June

Omigosh, it's July!

June was a whirlwind for us.  Anybody else?  I swear that we were non-stop all month.  I am always hoping that things will slow down, but they never seem to.  I can't wait until I am done with class.  I am looking forward to having some of my evenings and free time back. (Oh, wait, that's me hoping again...)

 Toyota trucks of all shapes, sizes, and colors meeting up before going on a trail ride.

(this was only a fraction of the whole group)

We started out June still recovering from jet lag and then soon packed up the truck to go the Great Smokey Mountain Trail Ride. It's an event put on by the Toyota Land Cruiser Association.  Matt goes on this trail ride every year with his brother, Michael, who co-owns ACC and Smoking Gun Custom Powder Coating, which are sponsors for the trail ride.  This year, Matt asked me if I might like to tag along. 

One of Michael's customers, Josh, won the rock crawling competition.  It was a lot of fun to watch!

I had a really good time and it was really nice to see all of the people, trucks, and events that Matt talks about every year.  I rode with Michael on the trail two days and had a lot of fun.  We generally got out of the truck whenever we reached a really steep or tricky spot to investigate the best route.  It wasn't until just before Michael's alternator died on the trail on the last day, resulting in a jump start, that I actually rode on the really tough stuff with him.  Not because I don't trust him, but it scares me!  Still, he is a great driver and his truck is incredibly capable (you wouldn't believe the stuff these trucks move over, the pictures are deceiving as to the inclines and roughness of the terrain) and I felt pretty safe with him.

 Michael in his spring green '71 FJ-40 (Land Cruiser). 

We took our newest K9 addition, Cooper, along for the three day/three night camping trip and I think he had a very good time too.  Of course we were all whipped, smelly, and mosquito-bitten by the time we got home...

I may pass on this trip next time.  ;)

Oh, and of course it's ultimate frisbee season.  I've had fun catching a couple of the boys' games (Matt and Wade are on the same team this year) with Amanda and Staci. I think it's more of a social outing for us and we're often caught up in a conversation when one of our husbands scores or makes an awesome layout.  (Don't tell them that.)

I've decided that I need to get a telephoto lens.  My kit lens makes taking action shots from the sidelines all but impossible. Oh well, this fuzzy pre-throw photo will have to suffice.

Moving on.

I haven't really bought very many plants this year.  Partly because I'm maxing out on flower space, but mostly because I just haven't had enough time to keep everything weeded/fertilized/sprayed, etc. like I have in the past.  However, some of the sweet ladies at Dave's Garden set up a swap where newbies (that's me) could get a box full of daylilies in exchange for postage.

One of my sponsors ended up being a lady who lives a mile from my house!  Can you believe that?  She let me come over one day in May and we dug up a few plants for me to take home. Then, she sweetly invited me over at the end of June to see her beds in full bloom.

I was jealous.

She has something like 200-300 different cultivars of daylilies.  She's got several beds completely dedicated to them, and they truly are a sight.  I've never seen so many colors, patterns, heights, and styles.  She should charge admission to those flower beds, they were so pretty.

I think I may have drooled a little.

I just have to remind myself that I already have some beautiful daylilies!

On a side note, aren't those pictures gorgeous!  They're straight of the camera (because I don't know how to edit anyway).  I'm still not very good with my DSLR yet, but I think my flower photos are turning out exceptionally well.  I still need practice in any other environment other than the yard in early evening, but I am in love with these results.  These photos were taken with the kit lens too, not even the nicer lens that my dad loaned me.

Anyway.

Around the end of June, my high school class had its 10 year reunion.  I could not decide if I wanted to go for the longest time.  It's not that I didn't love my friends in high school, but I haven't kept up with most of them since college, and just thinking about those years (the most insecure of my life!) still makes me shiver.  That, and I'm so uncompetitive about what I've "accomplished" in the last ten years.  I am pretty content with where and who I am in life and wasn't sure if it was going to be one of those competitions on who lives in the neatest place, makes the most money, has the cutest kid/coolest job, etc. 

Jenny, me, and Lauren.  10 years later.

I caught up with one of my very good friends right before the reunion weekend and at the last minute decided to go ahead and attend the informal night, which hadn't required prior reservations.  I'm really glad I did.  There were several girls/guys that I have missed so much and I got to see almost all of them.

One of my girlfriends went to the formal reunion night and picked up some stuff for me out of the time capsule, including a letter she wrote me and one I wrote myself ten years ago.  It was kind of fun to read what 17-year-old Becca had to say to 27-year-old Becca. 

As I was reading, I thought, "wow, I was so mature.  I had some really good insight."

And then I got to the page where I listed all of my crushes and boyfriends since 4th grade.

Some of what I hoped for the future turned out to be true (some things not so true):

In 10 years from now, I'd like...

- to be out of college with a solid degree? doctor architectural engineering?

- married to a strong Christian, happily married

- possibly a kid or two

- to advance my Christian growth, a lot

- still keep in touch with my family & Alisha

- to have waited until marriage

- to be able to own my own house & a car I picked out

- to still be in love with my husband

- to further mi espanol

- to find a good church I enjoy attending

- to have a figure

Haha!  All sounds like serious goal setting until that last one.

Wow, this must be a record-long post.  Anyone still reading?

(crickets chirping)

Oh well.

Back to flowers.

If you're still reading and not tired of flower photos yet, here are a few more...

I love this red and pink clematis on the left and the lacecap hydrangea on the right.  The white shasta daisies are fun and cheered up my desk at work last week.  Something about fresh flowers on my desk makes me happy.

