Philadelphia

There's so much history in Philadelphia! We visited the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall

It says 'bobcat'
Ben: "Meow."

Boston

This summer we went on a road trip around some of the well known locations in the history of our country, the first being Boston, MA.

Me: "Let me take a picture of you!"
Ben: "Does it look like I care?"

The guy's actually got a British accent!

USS Constitution

Street performer

The shuttle driver from our hotel was very nice and wanted to give us a few helpful tips. He was talking about a beach not far from where we were.
Shuttle driver: "If you go right down here there's ah beach and it's only gaht maybe ten cahs."
Daddy: (leans over) "Did he say there were cows on the beach?"
 Ha! Highlight of the day!

Bundled up

I've finally made it after an super long flight to Japan. As always, I felt like I was going to go crazy, but as usual I have retained my sanity. :) The plane was cold so I bundled up.

Since today is Sunday, I went to church this morning and saw my friends at Yokosuka Baptist Church. It was sort of nice to speak English with someone even after only 2 days. Now I'm going to go eat a ponderingu at Mister Donuts. :) I`ll take a picture for you.

Summer Vacation

Lately, life has been busy, busy, busy. That's not a bad thing though. I don't like being bored. During the week of July 21st, Ben and I went to Crossroads camp at Camp Maranatha in Ila, GA. As always it was great physically and spiritually. I made many much needed decisions there and made some new friends. Instead of heading home like the other two youth groups that came, the VCBC youth group got to stay all day Saturday. On Sunday, we went to our former youth pastor's (who is now the senior pastor of Joy Baptist) church where the Voices of Victory sang. While the rest of the group boarded the bus towards home, Ben and I hopped on the RV our family rented and we drove around the Blue Ridge Mountains for the rest of the week. My grandparents and aunt are visiting from Japan so the road trip was perfect.

A nice, hot cup of tea :)

My aunt went back to Japan a couple weeks ago. Since my grandparents don't like navigating airports and stuff by themselves, they decided to take me with them. We are leaving tomorrow and I'll be staying with them for a month so I can study. After all, the best way to learn a foreign language is to immerse yourself in it, right?                See y'all later!  Leigha

C-17 Trip

This past weekend was absolutely amazing! In summary, my Civil Air Patrol squadron rode a C-17 to Charleston, SC, slept on the USS Yorktown (aircraft carrier), toured the destroyer, Laffey, and the submarine, Clamagore, and then drove over to Fort Moultrie, and flew back on another C-17. I had a great time, got to know more people in my squadron, and learned a ton about aviation.

You get in and out from the ramp on the back of the plane. This is the ramp half open while we were taxiing.

Airman Lohman and Ben decided to pose with a sleeping Sergeant Dye.

Inside the USS Yorktown. This photo does not make the stairs look steep enough. Any steeper would have been a ladder. We had to carry our luggage up this to get to our berthing area.

Another view of the stairs.

L to R: Major Fowler, Sergeant Shepherd, Airman Bauder (me)

In the captain's seat

L to R: Sergeant Giles, Airman Lohman, Airman Weiker, Sergeant Spitz, Sergeant Shepherd, Major Fowler, Airman Bauder, Airman Johnson

Group picture

This is in the Clamagore. Seriously, they slept above torpedoes.

If you can see, the doorways are very small. 

A skeleton in the jail in the USS Yorktown.

Maj. Fowler, Sgt. Shepherd, Amn Bauder

A posed picture at Ft. Moultrie

The guys goofing off

On the C-17 back

I had a great time. Big thanks to Lieutenant Giles for arranging everything!

The Last Day

On our last day in Japan, we went shopping at Livin for last minute snacks and stuff to bring home. We visited Umikaze kouen, a place I used to play often when I was little. It was a good last day.

These are what Japanese backpacks look like.

All four wheels swivel on their carts!

You bag your groceries yourself.

 Free dry ice if you need it!

And that concludes my trip. We left the next morning and took the train to the Narita Airport. The flight back didn't seem as long as the flight was coming over. Since we were traveling late on Thanksgiving Day, there was no one when we got to the Orlando International Airport. All the gates were empty, the monorail was empty, when we got past security, we saw Daddy and the Rogers! I was completely taken by surprise. It was past midnight so they must have stayed up a long time. I was glad to be home.