Ela's First Easter

I swear I'll stop titling evering "Ela's first..." soon... may be...
Anyway, on Saturday, the base threw a very exciting event that they do around Easter every year called "Kidzfest," which is always attended by the Easter Bunny. Kidzfest takes place in Nimitz Park so that Japanese people can easily come, too. I've only ever walked through before, not having the requisite kids to make it interesting, but this year, we got Ela dressed up in the one shirt that she owns with a bunny on it, and we went to get some pictures. So here she is:

Sunday, we had to get up early for choir practice before church. I didn't trust her to stay clean until after the service, so I snapped a few quick shots before we left:

And after church we went to not one, but two picnics back in the park. The weather couldn't have been better; it was sunny with a nice breeze that showered us in cherry blossoms as we ate. Ela chilled out in the grass and got some fresh air.


All in all, it's been a lovely day.

Hanami with ILC

The cherry blossoms are here again! They always kind of sneak up on me, like one minute the trees are all wintery and brown, then the next the whole world is full of blossoms flying around. That's what happened the last week or so. It's enough to make anyone want to spend some time outside, even if it's not really super warm yet.
To celebrate, ILC took us to Omura to a park to see the blossoms. Ela decided that eating was more important than walking in the cherry trees, but we did manage to see a little bit:


And of course, the Japanese ladies wanted to get in on the picture action:

Then we went to a very nice hotel for a very nice lunch. Another reason I love Japan: the staff there found out there were two infants (Ela and a 6 month old) in the group, and produced a crib for each of them:

So a good time was had by all, and in a few weeks, we get to do it again with OSC. In the mean time, I see a good bit of walking in our future...