catching up on adventures...

I have a few adventures that never got blogged thanks to baby mack!  my plan was to blog the week after he was born while we recovered.  Turns out I couldn't do much of anything that week -  and then I got better and didn't want to sit in my house any longer!

So- this adventure was Kent's birthday adventure!  oct 10,11, and 12. 

The Air Force gained possession of an old Japanese WWII ammunitions property and has turned it into "Tama Hills"- a recreation facility for military members.  The perks in Japan for military members are pretty fabulous.  There is SO much for us to do.  

Several families from our church rented cabins and spent the weekend having fun!

the cabins were pretty great!  hot tubs, fire pits, hiking trails, etc.  We had s'mores every night and smelled like campfire!  but we still had the luxury of beds and toilets!  I was 39 weeks pregnant and was happy that I didn't end up having a baby in the woods :) 

the kids loved it.  mostly because they got to stay out late with friends and eat pringles for breakfast!

the whole area was beautiful.  and the weather was PERFECT.

there are strange old war structures and buildings all over the property that are pretty cool!

the boys' very favorite part of the whole adventure was the golf carts!  we got to drive golf carts all over the place to get around.   It was pretty fun.

they even had a mini golf course.  There was so much to do.

playing mini golf with little kids is such a joke.

here are most of the kids from the weekend.  Our building on base houses four families with a total of 14 kids!  all of them were here.  plus our two back yard neighbors with their 8 kiddos! and a couple more families.  We live in KID heaven.

they also have horseback riding at Tama Hills.  Our little cowboys and girl loved it.  I just love the pictures of them in their hats!!

metta refused to return this pink hat.  we had to pry it from her shrieking hands.

We bought kent a 24 pack of Guarana for his birthday.  They sell it at Costco!?  The Japanese love it, I guess.  Kent was pretty happy about it.  It turns out Ike also loves Guarana.

I love Zeb's cat shirt.  we got it at H&M here.  Kent thinks it's weird.  We asked Zeb if anybody at school said anything about it and he told us: "they all laughed at it, but I laughed with them".  He's so cute and such a good boy.

Ike was really nervous to get on the horse- but I think he ended up having fun.

I LOVE this picture.  we were walking through the stables and a horse happened to sneeze (or something strange) loudly just as we walked passed and she FREAKED out.  It scared her so badly.  I couldn't help but laugh and take a picture!!

we spent an afternoon exploring the grounds and checking out the cool war bunkers!  they made the kids nervous.  they were the perfect scary buildings!!

Japan is SO tightly packed and it is pretty rare to find any open space unless you drive up into the mountains.  You can drive for miles and miles and miles and see almost no 'free' space. It's just squished house after house after house!  but Tama Hills is an Oasis amongst the concrete!  it's pretty cool.

metta and I doing sad faces.  I can't remember why she was sad!

she makes the best faces.

they also had archery.  it was tough beans!

I love that my kiddos have so much to explore here in Japan!  everything is adventurous and I'm so glad my kids are having these opportunities.