Japanese Fall Festival

I love the way the fall sun looks in the afternoon. The colors are so vivid and bright.
The Japanese Fall Festival is a fall traditional for our family.



LOVE this. Check out Justine's face. It cracks me up. Such a little geisha.



Jack and Jaiden look so much alike, it's almost impossible to know who is who. My little twins.



These two... you can definitely tell apart. Josh makes a great geisha girl, don't you think? He was almost too cool to get up there. Geez. That happened fast. He's come a long way in a few years, hasn't he?



Jack tried his hand at chop sticks. He was really good at it.



And Jaiden was a pro at catching fish by hand. She starting helping other people catch their fish too.



Jordan just loved being with her family during her last few weeks at home.



The Karate Kid Geisha Girl... he could kick you or make you tea.



The girls enjoyed their free face paint...



And I enjoyed the fact that they were happy with the free cheek paintings and didn't insist on the full face expensive ones.



We even had a little Ethiopian reunion with Ari the Great!



How shocking!



The kids had a great time on the stepping stones. The water was so green and beautiful. Jeff was quick to point out that it was because of "more green dye" that they add to the water. We almost fell in the water when we thought he was saying "Morgan died." (Morgan is our dog. And we found it weird Jeff would choose to tell us of his demise at a family outing...) Thank God, Morgan is alive and ruining my back yard as we speak.



I made everyone stay until after dusk because I wanted to see the torches lit throughout the garden.



It was beautiful.... even with the mosquitoes!



We fed the fish in the dark. When one of the fish jumped and made a splash, Jameson screamed and jumped in my lap. You would have thought JAWS was alive and well at the Japanese Gardens.



There's something so mesmerizing about the torches. All my little fire bugs had to play with the flames.



I don't know why... I just love cat tails. Is that what these are called?



Justine determined this was the best day of her life. She got a fish. And a face painting. It was even better than the beach. Really? (Insert questioning sarcastic mom voice here...) Really? It was pretty good, but maybe just shy of the beach.