This National Park is only one and half hour drive from Arches National Park. However the view is totally different. It reminded me of Grand Canyon. There are some short fun hiking trails available. It is great for kids. We climbed on the big rock. I wanted to see the Indian ruin there but we didn’t have time. Maybe next time!
Shin decided at the last minute to drive down south to visit National Parks for Memorial Day. And we did. It was beautiful and so fun. Weather was perfect. We hiked a little and climbed. Daiki and Asa did so well. We didn’t have time to explore every single spot but I’m sure we will go back there again.
I quit my job right before we went house hunting trip at the end of January. Airfare got so expensive but we had to see the house as family. We flew to Utah on Tuesday and started seeing houses on Wednesday. On the evening, there came the house that has everything on our list. It is not the glamorous house but had everything we needed, and that’s the house that we were able to buy later on! I felt so blessed. During moving process, there were some unexpected events like snow storm canceled our flights and moving company broke the light switch. Even those became the time to reflect God’s love and care. We had to say goodbye to all we love in Minnesota and moved to Utah. We still love Minnesota to pieces and I feel that we will love Utah just like that.
Around the Christmas was the time to sell our house and get ready this year. I was packing all the weekends to hide the stuff. Starting a week before Christmas, we painted the walls and finished fixing all the minor problems. A few days before Christmas, I decorated and professional photographer came and took the house pictures. Which came out beautifully. I saved all the photos our realtor posted on Zillow. On Christmas Eve, we decorated Christmas tree and celebrated Christmas on Christmas Sunday. Then the next day, we cleaned up again. On 12/27, our house was listed. We already had showings and we had to go out of house in the cold. From 12/28-30, we kept house open for those who want showings and visited Nauvoo. We have been there when Ken was a little baby. I am so glad to go with kids this time. Nauvoo is so kids friendly. Beautiful and has many activities. We also visited Liberty Jail and Carthage Jail. I think kids felt something. Hope they will remember it. The best part of this trip is, we got a great offer on 12/30! No more being kicked out of house! I had felt so blessed in this whole process.
Shintaro found tickets to Singapore over Thanksgiving break. He took three older kids to Singapore. They were there for a week. Kids all got own phones and took lots of pictures and sent to me. It was fun to see them. They enjoyed food and mostly spending time with family. I am so happy that they were able to go. Asa and I stayed at home and had Thanksgiving at the Murphy’s, which was great! Asa stayed because he didn’t want to walk around. He learned in Japan that traveling Asia requires a lot of walking. However he is wanting to go to Singapore now, so maybe Asa and Daddy go next time.
11月5日、だいきが末日聖徒イエスキリスト教会でバプテスマを受けました。とても良かったなと思います。バプテスマ会には、大好きなお友達とzoomで両親も参加してくれて、信ちゃんが儀式を施しました。ゆりがピアノ伴奏をし、けのが証人をし、わたしは待っている間に作っただいきのビデオを流しました。お話はいつも御霊を運ぶお話をしてくれるプライマリーの会長のリアナに頼み、やっぱりとてもすばらしかったです。御霊に溢れる集会になり、特別な日となりました。おめでとう、だいきくん！！
Daiki was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on November 5th. We are so happy for him! It was a wonderful baptism service, filled with the Spirit. People whom we love came and celebrated with us. Our awesome Primary president, Leanna gave the talk which touched our hearts. Shintaro performed the baptism and confirmation. Yuri played the piano. Ken witnessed and I made a video of Daiki’s life. Grand parents were all there on zoom. It was a very special day. Congratulations, Daiki!
30 mins drive from Blue Mounds, there is this national monument. This quartz cliff is smaller than Blue Mounds. There is a visitor center which tells you about how this was a sacred place for native American Indians. After reading them and seeing the site, I felt kind of sad. Because this place felt like abandoned. It must have been a sacred place but I didn't feel like it anymore. I felt sorry for those people who cherished this place once but were chased away. (Actually not really chased away. Many tribes were still there and associate with this place, from my understanding) Anyways, it was beautiful and looked like the picture you see in the Bible.
今週はミネソタの南西に行ってきました。ミネソタは北と南で全然景色が違います。北は森と水、南は広い広い草原です。三年前に両親と言った開拓者トレイルを思い出しました。この公園にはそんな草原だけでなく、そびえ立つ崖！が有名です。始めにとったトレイルがずーっと草原の中で何も崖らしいものが見えないので不安になりました。なんといってもこの公園は延々と続く大豆とトウモロコシ畑の中に突如ポツンと存在しているので、本当にクォーツでできた崖なんかあるのかな？と思い始めてしまいますが、ちゃんとありました。しかもすごく立派な長い崖です！崖肌を続くトレイルを歩いて草原も通って、盛沢山なトレイルが楽しめました。昔クォーツの採掘場所だったという崖の部分はなんだかとても厳かでした。
We drove to Southwest this weekend. Minnesota sure has different view when you drive from north to south. North part has beautiful forest and south part has spacious prarie. It reminded me of pioneer trail we took in 2019. This park has amazing cliff besides that! First I took a trail to prarie and was wondering where the cliff was. You can never imagine there's cliff when you see prarie in front of you. This park is located in the middle of miles and miles of corn/soybean fields. We were surprised that there was actually cliff made of quartz in such a place. And it was absolutely special. I felt like being in a holy place.
We were able to visit another park on my list before going home. This one is so famous. We took a trail along the river. Kids had fun climbing rocks in the river. These layered rocks looked so interesting. There's a really cool swing bridge as well.
After enjoying beautiful nature in Yamaguchi that my parents took us, I really wanted to explore Minnesota nature. Luckily we still had a little bit of summer break left before school. I made a quick research about MN state parks and listed up all the parks I should visit before winter. Some take only a couple hours of drive but others take almost 4 hours. I needed to consider camping. North shore is very popular place to camp. I found only one site in whole north shore available on the day I picked. It was so fortunate that that was in this park! This park was not on my list but definitely one of the kind! Worth visiting! Temperance River Gorge is scary amazing!! There's a deepest crack in lava rock where you stand and river rapidly runs through it. And the only available site was cart-in site. I am usually lazy enough to book only drive-in, so I am glad to try it. Kids pulled and pushed the cart to carry stuff. It was so private and got completely dark. Shin made foil dinner for us. We loved everything!