And here is my double hydrangea, 'Together'.  I think the flowers on this plant are really striking.  I'm trying to eventually turn it blue, but the pink is pretty too.

That's all for now. 

Adios.

Nihon Part 1: Tokyo

For fear of forgetting some of the details of our trip to Japan in May, I've decided to try to write out a summary of the trip before my memory loses even more of the highlights of our two week tour of Honshu.  I'm dividing this travelogue up into several parts based on the places we stayed.  It won't hurt my feelings if you find yourself tired of looking at our travel pictures/musings by the time I get to the Nagoya stuff.  Like I said, it's mostly for my own benefit.

In front of the imperial palace's main gate.

We kicked off the trip through Nashville to catch our international flight from Atlanta.  Luckily, I was able to score us all seats on the exit row.  That more than made up for the long flight and old airplane (complete with malfunctioning theater system and cranky Northwest/Delta stewardesses forced to now work together).  I think Matt surmised that he would, in fact, marry me again since I saved him from cramming his lanky legs and broad shoulders into the normal coach-sized seats. I felt bad for the three large men sandwiched on a row together behind us... but not bad enough to offer up my roomy seat! 

I loved seeing all of the Japanese school children.  

The younger ones were almost always wearing matching hats.  Too cute!

When we arrived in Tokyo, I had our route to the hotel all mapped out.  All we needed to do was go pick up our Japan Rail (JR) passes and change trains once at Tokyo Station (which I also had a map of).  My sisters ran off to pick out their first purchases of Japanese sodas and candy while Mom and I tried to hand gesture enough to get our rail passes.  As soon as we got the passes, the helpful JR employee told us that all of the JR trains from Narita Airport were canceled due to "the accident" (suicide by way of high speed train).  This meant we had to take a much longer (and fully packed) local train with a different rail company and change stations a couple of times in order to get to our hotel, but we made it.

Bike riding in front of the Tokyo skyline.  

We crossed several long bridges with really great views of the city.

We finally made it to the hotel around 8 pm Tokyo time.  By then, I was feeling sea sick from all of the train riding and felt like I'd spent the day swimming in the ocean, a feeling that didn't go away for a day or two.  We were all starving and grabbed dinner around the corner before showering and hitting the sack.  I was so thankful that I picked a hotel less than a block from the train station.  Even though the rooms were small by American standards, they were roomy enough for us, clean, and came with breakfast.

The boys (and Manda) in one of the narrow side streets of Tokyo.

We woke up and grabbed breakfast... our first encounter with miso soup, rice balls, pickles, salad, pasta, and corn (I still can't eat corn with chopsticks!) for breakfast.

I loved walking through the middle of this giant, modern city and finding

small remnants of former Edo hidden throughout, like this Shinto shrine.

We completed a bike tour of Tokyo that day.  It was an excellent tour, but I hadn't ridden a bike in probably 10 years, and was really shaky and nervous navigating it through the crowded streets.  I don't know how I didn't hit someone!  Yukiko, our guide, kept the pace very fast, and I was worried I'd get left behind a few times.  We saw the old imperial castle wall, a sleepy fishing village, thousand year old shrines and temples in the middle of the bustling city, Tsukiji (the world's largest (and probably cleanest) fish market), sky scrapers, and other Tokyo staples.

Our bike tour guide knew these vendors at Tsukiji, and 

they let us try out their giant tuna sword.

On Tuesday, we'd planned to explore Mt. Fuji, but because there is still snow on Fuji until July, only the lower hiking posts are opened up by May.  We'd still hoped to go to the national park and Lake Ashi at the foot of Fuji-san, but the side trip turned out to be a bust because it rained all day and we wouldn't have even been able to see Fuji.  Instead, we hit up the Edo Tokyo Museum, which was really fascinating. (Edo is the original name for the town that grew into what is now called Tokyo).

We visited this temple atop a hill.  Legend has it that a samurai 

rode his horse to the top to pick a cherry blossom for the shogun.

So Matt and I decided to pose as the samurai and his horse.

That night, we spent some time walking around the hot spots of Tokyo and doing some people watching.  We visited Hachiko, toured the busiest department store I've ever seen in my life (12 stories of consumer bliss, complete with gourmet grocery shopping in the basement, much to Matt and Ryan's amusement), and visited Akihabara ("Electric Town," where you can find the worlds newest electronic must-haves, before they are available anywhere else).

This area used to be a small country fishing town outside of Edo.  

It's since been enveloped by the expanding Tokyo city limits.

One of the things I noticed right away included how much taller everyone was than I remembered.  I talked about this with several people and have decided it's not just my imagination.  Over the past thirteen years, the Japanese have lived in a very successful period and raised a whole new generation with modern nutrition.  The older generations, especially those that lived during the post-WWII era, are noticeably shorter than the younger Japanese.  I was not nearly as tall over there as I was in high school, which seems backwards!  Matt, however, was still above average height. 

People watching near Shibuya Station.

I also immediately noticed how much we stood out.  Not just by our coloring, but mainly our dress.  99% of the people in Tokyo were wearing suits or dark/muted clothing.  We did not blend in well with our brightly colored shirts and blue jeans. 

The city is very clean and very safe.  I don't think I saw a single homeless person begging for money.  The only evidence of the city's homeless population were the cardboard boxes tucked neatly together with shoes placed on top (the Japanese customarily remove their shoes when entering their homes).