McLains in Mayumi

Mike's birthday presents from Bryan and Dan.

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A picture with Gigi.

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A popular place to get your hair done in Japan!

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The sign says Unisex Hair Salon. Only in Japan, you can find these kinds of signs.

Kiara @ kindergarten II

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Kiara @ Kindergarten

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Dinner with uncle Larry.

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Bryan and Dan the translater

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Church girls

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Church boys

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Church youth and penior

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Saito family

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Kim Family

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October B-day

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Erika pulling her grandfather's nose.

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WEC Autumn festival

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ＡＰＮ

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Kiara and cosmos flowers

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Kiara kissing a killer bee! Oh NO.

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my art

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Tomoko's Birthday

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We had a little late birthday for Tomoko Ishikawa.

3girls

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Erika,Kiara and Caroline

Grampa and Kiara

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Tomoko

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center of the earth

Disney Sea

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arrival-9am

Disney Sea

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We head out tomorrow morning to Disney Sea, a theme park located adjacent to Tokyo Disney Land. I will try to send in some mobile blogs and pictures during the day, if there are some of you who are interested. You might check back from time to time.

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Candy Apples

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Festival

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Traditional JapaneseDance Troup

another day anothersnowcone

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Festival

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Sugao

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Announcements

Taga Church of Christ

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Yokappe Festival

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But first worship.

Snow cone

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How better to beat the heat?

Taiku-kai...

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Neru-kai?

Erika

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...in her dance garb.

Erika's Sports Festival Day

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mobile test

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Taking Kiara-4- to kindergarten.

Budding Photographer?

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I wanted to share these pictures Megan Anna took a few days ago. I must be doing something right, because, even when I'm not home, my girls know to take pictures of good sunsets. Good Job, girl!

Superheroes

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Wanted to share these two pictures taken by Adam Elliot, one of our LSTers this summer.

First me, rescueing a kitten from a tree.

Then some professional smoozing with a collegue in the superhero business.

Busy Summer

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I know we tend to say this every summer, but, this summer was very busy. We started out with LST camp the beginning of July, and then Tomoko led a VBS with Danielle Nusbaum. The the kids got out of school at the end of July. Our family went to Christian camp for three days, and Anna stayed an extra session(she met a guy). During camp, we went to the beach were I proceeded to get part of the cornea of my left eye sliced in a game of beach footbal(tackle). A few hours later, I had six neat stitches on my eyeball (didn't even know they could do that). I wore an eye patch for a day, but other than that, it was nowhere near as bad as it sounds. My vision wasn't affected in the least, but people sure looked at me funny. I got some really great reactions to,(with accent) "Look deeply into my eyes.....". It was like Frankenstein had marked me as one of his.

Anyway, how about some camping pics? These shots were taken a couple of hours from here in a mountain resort town called SHIOBARA, which means "white rose" if I'm not mistaken. We have camped or stayed here at least 5 different times, if not more. It is close to ski resorts and has great hot springs for the winter, and beautiful mountain streams ,forest and hot springs for summer fun. It also has a pool and other amenities that make it worth while. The campground is called Green Village, Shiobara, I think.

After camping with the family, we attended the ALL-CHRUCH-RETREAT the Churches of Christ have every year. Our church was not in charge this year, but Tomoko was asked to lead the children's classes and activities, and I was asked to be the song leader. It lasted three days( not to mention the weeks of prep for Tomoko), so we were very tired by the end.

Then, we went back to work after that two-week"vacation" and had our anual Back-to-School barbeque with our students and their families.

I hate to tell you I told you so, but...

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Something told me I wouldn't be able to keep up with this, and guess what?

Well, just to update where we are and where we've been since our last update (1 year ago).

This summer has been the hottest one that I can remember experiencing since I've been in Japan. We had one week where it hit, I think, at least 100 every day. Or if not, because of the humidity, it felt like it. I planted sunflowers this year for the fist time.

As far as family, no new children this year. Megan Anna is 14, Kacey Erika is 8 and Christiana Kiara is 4. Kiara started kindergarten this past April. These are some pics of her entrance ceremony.

Updating...

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Just to be realistic, I probably won't update this more than once a month. I'd like to daily, but those of you that have known me a while know that's not the kind of guy I am(Yet!). I'll try to improve.

This is Megan Anna's first tennis match of the year. She and her partner made it to the second round but were eliminated. They came back from two sets to nill, but couldn't win the fifth. All and all it was a good start for her(She's the beauty on the right.).

