Silvas in Iwakuni Japan

2009-05-19T04:05:00.000-07:00

Something's different about Anna...

What could it be?

2009-05-10T01:44:00.000-07:00

A Special Mother's Day Message from Japan
for our Moms, Grandmas, & Nana
in the United States.

We love and miss you!
Michael, Sonya, Kayla, Emily, Jacob, & Anna.

2008-06-26T20:45:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday we had a church picnic at the park and Mike shared an encouraging Psalm encouraging us to trust in our Strong Tower, the Lord. That is Matt (a missionary at the church) with Anna. Jacob's with Tyler and Em's with her friend Kaila. It was so relaxing and fun hanging out with our church family and getting to know one another better. Praise the Lord for the beautiful weather.

2008-06-26T20:14:00.000-07:00

We went to the Butterfly Museum and you walk inside this glass room with flowers and the butterflies are absoulutely everywhere!

We were all able to catch some. (OK, mine was already dead!)

The kids had a blast.

2008-06-23T15:21:00.000-07:00

Anna turned 7 on June 19! What a long awaited day for this precious child. It started with counting how many more days in May and then in June the countdown. We told her not before 6:00 a.m. so when she woke up at 5:30 she was patient to wait. At 6 on the dot, she ran around ringing a bell telling us it was her birthday. What a blessing to be a parent to Anna Riley!

Anna does not like cake so she picked

Rainbow sherbet for her dessert.

2008-06-22T06:17:00.000-07:00

Em, Jay, and Anna had their last recital with Mrs. Cooper in May. She's moving and we now have to find another teacher for them.

Gymnastics

2008-06-22T06:08:00.001-07:00

2008-06-22T05:52:00.000-07:00

Jacob played on the Red Sox this year. It's exciting to watch him and see him getting better and better. He's starting gymnastics with his sisters now that baseball is over. I'm so thankful that the kids like to stay in sports and be active.

2008-06-22T05:41:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day weekend we ventured off to Oshima Island which is only an hour away. We stayed in these nice cabins for a night and were down there with the Tompkin family. In the morning the moms and girls went to the onsen (bath house) and the boys hit the beach. (No swimming as there were jellyfish everywhere.) The drive was beautiful the whole way there and back as well as the view from our cabin.

2008-06-05T06:38:00.000-07:00

These are just some recent pics (maybe not so recent) from Easter Sunday.

2008-03-25T15:39:00.000-07:00

It's happening again. The kids are getting another year older.

Emily is officially 11!
Jacob is now 9!

Jacob wanted curry and a strawberry cake and

Emily wanted spaghetti and carrot cake.

God has blessed our family with the joy of each

of these precious children.

Kayla turned 16 in January! We had to send her a chocolate cake via Bake-a-Wish.

2008-02-10T04:50:00.000-08:00

The Kids' Piano Recital

It was so much fun going to Emily, Jacob, and Anna's piano recital on Saturday, Feb 9, 08. All three are doing such a good job learning how to play the piano. All of the kids take lessons during the week from Mrs. Cooper. To watch a video of the kids at the recital, please scroll down.

It was also a blessing getting to see a number of kids from the church playing in the recital as well.

Great Job Kids!!!

2008-02-10T04:16:00.000-08:00

Jacob's First & Second Recital

All-in-one

Saturday was officially Jacob's second recital, but at his first recital he would not go up and play, so this also makes it his first recital, the first recital he played at.

I hope you enjoy this video. It's amazing because Jacob just loves to play the piano. All throughout the day at home, Jacob is always playing on the piano and all his practiced showed on Saturday. Praise the Lord, what a talented and handsome young man!

2008-02-10T03:50:00.000-08:00

Emily's Recital

Emily did a great job playing at her recital, it's such a blessing getting to see the kids grow and learn in this area. I pray that God will be able to use Emily's gifts and talents for His glory. Not only can Emily play the piano, thanks to Mrs. Cooper, but missionary matt is teaching Emily how to play the guitar as well.

2008-02-10T03:37:00.000-08:00

Anna's First Recital

It was such a blessing getting to hear Anna play her song that she had been practicing at her first recital held at the base chapel on Saturday Feb 9, 08.

She actually wouldn't play when it was her turn, she was supposed to be the first student to play at the recital. She mustered the courage to play her song at the very end and she did a wonderful job.

2008-01-27T13:36:00.000-08:00

A Korean Dinner...

From the top down: Rice, seaweed soup, kimchi, and a cucumber and carrot salad.

