Dog's - Man's best friend

Enjoying another Saturday afternoon at Pallet, this was Tom's first visit, he had so much fun with the children. We did not have a translator today, we managed. Again, no telling what we agreed to, we think we are invited back in two weeks, we'll see. Tom and Shuji pretending to be FROGS.

Fuji was not sure about the dogs and preferred to be held.

The children loved rubbing and petting the dogs as they were so soft. They also enjoyed throwing their balls for them to catch/chase/retrieve.

Asatosan thanking us for coming to"Pallet" again today with Elizabeth and her therpay dogs. Two beautiful French Poodles, Alex and Kallie. The kids and the adults loved them. Big dogs are not the usual pet for Japanese folks. They like the toy class of dog much better, fits better in their houses/cars/arms. So we weren't sure how they would react to such large dogs, but they are trained therapy dogs and did a great job and are invited back in two weeks, at least that is what we think.

Nana loving on Tomoyuki. We said Tomoyuki was a therapy baby for these children, they loved on him just like before.

These girls live in the neighborhood and spend as much time as they can at Pallet. Just what Asatosan wants from the community.

Juda went immediately to the big trucks and made himself at home.

Mad dash to OKUMA

We finally made a trip to the Aquarium on island. It was great. I think every Japanese person from mainland was there too. A few times we lost sight of Bethany, kindof scary. There is always hope of us standing out for her benefit as she certainly blends in.

Juda must be thinking to himself, "What is so PEACEful about these big sharks."

"Garden Eels", were exactly what they looked like. As if someone had planted them in the sand just a few inches apart from each other with there heads bobbing around saying "HELP", get me out of this garden of sand".

Juda is attempting to "Peace" us, however it didn't work. Check out those HUGE fish in the tank.

HOT, while waiting to see the Dolphin show.

There is that "Peace" sign we were looking for.

My cheeks look a little flushed don't you think.

One of the blessings of being on Okinawa is the beautiful view of the ocean we get to experience daily.

We spent a few days/nights at Okuma and enjoyed the nearly private beaches. I tried to capture a "Rainbow" that was bowing over this hillside, but it faded faster than my battery.

But I did capture this rainbow fish. She is a mermaid, truly.

Juda is getting more and more sure of himself in the water. He is trying body boarding here. Not really, I think he fell down, with a smile no doubt.

Washing off their beach treasures to bring home.

We made a mad dash to Okuma before school starts in a week. Usually they are all booked up, but we were so glad some folks cancelled at the last minute and we got to enjoy for three nights and 4 days. Ben was able to join for one night, then back to work, Caleb stayed for two and helped us with Tomoyuki during the day, allowing him to nap and Caleb to watch movies in the A/C while we played in the sun with Bethany and Juda. What a very relaxing vacation we had, no phone, no cell phone either (I forgot the charger, nothing new for me). Just fun/fun/fun.

We were taking "Funny Fotos" and captured this one, kindof like those up close photos of pets with big noses.

That Juda, always clowning around, even on Ben's head.

It wouldn't be a vacation complete without "Putt Putt" Golf. Let's just say, it was an adventure to play with Juda.

Say "Cheese" or is it say "Yuk".

Do you see the resemblance of father and son. Check out Juda's hand wrapped around Tom's neck, what a guy.

Game Day Central VBS

Bethany enjoyed a week of VBS with her friend Courtney and many others. She learned a host of new songs. It was a good time for her to attend all by herself as we opted not to send Juda this year as it is just too overwhelming with too many children, which is a good thing, but not in his case.

Hello Kitty Cake

Zoe spent the day with Bethany and they baked a "Hello Kitty" cake. As you can see they enjoyed mixing the cake then sampling the batter. The only decorating I did was the white icing trim, they did all the rest. Didn't they do a GREAT job.

Tomoyuki is on the "Patch"

I took Tomoyuki back to the dr. yesterday as he was showing signs of traveling down the road we had just gotten off of a week ago. Dr. Kinjo put him on the "Patch", ha ha ha. Tom's remark was, "I didn't know Tomoyuki had a smoking problem". It is a 1 cm X 1 cm size sticker/patch applied to his chest/back alternating, to help with his breathing/wheezing. We will try that for now, could be early signs of alergies/asthma. My friend/translator/Ai no Kesshin volunteer Rika had a dr. appt herself and could not accompany me and Tomoyuki to Chubu Hospital. Well, we didn't forsee that being a problem because Dr. Kinjo speaks great English, however, we failed to calculate all the people I'd encounter before/after seeing the dr. What a challenge that was, but, we survived and I felt so accomplished when I left there all in one piece, of course who knows what I agreed to just to end conversations. I'm sure Rika can clean any mess up that I made, ha ha ha.

Wendy has arrived on island in town, not on base

Near gate two street outside Kadena Air Base a new music hall opened, "Koza Music Town". Pretty hip new place to hang out. Much to our surprise they opened a "Wendy's" too. We haven't had Wendy's in years. We talked my japanese Sunday School ladies into going with us after church yesterday. They had never had Wendy's, we convinced them that it was great, high calorie, but necessary to the american/japanese diet. Every american on island must have thought the same as we did, they were all there waiting in a LONG line to get their Wendy's burger/fries and don't forget the FROSTY. It was so fun to have such comfort food and share in the delight with our japanese friends. They enjoyed too. Sorry no pics, didn't have my camera. I assure you, there will be another opportunity to go and then we will take pics.

