Caves, slides, hoops, and skies.

 Holy smokes! Its been a hot minute (or 20) since I last posted!  What a crazy, busy couple of weeks we've had! This will mostly be a photo dump.

September 26.                                                                                                                                                         We drove a couple of hours out into the mountains to visit Akiyoshido Cave.  This cave was seriously awesome, and huge! The scenery is just gorgeous everywhere we go.  After the cave, we drove to this amazing sacred pond called Beppu Benton Pond.  The water is a pristine cerulean pool of natural spring water, and they have set up water bottle filling stations where you can fill bottles for free and drink the same water that feeds into the pool.  We dumped out the water we brought so we could partake of as much of this water as we could.  It was so good and so refreshing!  There was a park at the pond where we played and picnicked before driving home.

October 2.                                                                                                                                                                Milo had a day off of school, so we went and played with some friends.  They introduced us to Hachigamine Park.  This park has an incredibly long roller slide that you pay 300 yen to go down three times.  This slide was so awesome! See link for video.  You ride this trolly/tram contraption to get to the top.  Or, you can take the stairs if you're looking for more cardio.  This park also had several animal enclosures and some funny little bumper cars that the boys HAD to ride.  Haha.  Also, drink vending machines are EVERYWHERE here. Every corner and every tiny store or shop has at least one vending machine.  I gave in to the boys asking for drinks once, and I will never hear the end of it!  They have all kinds of sodas, juices, teas, and coffees.  I will get some pics in the future.  I'm sure there are many vending machine stops in our future.

https://youtu.be/UaOP0NONOGA

That evening, Blake and I went on another date night to Sanzoku (chicken shack).  We tried some different food and enjoyed the ambiance.  Apparently, Halloween is a pretty big deal here.  We feel so blessed to be able to go out together pretty often.  It helps that our babysitters are within walking distance. 👏

October 3                                                                                                                                                                        Blake worked hard to get our brand new basketball hoop set up!  We are so grateful for such a hard working Dadddy. The boys were so excited.  They came to check on him probably a dozen times in the several hours that it took Blake to get this thing put together.  We're going to have some little ballers on our hands. 

We also got out our Halloween blow ups all set up.  Feeling festive this year!

Toby climbs all the things.  He is part monkey.  The kid has some seriously strong arms. 💪

I sprint upstairs when I see hints of color from my downstairs windows so I can catch these amazing sunsets! 

Alas, this post is getting too long. I will create a new post about our camping trip last weekend.