Recently, Sonya prepared us a great meal which allowed us to experience a part of her Korean ethnicity. I (Michael) honestly have to say that 13 years ago I would not have touched any of that food, not even the white rice (it had to be Rice-a-roni), but now, I love it! I'm so blessed to be married to such a wonderful woman. She's a GREAT wife and mother. Love you Sonya!

2008-01-27T13:14:00.000-08:00

Daiki's visit

This weekend (Jan 25-27,08) Daiki got to come down and stay with us again. Sonya got the call on Thursday that he could come, so on Friday afternoon, Sonya and the kids took the Train to Hiroshima to pick him up.

In the pictures above, Daiki is enjoying "Popcorn Friday" with us. That's our family tradition on Friday to spend the evening together as a family. Dad makes popcorn on the stove-top and we all watch a movie together.

In the picture above, Daiki and Jacob are playing together on a brand new playground that was just installed on the base. This playground includes (sorry it's not in the picture) a big pirate ship for the kids to play on, it's really cool.

Sunday afternoon, it was a "Boys afternoon out". Michael, Jacob, and Daiki took the train to bring Daiki back to his orphanage. Thankfully, his orphanage is really clean and all the kids are well cared for. Please continue to pray for us, it looks like we will be able to adopt Daiki, but it's not official yet. We have an appointment on Thursday at the base legal office to see what paperwork we need to complete for the adoption. Thanks for your Prayer!!!

2008-01-13T02:15:00.000-08:00

Jacob and Emily received a ripstick and a waveboard for Christmas. This has kept them busy and in shape.

2008-01-13T02:10:00.000-08:00

This is Daiki (rhymes with nike). We are praying about adopting this 5 year old Japanese boy. We are just waiting to hear from the director of the home he lives at. If they allow it, he can come home with us right away! The adoption process will take about a year to be final.

2007-11-15T04:48:00.000-08:00

Our trip to Kyoto in October. It's full of history with temples and shrines. People normally go here to see these but we just photographed them from driving around.

We visited Kyoto Studios where they have movie sets and a Ninja show.

2007-11-12T04:04:00.000-08:00

Autumn in Japan

Autumn is a beautiful season to enjoy here in mainland Japan. This veteran's day was a "boys day out" for Daddy and Jacob. The boys went on a tour to Taishaku-kyo which is about 2 1/2 hours away from Iwakuni. Without a doubt, Michael enjoy the scenery, the red & yellow leaves were beautiful!

In the pic above, take notice of the natural rock bridge. "Kyo" is bridge in Japanese and that's why this area is called Taishaku-"kyo"

Jacob wasn't as impressed with the scenery, but he did enjoy exploring God's creation. He almost fell in the river only once (Don't tell his mom), otherwise he had fun.

2007-09-21T17:29:00.000-07:00

Jacob's Baptism

Daddy (Pastor Mike) sharing from the Word

about baptism and why we do this.

Jacob, along with some others, was baptized in the Nishiki River which runs under the famous Kintai Bridge. This was an exciting day as our third child has made a public confession of his faith and was obedient to follow Christ's example in baptism. Please pray for him that he would grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ and we, as parents, would be faithful to be an example and teach our children the Word.

After the baptisms, many went swimming in the river. It was kinda crazy as Ronnie led the event of jumping off this rock into the river. Praise the Lord for their safety!

2007-09-18T15:04:00.000-07:00

Chicken Shack Before Kayla went back to Fl and Ronnie went home to Ca, we all went to the famous Chicken Shack. (July)

2007-09-18T03:53:00.000-07:00

Hachigamine Park While Kayla was here this summer we went out to Hachigamine Park

for a few hours.

2007-09-17T05:41:00.000-07:00

Before...
After!

We cut off 11 inches of Em's hair.

2007-09-17T05:24:00.000-07:00

Seven Falls Last week we drove about an hour away through the mountains to a place called Seven Falls. It was beautiful but the mountain water was freezing. Our friends the Tompkins were going and we tagged along. This is just one of the many falls there. It's an area where you can picnic for the day or camp out. I think we'll stick with the day trip since we saw two snakes that day! The cold water didn't stop the kids as they played for hours. Isn't God's creation beautiful! Above is Jacob, friend Hannah, and EmilyThis is Anna with her friend Claire.

2007-09-17T05:18:00.000-07:00

Well, here we go again. Big, yellow dog and hopefully third's a charm. Anna asked for a dog so we told her to pray about it. The following week, our neighbors came over and asked if we wanted their dog. The prayers of a child!
His name is Cream, not by choice but already given. He's a year old and a great dog. Besides the hair, we couldn't have asked for a better dog. Thank you, Lord.

