Hello Rhino, my three year-old!

This has been quite a month for you. Now that you're three, I decided to start a casual preschool. We learn and read and play all the time, but I thought I'd put together some sort of actual lessons for you. You love to do dot-to-dots, are awesome at mazes, trace letters and numbers, and are learning how to fold paper and cut with scissors. You seem to be having a blast!

You're getting to be more and more independent. You like to make your own lunches (favorites: peanut butter sandwiches & homemade pizza.) You like to draw (people with giant heads and trains / tracks.) Yes, you're still obsessed with everything about trains!

A few days ago, we experienced a really big earthquake. We live in Japan and get quite a few earthquakes, so you've felt your share of shakes. This one was really big — a 9.0 — the fourth largest in the world in history. You and I were in the living room, Heron was napping upstairs, and Daddy was at work when it hit. When the walls first started shaking, I didn't think much of it because, like I said, we have them all the time. It grew more and more violent and lasted much longer than usual. I ran you over to the toy closet doorway and ran upstairs to get Heron. We sat in the doorway and said a little prayer and talked about all the objects that were shaking. I knew if I panicked, it would scare you boys, so we kept it light-hearted. We lost power and didn't know anything about what had just happened. We actually went three days without power; it just turned on today. Now that I can get online and use the phone, we are learning how severe this earthquake was. There was a tsunami that destroyed many homes along our coast. We thank God that the base and the town of Misawa is safe, even though we are on the coast and not too far away from the epicenter. Unfortunately, there are thousands of Japanese people who were not so lucky. We will do what we can to help out. I am hearing about families that are separated from each other and children that are orphaned and am just so thankful that we are all okay and I can still hold you in my arms.

I did say it's been quite a month for you! This month has had its ups and definitely had its downs, but we're all still here and looking forward to another wonderful month together!

I love you,
Mommy