Sakura 2013

The cherry blossoms, or sakura, bloomed a bit early this year. So we headed out on a Saturday afternoon to have a picnic and take pictures before they all blew away and covered the ground in pinkish hued "blossom snow" as Ellie likes to call it.

  It was pretty chilly that day, but there were sticks to be collected so the girls didn't seem to mind.

And here's our cute family!

And our silly girls!

And a parting shot of this great daddy!

Oh, one more picture. It's not as pretty as it was in real life, especially since the day was very overcast, but here is the road we drive to go home.

We are so excited to bring in spring in such a beautiful way!

Easter

This year we made a concerted effort to talk about the Holy Week during, well, the Holy Week. I got a lot of our ideas from this post. I think it went pretty well because Eleanor especially seems to understand more about who Jesus is and what He has done for us.
 The most touching was on Easter Sunday when we watched this video that recaps the highlights of the Holy Week, particularly the Atonement and Resurrection. As we watched the portrayal of the soldiers whipping Christ, Ellie exlaimed, "What are they doing?! I don't like this part!" I held her and replied, "I don't like this part either. But Jesus us loved us so much He was willing to suffer and die for us. And after he died for, what happened?" She beamed and said, "He was resurrected!" It was a nice moment to share my testimony of Christ's love with my daughter and to see it reflected in her.

But of course we also did some traditional fun things like dye eggs and go to an Easter egg hunt party.
Here's the photographic evidence.

Our ombre eggs turned out lovely, except purple which was unceremoniously dumped into the dye cup.

 Here we are post egg hunt with our friend Robert.

His mother is in our ward and his father passed away last November. Ben has been their home teacher almost since we moved here, and we have been giving them a ride to church for close to 2 years now and Ellie and Robert love playing together, despite their one year age difference and the fact that Robert speaks considerably more Japanese than English. Kazuko, Robert's mother, is such a wonderful woman and I am so grateful to know her! We feel that this special family is one reason we are here in Japan and why we will be here for some time.

Hello Blog!

Things have been busy at the Lewis house. In February Ben went to Korea with the Drama Club for the Far East Festival in Seoul Korea. It's the "drama competition" for all of the DoDEA high schools in the pacific area. He had a great time, and brought back these awesome cat ears for the girls. They LOVE them!

We did fun things like make brownies while he was gone. And we ate them all, I think...At least I have the cutest little helpers.

We went ice skating again as a special treat since Ellie kept her pull up dry all through the night for a week! She is now fully potty trained! She also has become quite adapt at skating around the rink by herself!

 Clara and I enjoyed eating our favorite Japanese convenience store ice cream treat while Ellie and Ben skated. It's basically a waffle filled with ice cream and a layer of chocolate.

In February we also cast the spring musical! We will be doing Roger and Hammerstein's Cinderella. We're very excited, and the girls love to run around the house now singing bits of the songs. My favorite is when Ellie sings the Stepsister's Lament "Why would a fellow want a girl like her, a frail and fluffy beauty? Why can't a fellow ever once prefer a solid girl like me!?"
Unfortunately, Ellie got a little to exuberant during rehearsals and fell off a platform backstage and split open her chin. Of course this was a week before a modeling job, but it healed up okay and they said it wasn't a big deal. Here is Ellie proudly showing off her war wounds:

She also achieved another first in her life-falling asleep at the table. She was supposed to be finishing her lunch. She had been wrapped in a blanket because she said she was cold. Luckily it also served well as a pillow.