Nathan's Birthday

Nate's 10th birthday was this past weekend. Since he is entering double digits, we've been doing a lot of celebrating! He started his day with a hall filled with pictures of him at different ages.

Then he ordered waffles for breakfast and ate them while skyping and reading email messages from family and friends.

He also managed to complete about 1/2 of his new Lego set before he left for school.


Nate ordered buckeyes as his treat to bring to school. Many people in Japan do not like peanut butter so we also brought pretzels for those who couldn't or didn't want the buckeyes.

 He celebrated with his class at the exact minute of his birth (thanks to the time difference this took place at 3:13 p.m. here instead of the 1:13 a.m. time in the States!)

The next day he invited  friends to travel to a nearby city called Osaka where they went to Sega Joyopolis.

Matthew Maloney, Nathan, Nathan McCleery, Jay MacNeil and Matthew Park

This was a video game and virtual reality ride arcade. The boys seemed to have a great time. Matt found chaperoning the 5 of them through one of the busiest train stations in Japan a bit of a challenge! They ate at a Yakatori restaurant (fast food Japanese, mostly various types of chicken served on little skewers). Then they came home for cake and ice cream. Laura's friend Jessica also joined in the celebration. Then the boys spent the night.





Sunday afternoon Nate got his big birthday present...a new bike!

Our last birthday event will be this coming Saturday when Nathan, Matt and I are going to go to a Brazilian steak house. Nate is enthralled with the idea of all the meat he can eat!

 I love seeing how happy Nathan is and how well he's doing but I always feel a little twinge in my heart knowing that we'll be moving him again in 18 months. I guess he's learning to be adaptable. I just hope he's equally happy once we move back to the States!