Happy 1st Birthday, Cash!

We have a 1 year old, can you believe it? Cash turned one today. We had a little party with our friends and the missionaries on Monday. He had the traditional Hulihan family cream puffs. Too bad our microwave/oven didn't really want to cooperate with the dough. It produced a semi-flat pancake. Cash ate it, though!


Opening his present from Great-Grandma Betty:

Today, we let him have a chocolate cupcake, since he is my cupcake baby. I ate six cupcakes the night before I went into labor. I gave the rest of the batch to the labor nurses. Cash loved to squish it!

Thank you all for your birthday wishes! We love you!

Cash is Walking!

Cash took his first steps a couple of weeks ago. Since then, he's gotten bold and has been trying to walk everywhere. So far, he usually only goes about fifteen steps and then drops down to his knees. It's so cute though. I can't believe we're going to have a toddler on our hands (and under feet) in no time!

11 Months Old

Cash is now 11 months old and at such a fun age. He is so curious, playful, and increasingly mobile! He has taken a couple of steps alone but loves to hold my hand and walk. His new loves are dogs and birds, and we go for lots of walks trying to spot them.
He will be turning one in a few weeks, so I wanted to capture a few precious moments of my baby before he gets all grown up!

One of Cash's all-time faves: pulling the plug in the tub. Where did the water go?


Going for a ride in the toy basket:


I'm ready to dictate!


Silly boy:


His new activity: climbing!

Miyajima

After Hiroshima, we headed over to Miyajima ("shrine island") an hour away. We took a short ferry to the island. Miyajima is famous for its floating torii (shrine entrance), which is considered one of Japan's top three views. We had a great time at this very touristy spot, even though it was snowy and we had a sleepy baby on our hands!

Here we are in front of the famous torii. It looks like it is floating when the tide is high. That bulge in Fox's coat is Cash, fast asleep:


A beautiful pagoda:


This is Fox in Itsukushima shrine in front of the torii. In olden times, commoners were not allowed to set foot on the island. The shrine is built like a pier, and visitors would have to maneuver their boats through the torii in order to get to it. Cash was so tired. He fell asleep tucked in his dad's coat and slept for an hour.


Miyajima is also famous for its very friendly, roaming deer, who come seeking food from all the tourists.

Hiroshima

On Monday, Fox and I had the opportunity to go to Hiroshima with our friend Matt, who was taking his visiting parents sightseeing. We took a bus from a neighboring city and got there in three hours. Cash did great on the trip. It was so neat to be in a big city that had a Subway (not the transportation--the sandwiches)! It was also a very eye-opening trip.
Here we are in front of the A-Bomb dome. The A-Bomb was dropped above it. It's the only building that has been left in ruins, as a memorial of that tragic day.

Here is the memorial arch that shows the dome and also the flame that will only be extinguished once all nuclear weapons have been eliminated:

For any of you familiar with the story "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes", here are the actual cranes she folded. They got smaller and smaller as she got sicker and sicker, until finally she was folding them with a needle:

This is a diorama of the destruction of the bomb. This area housed over 6500 residents. By the end of 1945, over 140,000 people died as a result of the bomb's effects.

Yashima Island

On Sunday, Amy and I took Cash up to a famous touring spot with a student of mine named Miwa (Yes, it is actually Fox doing one of these posts in the first time since forever). Yashima looks like a peninsula, but a river cut around it making it an island, even though the river is not all that wide. It is very famous because it was the site of one of the biggest battles in the Genji wars. All throughout the temple grounds at the top of the island visitors can see paintings and bas relief sculptures depicting scenes from the battle. My student told us that there were so many bodies at the end of the battle that a pond turned red and was called Chinoike (Blood pond).

The island is shaped life a tall plateau. The locals here think it looks like a roof, hence the name Yashima (Ya- from "yane" which means roof & "Sima" which means island). We actually drove up the side of the island to the temple on top, though we could have walked up the steps like all of the pilgrims do. At the top is the 84th temple of the Shikoku 88 temples. It is a very special place for women wanting to become pregnant or have healthy pregnancies. It is believed that the temple founder was led through the fog to the place where the temple would be built by a tanuki (a sort of badger) disguised as a man. Tanuki are known for their rather large genitalia, so they are seen as a good spirit for expectant mothers.

We toured the temple quickly, since it was somewhat similar to other temples we had visited. But at the top, we took turns flinging small clay discs about the size as the top of a soda can off of the top of the plateau. It is thought that the further you can throw the disc, the greater your luck will be. Everyone was throwing them like you would skip stones on a lake. They went about thirty feet or so. I winged mine like a frisbee, and it flew out and curved around the mountain so that it was still sailing as it passed out of our line of sight. Everyone around us made sounds of being impressed. I tried again, but accidentally flung it behind me onto the roof of a building. I had to make sure to apologize quite loudly since everyone had been watching me on the second throw. The third and fourth throws went out really far like the first, and everyone was impressed again.

We kept walking, stopping occasionally to take in the artwork and artifacts of the historic samurai battle. We passed several hotels that had long-since closed down and made the entire place feel oddly creepy.

Passed the hotels, we came across a small aquarium that was set up near the temple. We didn't go in, but we could see some dolphins swimming in their tank through a space in the outside fence where we were standing. After a few seconds of watching them circle the tank, it became evident that they were doing far more than swimming. We all started laughing out loud together as it dawned on each of us simultaneously that these dolphins were copulating. At first I thought it was just me, but the comically shocked look on my student's face told me that she saw it too. I took some photos, but then realized that it was just a little dirty to be doing it. Then the voice of hilarious awesomeness in the back of my head berated me for hesitating. I mean, how often are you gonna have a chance to witness dolphins gone wild and then put it on your blog (sorry, gramma)?!?!?!

We laughed all the way to a picnic spot where we ate some sandwiches and took in the view. Amy and Miwa had to keep talking me out of sneaking into one of the abandoned hotels. I kept feeling the pull of Silent Hill telling me to wander into the creepy abandoned place. But my wife would have none of it. So we finished our lunch and made our way down to the parking lot. Every few minutes on the ride home Miwa and Amy would tease me that the tanuki and the dolphins were a sign that the Ellises should have another baby.


Tanuki at the temple


You may not be able to read this, but it's the story of the tanuki and the priest


Ellises at the temple


Actual Samurai armor from the battle of Genji. This was kept in the same building that I hit with a clay disc.


A fierce lion outside the temple


The view from the top


More of the same view from the top


Amy and Cash with our friend Miwa

WARNING: the following is a paid-program from Dolphins Gone Wild. Some content may not be suitable for younger dolphins



naughty Naughty NAUGHTY Dolphins!!!!!


Cash was completely tuckered out by the time we got home.

Seto-Ohashi Park

Last Monday, we visited the Seto-Ohashi commemorative park, which is about twenty minutes from our house. It was so fun! There is a huge pirate-ship playground. It was a national holiday, so there were tons of families playing ball, flying kites, and walking their rabbits. We had a great time!
Cash's first experience with a tunnel slide:


I like slides!

He didn't know what to make of this field of dry grass, though:

Fox and Cash in front of the Seto Ohashi bridge, the world's second largest suspension bridge: