Yokohama at night

One evening (on my trip to Japan), we ventured down to Yokohama Bay (not sure what it is actually called, I was lucky to know what city I was in). We watched the sunset on the city and Yuki and Soji dance in the fading light. This is one of my favorite memories of Japan. Everything just seemed right with the world.

Sunset in Yokohama

Lauren tickling Yuki.

Soji sprawled out across Lauren. Yuki is climbing into Soi's lap.

Lauren holding Yuki. Soji is running around in the background (he is the one with the red shirt).

Yokohama at night. One of the only times that I like big cities is at night. They are beautiful then.

Ferris wheel in Yokohama.

A Tribute to the Pack

Ok, so for my next post I want to introduce you to my pack.  My pack consists of me, Jeremy, three awesome dogs, and a leopard gecko.  We live in a small house with a fenced in backyard and raspberry bushes on the side of our hill. Despite our house being small, we have a fantastic yard with daffodils, irises, and a multidle of other flowers and birds. Having a nice yard is more important to me than a big house because I spend most of my time outside anyway.
Now introducing the pack....

Katheryne (a.k.a. Boo).  Leader of the pack (I can say whatever I want since I am writing this). She welcomes all into her home and loves everyone.  Even though she does not have any human babies of her own right now, she still is momma bear to her pack.

Jeremy (a.k.a. has no nickname and refuses for me to invent one). Is extremely loyal to his pack and feels a deep connection with all animals (especially dogs).

River (a.k.a. River Puppy). She is good natured toward normal sized dogs (meaning not chihuahuas) and all humans.  She particularly loves small children and her favorite person in the world is my nephew Jacob.

Travel (a.k.a. The Princess).  She is a momma's girl and knows it.  She also has selective hearing while outside and is awesome with people and all dogs (unless you are a dog getting petted by momma then she might get upset).

H.P. Dogcraft (a.k.a. Little P). He is the littlest dog of the pack but has the most energy.  He loves children and especially cuddles.    

Gex the Gecko (a.k.a. Henrietta).  She is a fussy leopard gecko and prefers to be left alone. She has no teeth so can't bite (which is a good thing).  She hates the color orange (still trying to figure that one out) and likes crickets.

Jeremy and I love our pack. It may seem wild to have so many dogs and a gecko to some people but all our animals are precious to us. Jeremy and I are unable to have our own children at this time, but are so grateful for our relationship with each other and with God. I can honestly say that I could not have found another man that loves me as much as Jeremy. We are currently signed up for adoption through LDS services (just throwing that out there in case someone is interested).

Japan 2014 Part 1

Ok...so my sister (Lauren) happens to live in Japan and I thought it would be fun to spend an entire day of running through airports and sitting next to strangers to visit her. I went over with my mom (Jeremy wasn't able to come due to cost) and after negotiating in grunts and hand signals with two elderly Japanese women, managed to secure our seats together for the long flight over. And let me tell you, it was well worth the hassle. We were basically sleeping on top of each other. I had mom on one shoulder and a Japanese woman on my other. And that's when I realized I was going to have to give up my concept of personal space for a few weeks. Despite the jet-lag (which was pretty severe) and jumping 14 hours ahead, I thoroughly enjoyed my trip.

When I first stepped off the plane, I immediately ran for the restroom. The only problem is that now everything was in Japanese and as a typical America, I hadn't studied a single word before I got there. Once in the restroom, I was completely fascinated by the toilets. As an America reading this, you may not understand since all our toilets are the same. Sure some are dirtier than others but you always know what to press to flush. In Japan, every toilet is different. Some of the fancier ones speak to you and spray you with warm water. Others are just holes in the ground that you have to squat over and try not to fall into during the process. I spent a significant amount of my time trying to figure out each toilet that I encountered. The toilet stationed at my sister's house was one that I got a little too curious with and paid dearly for it. I pressed one of the buttons with a spray symbol on it and managed to soak myself and the bathroom walls before I figured out how to shut the thing off. Anyway, what I am really trying to say is that Japan is awesome, crazy, fun, and insane all at the same time. I was in total culture shock there and coming home.

Lauren and her husband (Soi) built a very elegant home in the heart of Yokohama (which is about an hour out by train from Tokyo). The house is three stories with a grass roof. In addition, they built a small restaurant that is attached to the house and which my sister will open up probably by the end of 2015. She has been busy taking care of her two small, adorable children. Don't let their looks deceive you though. They have Barron blood in them and those who are affected by this blood are sometimes difficult in their younger years (except for me, as my other sister Melissa can testify, that I was a perfect angel).

I am a country girl in my heart and so it was difficult for me to be thrust into the middle of a large city and have cars driving by my sleeping quarters at high speeds in the middle of the night. I am more used to falling asleep to the sound of frogs and cicadas than the sound of drunken men and car crashes. Despite the noisy nights, I slept well mostly due to their awesome bed made of memory foam.

The first few days, we relaxed in the house and explored Yokohama a little bit. Soi took us out to dinner several nights and showed us a great time. It was great to see my sister again. It is difficult having people you love so far away from you all the time.

Lauren took us to China town in Yokohama and Soi entertained us at a fancy Chinese restaurant. This photo is of Lauren (left) and me holding Yuki (Lauren's daughter).

 Mom in front of a Chinese statue.

 Me waiting for our table at the fancy Chinese restaurant.

Lauren and Yuki waiting for a table and drinking the lemonade in the waiting area. Notice the intricate wood carvings in the back.

We also made our way to the Chinese market where I had my feet chewed on by some tiny fish. I felt a little bad because once I put my feet in the water, all the fish swam to me and left the little boy who was also there. I guess my feet really needed all hands on deck to get them scrubbed up. It tickled a lot and I had to fight the impluse to pull my feet out the water and run away screaming.

Notice the majority of the fish on my feet.

Greatttttt doughnut shop! Mom introduced me to it and every time she goes to visit Japan she stops here multiple times.

After hanging out in Yokohama for a few days, we (Lauren, mom, me, and Soji (my nephew)) packed it up and rode the bullet train to Kyoto (the old capital). Kyoto is indescribably beautiful. The majority of trip was spent in Kyoto. When we arrived in Kyoto, we were tired, hot, and thirsty. We managed to find the street that the house we were staying at was on. However, we couldn't find the house. I mentioned that Kyoto is beautiful but everything is hidden. You could be standing next to an 1000 year old shrine and not know it because of a tree in your way. Therefore, this city is very easy to become disorientated and lost in (and did I mention that I didn't know a lick of Japanese?). Luckily, Lauren did but we were still lost for a good bit. Only Soji's crys saved us from a our fate of heat stroke. The landlady heard him crying and came to us and showed us the way to the house. She also let us check in early and was extremely kind. Soji of course stopped crying as soon as we got into the house and ran around playing and tried to eat the remote. Needless to say we were all relieved to finally make it to the house. The house was a small two-story house, like many Japanese houses. They tend to build up instead of expanding each floor. There was a peaceful, little gravel pathway leading up to the house. Throughout the few days we stayed at the house, Soji and I played for many hours on that gravel path and at the Buddhist temple nearby. It turns out that Soji loves gravel and stairs (which Kyoto has plenty of both). I will leave you with a few pictures of the first traditional house we stayed in. 

Us lost on the streets of Kyoto. (mom takes pictures of everything)

Huzzah! We found our house! Lauren is wearing the shoes that you are suppose to wear to the bathtub. We had a bathroom in the house but the bathtub was separate.

Entrance to the bath house where the black cauldron tub dwells.

The black cauldron. It looks fine now but it is scary to take a bath in it at night in the darkness. Mom loved it. It doesn't look big, but it is deep.

The walkway leading up to the house. It was very peaceful, and I loved every second we stayed here.

The stairs going to the second floor. Talk about steep stairs! I had to be very careful in the night not to fall down them.

This is the second floor where we slept on our futons. They were hard as a rock too. 

I will try to post the rest of our adventures in Kyoto as soon as I can.

 

Beach Trip 2014

This is my first attempt at a blog.  I am not really a blogger at heart and doubt how long I will be able to keep this up.  Also, I don't necessarily believe in sharing every intimate detail of my life with other people.  That being said, I do enjoy reading other people's blogs (most of the time) and seeing pictures of their families (most of the time).  In addition, my family (siblings and cousins) are becoming more and more spread out and in an attempt to reconnect with loved ones, I feel it is important to share some of my personal experiences and adventures.  Lastly, don't judge me on my grammar or spelling or I will stop posting.

For spring break this year, Jeremy and I decided to go and visit my Uncle Keith and Aunt Shell who happen to live in Melbourne, FL.  I have always felt close to all my aunts and uncles and was extremely excited to visit the Barron family....and spend time on the beach.  Jeremy is in the middle of vet school at UT and I work at least 50 hours (usually more) a week.  Needless to say, we don't see each other as much as we would like so this was a good excuse to get to spend some quality time together.

We spend Friday afternoon at Brevard Zoo:

This was a small zoo and it only took us 3 hours to get through the whole thing.  They had a lot of interesting animals.  Jeremy is standing beside the Jaguar exhibit where they had a mommy and baby jaguar. 

They also had a great alligator exhibit with at least 10 huge alligators! We were hoping to see it eat a fish or something! They had extra fencing below the walkway just in case someone fell in.  You can see it in the bottom right hand corner.  This part reminds me of the Knoxville zoo who kindly put up signs that said " Please do not climb on fences, you may fall in and may get eaten which would make the animals sick"  (or something like that)

These things are the largest rodents in the world and are called the Capybaras!  The top photo is of the babies.  They kind of look like guinea pigs.

Jeremy staring in awe of the Caypybaras and at their amazing rodent abilities.

 

These were some of the beautiful birds that we saw at the zoo.  The middle one was my favorite and I  named it squishy.  I think the last one was a parrot of some sort, and it had very colorful markings. There were a lot of birds at the zoo and in Florida in general.  One the way to the zoo we saw a swan nest and osprey nest.  Also, there were vultures everywhere!  At the zoo, they had a tent set up that you could stand under to avoid getting pooped on by the vultures, which brings me to a story that Jeremy finds funny.  I had just told Jeremy to watch out for the birds flying over head, as they might poop on us, and five seconds after I told him that I got pooped on by a vulture.  It was on my shirt, hair, and hand.  He thought this was pretty funny.   I on the other hand remain unamused.

Proof that ducks were once wild.

 Zookeeper feeding meerkats

One of the coolest things about our visit to the zoo was getting to see the zookeepers feed the animals.  The bottom photo is of a squirrel monkey, I believe, eating a pineapple.  We also saw Dustin, the sloth, getting fed peanuts.  The zookeeper had to keep tapping him on the shoulder to wake him up to eat the peanuts. 

 

Brevard Zoo really knows how to show people a good time.  They had various activites that you could do in the zoo to enhance your experience (for a small fee of course).  We went on a 30 minute kayak tour of the zoo.  It was my favorite part of the whole zoo experience.  We got to see some animals that you could only see on the tour such as lemur island. There are giraffes in the last two photos among the trees.  The last photo is of the baby giraffe that we saw from our kayak.

 Uncle Keith and Aunt Shell were kind enough to take us out to the Lone Cabbage Restaurant where we had frog legs, alligator tail, and catfish.  It was delicious but a little hard on my stomach. 

That evening we attended a Rodeo put on by Deseret Ranch (one of, if not the last cattle ranch owned by the church).  Our favorite part was the mutton busting competition where little kids hold on for dear life while they ride sheep.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm_FTC_Za98  Follow this link to see what I am talking about.  It usually ends in tears but is really funny to watch. 

On the way to the beach!

The next day (Saturday) was a beach day!  I love the beach so much!  Jeremy puts up with it to make me happy.  We did have a great time boogie boarding and walking on the beach.  The picture above is of the Banana River that you had to cross to get to the beach.  Aunt Shell showed us a great beach spot where it was not crowded by tourists.

 King Palm

 Spanish moss

 Palm on palm

Staghorn Fern (I think)

After the beach, we went to Florida Tech University's Botanical Garden.  The flora down there was so different than what we were used to.  Above are some pictures of the interesting plants we saw.  We did get lost in the botanical garden and had to climb over a fence into a parking lot to save ourselves.  But that is what makes it an adventure! 

 That evening we took a walk on the beach.  

Even though we only spent a couple of days with the Barron family we had a wonderful time.  It was just what the doctor ordered and couldn't have been more perfect.