Our Language school, WORLD English Center (WEC) had a Barbeque for students and families at Kawarago Beach in Taga. To the left are ,from left to right, Jennifer Ball, WEC teacher, Tomoyuki, Mito student, Mark Chan, WEC teacher, and me. We barbequed, played beach volleyball, horshoes and swam in the ocean. The surf was deffinitely up as it is typhoon season here in Japan. I bought the grill just for the occasion. I even marinaded pork chops and steak in homade teriyaki sauce. Check out Mark's blog at http:/www.markandcharity.blogspot.com for a slide show and more pictures of the event.

Below is Jennifer again with Taiki, one of our students in Mayumi, and Erika. Taiki is also Eirka's classmate in the second grade.

Here is Erika and Kiara with two of our students from Seiji Kindergarten in Hitachi. They found the coolest place to be on the beach.

A Busy Summer

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All three daugters contracted the mumps (two still have them), LST, LST camp, work and singing, this summer has been busy. There have been many bright spots, of course. The Lawrenson family, here with our LST Camp team, stayed in our house for about 10 days, give or take. Our two family's really hit it off and we will, Lord willing, see each other again(We miss you already! By the way, I'm not having any luck finding your blog.). These are various pics of the Lawrensons at our house, and at sushi.
Another bright spot, pun intended, was this sunset we witnessed tonight. I always tell my girls that beautiful sunsets are God's paintings, made especially for us. To not admire one is to ignore God's work. This one was especially beautiful. The progression was phenominal. It started out like this-

progressed into this-

And matured into this-

May we all allow God to work us as an artist paints his canvass, continually achieving greater and greater levels of beauty.

I hope your day ended as well as ours did!

Our House 2

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This might give an idea as to how the house "sits" on the side of the hill. We sort of carved a step out of the rock and clay layer. It makes for a very stable seat, or at least, so far, so good. As you can see by the flag, most of the materials were imported from Canada. Below, is the house with siding and without scaffloding. It kind of sticks out here surrounded by many more traditional structures.

Our House

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Some of you may know that we recently built a house here in Japan. We designed it ourselves and were very much involved in every aspect of the planning and building(I even did some of the drywall priming and painting.). This is a putty model of the land. The cut out spare is where we dug out the land and sat the house.

A SUMMER DAY IN JUNE

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Although we are still in the rainy season, Summer is beginning to show itself. Summer in Japan means hazy skies and hot, muggy afternoons. But on the mountain (big hill) side that we live on, we still get a steady breaze, which has been very nice on this particular day. Christiana Kiara and I spent the morning washing my car and playing in the water, while Tomoko was away at Kasey Erika's school volunteering on a school outing. Then she came home and caught a nap herself with the little one while I set up the kiddie-pool. Kacey Erika got home just in time to join Christiana in the fun.

Christiana Kiara

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"Kiara" is our little munchkin. She loves watching the Disney Channel, dressing up, drawing on the walls, playing outside with Kacey Erika, and hiding while eating things she shouldn't. A very normal three-year-old. These are just some of the pictures we've taken of her around the house and elsewhere. Enjoy!

Megan Anna starts Junior High

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Megan started junior high this April. The school, in the same compound as Kasey's elementary school, is about 1 mile from our house(As our house is on a mountain(big hill), we can actually see part of it.). These pics are of her first day and entrance ceremony. One picture has her with Tomoko, who also graduated from the same junior high school. On a side note, Megan has joined the tennis team.

"Shichi-Go-San"

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In Japan, Girls have a "shichi-go-san" celebration. "Shichi" means seven, "go" means five and "san" means 3. So, at ages 7,5 and 3, we celebrate the year in a special way. Japanese families usually dress the girls up in traditional Kimono and go to shrines or temples and pray for good luck for their child. This was considered important in the times when infant mortality was very high, appearantly. As we are Christians, we just dressed up and had Kasey Erika's picture taken. She really enjoyed this. She had to have her hair and makeup done by professionals, first (These pictures were taken by Tomoko and I, not the pros. If we get the real picture scanned, I will try to get it on here.

WORLD EXPO, 2005

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This is us last year at the World Expo, Japan in Aichi Prefecture. We are standing inside the USA pavillion. One of the hosts of the exibit is taking our picture while riding on a Segue. Very cool! I got to try it, too. Gotta get one.

Greetings!

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Hello from Japan! We are the McLains and we live in the small farming community of Mayumi in Hitachiota City, Ibaraki-prefecture. In the picture from left to right and top to bottom, Megan Anna(13), Tomoko, Mike(me), Kasey Erika(7) and Christiana Kiara(3).