Cherry Blossoms and Kirk's New Baby

Cherry blossom season has come and gone already - it happened so fast! It's typically the end of March/early April and only lasts for about 2 weeks. But, there are a lot of Hanami (cherry) festivals and celebrations. It's a fun way to really celebrate the coming of spring. The weather is beautiful here right now! But, we keep getting warned that "the rainy season is coming". Whatever. I will use that as an excuse to get some cute Japanese rain boots. :)

Unfortunately, we didn't have a whole lot of time during the 2 weeks of blossoms to grab some photos. And we didn't feel like fighting the crowds during the weekend festival at the Kintai Bridge. So we snuck away during one of our lunch breaks (did you notice I said "our" lunch breaks?? YES, Joel has a job!!) for a 10 minute photo shoot at Kintai.

They were charging for parking because they knew more people would be visiting! What a racket! So we spent 200 yen for 10 minutes... oh well.

If only we'd had time to cross the bridge...

You can see the Kintai Castle on top of the mountain in the background.

Things are turning green again, hooray!

The blossoms truly are beautiful.

So, now we move on to my new baby. Since Joel is a hard working man now (Bachelor Housing Manager under the Navy's authority) I have been begging for two cars. I think Joel, who is not into freely spending money like me which is why we are a good balance, wanted to "try and see" if we could still be a one car family. But no. It was not working well. We both need to have the freedom and independence that comes with having our own cars. Finding a car right now is easy as many of the families are PCSing back home and are trying to sell all of their stuff. I knew I wanted something roomier than Big Red so we could more comfortably pick folks up from the airport with all their luggage when they come visit. :) And we didn't want to spend a whole lot of money since we won't really be getting much of it back when we re-sell the cars before we leave.

So I found the perfect fit!!!

Meet my new 1989 Toyota Surf! Ahhhhhh... it makes me SO happy!

It's an SUV that rides like a truck. It's empowering to drive. :) And the best part is? We got it for $800!

It totally has duct tape holding stuff together on the inside, but who cares about a few little cosmetic details?! It adds to the character for sure. :-p

So now we have a car that rides smoother than Big Red, empowers the people who drive it, provides WAY more trunk space, and allows me to continue being chronically late for work as Joel can leave on time in his own Big Red.

Thank you Joel! I am SO happy!