best friend from fillmore, gina. she planned her trip for spring break in japan, which is the break between the school years, so her friends were out of school, and most importantly for her, it was the tokyo stake youth conference. and here is where i get emotional....i LOVE these kids, the tokyo youth. you're looking at all the youth in the entire tokyo stake (with at least 10 million people living within it's boundaries, it has the biggest population of any stake in the church - so these youth are a microscopic percentage of the popualation).
tokyo stake youth conference (lexi center right)

while we lived in (& just outside of) tokyo, i wished that my girls had more friends, more good kids to hang out with that lived closer. now, a year later, on the other side of the world, i realize the incredible quality and strength of their friends in japan. and that although few in number, and far apart in distance (spread across tokyo for hours in all directions), they more than make up for that by who they are - including their testimonies of the savior and his gospel . i took these kids for granted, and now i regret that..... don't get me wrong, i have loved these kids since i have known them, but i didn't fully appreciate them.

i am crying as i type.

eating kaitenzushi  (conveyor belt sushi bar - remember this emily?) at sushiro

i am so grateful that my girls can hop on a plane, go back to tokyo and be surrounded by amazing people, AND be able to communicate with them in japanese.

and now i have a better appreciation of what my girls lost when we moved them away, and why it has been so hard for them to leave and re-adjust. and it makes me sad for them, and for our whole family. but intensely grateful that we ever had these opportunities. lexi really is japanese at heart (she is and "egg" - white on the outside, but yellow on the inside, whereas mia is a "banana" - yellow on the outside, and white on the inside)..... growing up in japan, attending church & school in japanese.....lexi is in her groove in japan. and  i love seeing her face glow in these photos.

at narita airport - these boys got themselves to the airport to say goodbye - about 2 hours each way on the train!

here is the news that warms my heart......five or six of these kids are planning to come and visit us this summer - can't wait.....SO excited!

many, MANY thanks to the nanjo family, who we love more than we can say, for taking care of lexi & gina, and beyond that, for blessing our lives in so many ways.

wish i were.... still there

exactly a week ago this moment, gracie & i were flying home from a WONDERFUL week. and now, after catching up on laundry, and getting brock packed and off to japan again, i can blog about it. it was the perfect girls' get-away, 

from the most amazing antique quilt find at the first antique shop we stopped at (i LOVE antiquing in the midwest)....
an 1840s quilt top in almost perfect condition, and at such a low price, it was a give-away! the seller didn't know what they had. this is gloria's first antique quilt purchase, and such an amazing one! she sent it home with me to analyze and study, and put in the quilt show i am organizing for this may. the fabrics are FABULOUS! i also got this 1890s basket quilt top from the same seller. look at the great shirting print!

...to a spur of the moment road-trip to independence, where we stayed in a darling, if over-decorated,  bed & breakfast.... nearly getting stuck in the mud at adam-ondi-ahman due to a thaw ......more antiquing & thrifting..... the hickory stick quilt shop in hannibal.....two day trips to nauvoo -
on sunday we picnic-ed in front of the temple, overlooking the mississippi

.....and lots of talking, laughter, and yummy food (still thinking about those donuts from the bakery in nauvoo (& I'm not even a donut gal - these were the best-ever), oh, and gloria's scrumptious banana cake!).

thank you, thank you gloria and family. it truly  couldn't have been a better trip in any way.

can't wait to come again!

and thanks to brock & kids for letting me go, and giving me the peace of mind that you can get along marvelously without me!

gracie & kennedy (who starrred as golde in her school production of "fiddler on the roof" while i was there - excellent!)  with the mississippi behind

peppermint twist

i so enjoyed making this fun little project. here are my thoughts as i was just beginning. i love mini quilts, love anything with an antique feel, love red & white, love the prints - especially the fun shirting prints. (shirtings are white or cream with tiny little prints in red, black, or blue.) they were used to make men's and women's dress shirts throughout the 1800s, particularly in the later 1800s. they add so much more texture and depth to a quilt than a solid white fabric can. the shirting prints were one of the first things that caught my eye on the first antique quilt i ever purchased .

i purposely included the fabric manufacturer's mark, "lecien" in the center corner stone. i've noticed that including marks like this is common in antique quilts, because our quiting fore- mothers wanted and needed to use every inch of fabric they had. it adds a fun spark of interest to a quilt. it also makes me happy to include this mark because this fabric company makes most of the reproduction fabrics available in japan and i have bought many of them over the years. most of the polka dots, stripes, and checks in "peppermint twist" were made by lecien and bought in japan.

the motivation for making this quilt came from strips of red & white fabric that were left over from valentine's quilts i was commissioned to make. i cut too many strips, and was pondering what to do with them, when i remembered the antique quilt that i had wanted to imitate. but, because i love throwing as many fabrics from my personal stash as possible into every quilt i make, i didn't use as many of the left-over strips as i planned. so in the pioneer spirit of thrift, i used the strips to piece the backing, and i'm happy with how it turned out. i still have strips left and now i'm having fun picturing a chinese coin coin doll quilt that i can help mia make with them.

no more blogging for a bit, because tomorrow i'm off to quincy/nauvoo, illinois with my gracie (on her 9 month birthday), to spend a week with gloria.

