My parents trip to Japan...

My parents helped me and the kids get out to Japan back at the end of April and got to stay with us for 10 days! We had such a great time with them here, it was so much fun. We got to see a bunch of Brian's games, we walked around the city exploring, headed to the beach, ate a wonderful dinner at our favorite yakiniku restaurant, we drove to Nagasaki and saw the Peace Museum and Peace Park (which was beautiful and was my first "road trip" in Japan!), checked out a really beautiful shrine in a town called Daziafu, played at the park, hit up a fun beer festival, you name it we did it!! It was "Golden Week" the week they were here which is a week long holiday here so no one worked and there were tons of people out and about enjoying the beautiful weather we had!! It made it so much fun seeing everything! I am so sad I lost my camera and most of the pictures I had taken of my parent's time here. We did manage to get a ton of pictures though of their last few days, so at least I have some to remember our time together here! Thanks again Mom and Dad, for helping me get out here, for helping get us unpacked and settled in our apartment, and for all the fun times we had while you were here, it was a blast!

Can't be in Fukuoka without going to the Fukuoka Tower!

The had a mini Octoberfest (in May?!) not far from our apartment, showcasing a bunch of local breweries, it was fun! We had a good time sampling the local beers and food!

Cheers!

We were total tourists!

Enjoying a beautiful night out at the beach!

Playing in the sand with Pop-Pop while we waited for our dinner at a restaurant on the beach!

The kids love looking for seashells!

Enjoying a beautiful sunset!

We put in a lot of miles walking around!

At the Dazaifu Shrine Temple. The trees there were amazing. They were so huge!! Most of them had the widest branches I had ever seen and had to be held up by man made pillars they were so heavy! (To read about the Shrine click here!)

The entrance to the shrine, which is known as the shrine of knowledge. Students come here before exams for good luck!

We saw everyone else washing their hands in this fountain so we knew it was something significant and tried it out too!! Later we found out it was to grant you knowledge!

Austin loved the fountain!

This guy reminded me of our Hunter!

My Mom and Dad standing at the entrance to a long street packed full of shops and restaurants right outside the temple!! No cars are allowed here so you can just stroll along looking at all the goods, it's such a cute area!

We've started collecting these dolls for Brooke...they sell them at the shops here!

Not sure what they were making, but Austin loved watching them!

We saw a bunch of people rubbing this guy so of course we had to do it too! I wonder if Austin gets extra points for sticking his fingers up the nose?!

This was a huge pond full of turtles and the biggest koi fish I had seen! My mom found out how to buy these big rice sticks to feed the fish and Austin had a blast! He was laughing so hard as he watched the fish eat the food!

Austin going crazy feeding the fish!

I wish you could see the fish attack the food as we fed them, they were going nuts fighting for it!!

Pop-Pop showing Brookie Brooke the fish too!

My Dad was so impressed with this ferris wheel! And as he should, it's the biggest in Asia, it's huge!

Standing outside the Yahoo Dome, the arena Brian's team plays in!

Gotta love the Hard Rock!!!

Thanks Mom & Dad for coming out here, we had so much fun!!!