Summer Swimming Fun

Bethany and Juda are having fun in the water this year. Bethany continues to exhibit signs of being a mermaid and Juda is growing into an olympic pool walker. HHmmmm, pool walker...what could that possibly be. Well, when you don't want your head to go under water or let your feet leave the bottom of the pool, you pool walk. His latest visit to the pool on Sat evening proved to be successful. No more floaty for him. Sometimes he uses a life vest, but that is so cumbersome to him, he'd rather be free of any life saving devices. Of course our guess is that if he lost his balance and his head went under water that the pool would be sucked dry by him in his moment of panic and fear as he inhaled to let our a scream. So far we haven't experienced that, only anticipating it to happen. We'll keep you posted.

First visit to Pallet

We visited Pallet on Saturday with some friends to build relationships with the special needs community. Asatosan began Pallet 3 years ago to provide the first ever day care for children with special needs and to give their parents a much needed rest time. Children can begin coming at age 1 until they are school age. Then when school age, another program was started by Asatosan's boss for after school care. These men are blazing trails here in Okinawa. They are in the thinking stage of what to do for special needs folks 18 years and older, i.e.....group home type setting. They are so bold to take such a risk as the gov't provides no support for such needs. The facility is in a neighborhood, in hopes that the neighborhood children will feel free to come in and play with the children, thus growing up not being afraid of children with special needs, starting a whole new thinking for Japan or man as far as that goes. So far it is working quite well. Shiho is my new friend. She has such a STRONG hug that I had to pass Tomoyuki to Beth for his safety. That just shows me how much love she has that she so dramatically wants to share, especially with those who are smaller than her. She showed me how smart she is by staking some cups perfectly.

"O"san has such a wonderful smile and such patients with all the children. It amazes me that no matter how loud it got, or no matter how children were acting out their emotions, we continued to stay on track with the task at hand, they are doing a great job with the children. Most of the children that attend Pallet have Down Syndrome and Autism.

Juda, Bethany and myself visited pallet a few months ago to see how we could help. Juda remembered the BIG trucks and picked up where he left off with playing with the same trucks.

Tomikosan in the blue is my friend that I met through my neighbor. Bethany is holding her son Fujitara. Fujitara will be 3 in Oct. She is an english teacher and will go back to work at the local middle school in Oct after taking the past three years off to spend with her son. Hazel is playing the guitar for our closing time before we leave. Hazel was such a blessing as she just found out about our visiting Pallet the day before and asked if she could come along. We discovered that she had dinner in our home when we lived here before. She came home with Andy and a group of kids from youth group back when they were in 10th grade. God is so good to give us confirmation in the sweetest ways. She was a blessing and received a blessing too.

Dr. Ryan and his wife Audry asked me to help them find some volunteer work. Well....here they are loving on Shinji. Ryan and Shinji hit it off immediately by playing ball, bowling, etc.....They communicated beautifully. The best fun for Shinji was when Ryan would lift him high in the air, then Shinji would back up to him for another trip up, this appeared it could go on for ever, but then they went onto another fun thing.

Here are some of us, not everyone wanted to be in the picture, i.e. Juda......Beth is holding Tomoyuki by Bethany. She is an OB/GYN who handles only high risk pregnancies. As a hobby, she has two trained therapy dogs, beautiful big black poodles. I met her when we visited an orphanage together back in the spring. Asatosan was not sure about the dogs, having never heard of such a thing, but after meeting with Beth and seeing pictures of the dogs, he agreed for her to bring them this coming Sat. So we'll go back to Pallet on Sat and love on the children again. Asatosan is in the white shirt holding a little boy. He is the most patient man and the busiest man. In order to spend time with him, you have to go into his office and close/lock the door or else the children will not leave him alone. All good......Our next stop is the Developmental Center on island which is very near our home. The children who are there have more physical special needs. This crew and others are very interested in making these connections and building relationships with these communities as I am. What a blessing we all received from the children and workers at Pallet.

Now you see him, now you don't

No, we have not traded Tomoyuki for a dog. This is what the last typhoon blew in. His name is Yonna. He has come around to play and receive multiple bones from generous bone giver Bethany. Our neighbor has taken him in until she is satisfied that his owner can't be found, then, who knows. However, on this particular night, she allowed him to come play with us until 9 pm, then we were to bring him back, how funny. Not sure what the future holds for Yonna, we'll keep you posted. He is a cutey, and very fun.

Who are these masked men????? Upon Tomoyuki's return from the hospital, Bethany and Juda both had colds, so we masked them because they couldn't resist getting up close and personal with him. Juda did not like his, Bethany of course was more than happy to wear hers, anything out of the ordinary brings joy to her.

Not just one, but TWO

We knew it was just a matter of time before they fell out, they had been loose a long time, but they were so little, we couldn't get a grip on them to give a good tug, that was fine with Bethany as she was a bit apprehensive about the whole loosing teeth idea.

In the midst of Tomoyuki's night of emergency and struggling to breath, Bethany asked Ben to try and pull her tooth, waa laa, out it came, over she came to me for a picture, then off to the emergency room we went with Tomoyuki.

Upon Tomoyuki's return from his week hospital stay to recover, and recover he did, Bethany asked me to see if I could pull Tooth #2, waa laa success. She now talks with a lisp and has a new $1 for one tooth and a 100Yen for the other, upon her request, so she can buy ice cream on base and out in town.