SO excited! can't wait! but already missing my brock (who spoils me, by letting me go, and in so many other ways) and my kids (who don't spoil me, but make me happy nonetheless).

hey! that's the top of gracie's head that you can barely see in the photo of me & gloria at the mark twain caves..... the three of us will be hanging out again tomorrow night.

january

this is my first january in 16 years that has affected me this way.......after 12 years in tokyo, where there are still flowers and green and sunshine in january, although it is very cold, and 4 years in phoenix, where january is just pleasantly cool, this january is really impacting me. i LOVE the snow and the cozy winter feeling, but the lack of green and abundance of cold, and gray, and brown has me feeling a little....i don't know.....blah? not like myself? here's what's helping:

1. cozy winter crafts - i started these wool felt stars over a year ago for last christmas (they would look great on the tree), envisioning a decoration that would last through the winter. i finished them last week, as a january pick-me-up.

2. cuddling with adorable kids & laughing along with their silliness.

3.long phones calls to and visits with great friends, especially if a road trip to a warmer climate is involved (scroll down to see "good friends & sunshine").

our friend mana, from japan, stayed with us for a few days between arriving in the u.s., and starting college here. such a treat!

4. blogging & journaling - always picks me up and helps me understand myself better.

5. scrapbooking - enjoying the photos of noah's fuzzy shaved two-year old head (shaved because he cut his hair to the scalp 6 times in one week) napping on the couch, hot august days at tokyo disney sea, and lexi, tashi, and mia in their yukata (summer kimonos) brought joy to my heart and summer sunshine to my life.

6. reading good books - i'll be posting some book reviews soon.

7. getting back to eating right and losing the rest of my weight. between thanksgiving and christmas (ok, halloween too) i got very off-track. we're not talking about gracie weight here. i weighed 10 pounds less after gracie was born than i had before i got pregnant. she's been a blessing in so many ways :). this is the weight i gained while breastfeeding noah, (can adopting a baby make you gain weight? apparantly, yes!) and have never lost. time to get that done. it will feel so good!

8. planning the easter dresses i want to make for my girls.

good friends & sunshine

what joy a good friend brings to the heart! this week i had two great phone chats with gloria that were a real pick-me-up. and on saturday we made a completely spontaneous road trip to st. george to visit good friends from our maihama, japan experience. dropping from cedar city to st george, watching the vegetation and the climate change, and the sun shine brighter brought such happy memories of our years in phoenix. and that in turn brought such happy memories of good friends in phoenix. it was a happy day all around, as we escaped the cold of our home town and soaked up the sunshine and enjoyed the red buttes, tile roofs, and desert landscaping of st. george while delighting in the company of dear friends.

friends

lexi and her friend gina requested a photo shoot with the new camera....... the camera & i did our best to oblige.

mia came too!

lucky me!

i'm feeling like the luckiest of people right now, because i got to have a photo shoot with gloria's sister kelly. see her fabulous and inspiring blog, my happy little life. this is the fun day that i mentioned three postings ago. i originally asked her for a mommy/baby shoot, but then thought it would be fun to mix in brock and noah too. even if we didn't get great photos out of it (which we did, just look and see), it would have been worth it just to get to know kelly better - she's so, so fun, and amazingly talented, in so many ways. here are just a few of the photos. i'm sure i'll be posting them for some time to come. it makes me want to grab my camera and start shooting, but the results wouldn't be like this. maybe if i bought a nicer camera? nope, that wouldn't be enough either....i'm not kelly. but a new camera would be so nice.

family road trip - installment 3

july 28th,  day 4,   nauvoo

a perfect day! we got out the door as quickly as we could in the morning with our five kids, plus Gloria's youngest two, dallen & landon. mike was in china on business, kennedy was in phoenix visiting cousins, and austin & brady were in utah for EFY and other fun stuff, and spent the day in nauvoo. so lucky to have gloria as our tour guide! not only is she the funnest, (as her sister kelly recently told me, they are "all about the fun") but knew everything about nauvoo and what we wanted to see, so that everything went really smoothly and we didn't waste time trying to figure out where things were. what a blessing! but then, the rodenbergs have alwys been a blessing in our lives. it was also their stake day (the nauvoo stake) at the pageant, and so we got some special perks like front & center seating for the pageant, and watching a special performance of a vignette based on the letters of joseph & emma, played by the actors who played joseph & emma in the pageant, who are a married couple, and excellent actors. so good! the pageant was better than i could have imagined, and i was thrilled to notice that it touched lexi and tashi deeply. mia had quite the conversation with teh actress who played emma, after the pageant. dallen also was able to talk to the actor who played jospeh, whose name is also dallen. the expressions on their little faces were so sweet, but neither gloria or i had our cameras with us. so we will have to commit that sweetness to permanent memory. we also enjoyed a horse and wagon tour of old nauvoo, finding where some of our ancestors lived in nauvoo at the "land & records office",  shopping, and eating a yummy buffet dinner.

dallen, mia, and landon playing  with an unknown boy in blue.

so beautiful to see the temple! i have been looking forward to that since it was dedicated five years ago. my mom's three brothers, who are excellent carpenters and specialize in restoration and spiral staircases, all worked on the temples, building the staircases and doing other work.

nauvoo: the city of joseph

this is the quilt i made, all with antique fabrics, to commemorate the re-building of the nauvoo temple, and joseph smith's 200s birthday.

day 5,   july 29th,   carthage

the photos i took here, at carthage jail, are my favorites from our entire trip. we spent a beautiful afternoon here, after church in quincy. lexi bore her testimony today in fast and testimony meeting about the spirit she felt in the jail and the testimony she gained of joseph smith. brock's dad was a tour guide here on his mission. and brock and i have both been here before, but it was a first for our kids, and an uplifting experience for our family.

tashi & noah in the visitor's center

 

tashi & lexi in the window where joseph was martyred.

gloria & kids on the lawn

family road trip - installment 2

it's taken me longer to get to this 2nd posting about our vacation than i planned.....

july 27th - day 3:

far west, missouri

heading for far west, about a 15 minute drive from our motel, we stopped to get gas, and met the mission president for the independence, missouri mission, his wife, and a group of missionaries at the gas station. the missionaries had finished their missions, and were flying home later in the day. as a group, they were following the mission tradition of visiting far west and adam ondi ahman before going to the airport. so we had the opportunity to share far west and adam ondi ahman with them, which made it even more special. we got lost on our way to far west - it is very off the beaten path, but this gave them time to have a nice testimony meeting before we interrupted them. i think that far west was one of my favorite places that we visited. although there is nothing there but the four cornerstones that were laid for the temple that was never built, the spirit was so peaceful and beautiful, and just happy, for lack of a better word. i found it amazing that there had been a large thriving town of over 500 homes, and now there is nothing but sceninc rolling hills of hay. i also found it interesting that the spirit i felt wan't more sad or tragic. the saints built this city after they were driven from independence, but were later driven from here with governor bogg's extermination order. joseph and hyrum were living there when they were taken away to richmond and later liverty jails. i could have stayed and stayed, but we left when the missionaries did so we could follow them and avoid getting lost again. the mission president and his wife just loved mia and noah. their three children were adopted too.

brock and i were so excited to be at adam ondi ahman, having always wanted to see it. it was beautiful and peaceful also. the valley was filled with fields of green soybeans.

mia & lexi sitting in a grove of trees. mia decided that one of them had been the tree of knowledge , and one had been the tree of life :)

after this we drove about 14 miles to jamesport, a small town with amish farms on the outskirts. it had wonderful antique shops, and we enjoyed a yummy mennonite buffet. passing the horsedrawn buggies and neat and tidy 19th century style farms with wonderful amish clothes hanging on all the lines was a treat for all of us. we bought a hand carved toy for the kids and this fun book that lexi read aloud to us as we drove.

after this fun diversion, we headed east, across upper missouri, towards quincy. we loved driving through the rolling hills and green fields of the midwest. we arrived at the rodenbergs' around 6:00, and were treated to a yummy, healthy dinner - just perfect. so fun to be hanging out with these wonderful friends again! i can't express how good it felt. their house and property - two acres of wooded land with a large pond - were beautiful. we relaxed at the pond for the evening, and loved every minute of it - heavenly!

and, as if that hadn't been enough, we got to stay in this gorgeous guest room!

luxury!

reunited, and it feels so good!

we have enjoyed two reunions during the past few weeks. the first was our english speaking tokyo ward.....such great friendships and amazing people! the examples in this ward inspired me to better myself, to stretch and grow. a lot of beloved faces weren't there, but we savored the ones that were.

next was a family reuinion with my mother's family. here are just a few of us.....its a huge family. gracie is my grandma's 83rd and youngest great grandbaby, but she won't hold that position long, seven or maybe eight more are on the way. these are just GREAT grandbabies, 83 GREAT grandbabies, not including the 46 grandchildren. i am number 6 grandchild.

my baby brother challis and grandma were fishing together. grandma got a day license just to fish with chall. aleah, challis' oldest, is holding up our cute grandma's cute little catch. i have never been a fan of yuba lake....too much desert for me. but great company (and yummy sweet rolls in large amounts) made it very enjoyable. we returned home from our 10 day road trip (details to come in a future posting, a very long future posting) to find 5 messages (three from grandma, one from an aunt, one from a cousin) expressing hopes that we would come.....nothing like feeling loved by wonderful people.