2007-05-20T17:22:00.000-07:00

Carps Game in Hiroshima

Emily and Jacob went with Daddy, Glen and Ronnie to a Japanese professional baseball game. It's baseball with a Japanese flair. There is as much action in the stadium as the game. They have people in the stands blowing whistles and waving huge fans. And the food...not hotdogs but udon noodle soup!

2007-04-30T15:59:00.000-07:00

Em and Jake's biggest fans.

Em's been playing right field

in the 10-12 year olds and

Jake's been playing first base

in the 7-9 year olds.

2007-04-30T15:37:00.000-07:00

Baseball season has begun.

Jacob is playing on the White Sox and

Emily is on the Astros. Both of them are

having a great time playing. It makes for busy

evenings but the Lord is allowing us to meet

and get to know different people and prayerfully

even be a witness for Him.

2007-04-30T05:58:00.000-07:00

The Marina is Open

Saturday afternoon we headed over to the Marina after baseball. Daddy and Mr. Ronnie took the kids out for a spin on jet skis. Em brough ther friend, Reagan.

2007-04-30T05:07:00.000-07:00

Our Home

Even though we're living in Japan,
our home is on base and very American.
We've had beautiful weather with cool
mornings and evenings and warm afternoons.

2007-04-11T16:43:00.000-07:00

Yikes, What Happened to Anna's Eye...

About a month ago, after Wednesday night Bible Study & AWANA, Anna fell forward on the stairs at home and cut her eye brow. Our friend Leah came and stayed with Emily and Jacob while Sonya and Michael took Anna to the emergency room. Our friend from church who is a doctor, CMDR Jacobs, came in and carefully and lovingly gave Anna three stitches. As you can see, Anna ended up with quite a shiner. Thank you for your prayers. It is now completely healed and the stitches have been removed.

2006-10-27T21:38:00.000-07:00

Columbus Day Exploration...

Like Christopher Columbus, the Silva family set out on an exploration. Our goal was not to find short-cuts for trading routes, or new lands, instead we set out to see if we could find things that creep and crawl.

We took a nice drive inland and found a place to stop that looked like a good to to start looking. We didn't find any frogs or snakes, but the kids did catch some small fish and a creepy water centipede. It was fun.

2006-10-27T21:14:00.000-07:00

Columbus Day Camping Adventure!

We had hoped to go some where camping as a family, but time got away from us so we had to make a change in our plans. Instead of going some where, we decided to keep it simple, so we set up our tents in the yard beside the house. It was a lot of fun.

We grilled hot dogs and ate our dinner by the tents.

We rostered marshmellows and made smores. We all slept in the tents all night long and we even ate our breakfast out by the tents. Sonya made us french toast, cooked on the grill and it was yummy.

2006-10-27T21:04:00.000-07:00

Yummy... Egg Rolls!!!

Sonya's such a good cook, especially when she cooks up food from her mother's home-land, Korea.

Kayla invited several friends and we invited our friends the Schessers and Sonya taught everyone how to make yummy egg rolls.

2006-10-27T20:41:00.000-07:00

Home School Picnic...

The weather here is Iwakuni is beautiful so when the home schoolers wanted to do something, we all decided that we should have a picnic. As you can see from the pictures it was a beautiful day and we all really enjoyed ourselves as we shared our food with each other and played on the playground.

For fun and a little bit of exercise, Mike, Emily, and Jacob biked to the park while Sonya, Anna, and Kayla drove because they had all the food.

2006-10-26T21:09:00.000-07:00

Labor Day Fun!

On Labor Day several families from church gathered together and we all ventured out on an expedition to find “3-Falls”. We only got lost once, but once we found it we had a great time!

Check out Jacob, he is about to jump off the rocks into the water below.

Anna didn’t like the idea of jumping off the rocks into the water, so she is just hanging out keeping watch over everyone.

2006-10-26T01:07:00.000-07:00

Kinda Fishy...

Took a trip out to the dam with our friends the Schessers where they taught us how to use snails to fish for little tiny "sweet fish." I don't know if they are sweet because we released all the fish we caught when it was time to go. All the kids had lots of fun!

2006-10-25T21:18:00.000-07:00

Emily the Actress...

This was so cute, Emily and several of her friends organized an American Girl play called Hairum-Scarum. The kids put together the set and props and Emily had a part as Cinderalla. All the kids had a lot of fun and all the families enjoyed the show.

2006-07-02T15:29:00.000-07:00

Experiencing Japanese Culture

Sunday after church, Emily, Anna and Mom went with our friends

to their daughter's Yochien (Japanese kindergarten),

and the children were all dressed in yukatas,

which is the summer kimono. We had to go buy one

at the last minute as we don't have them lying around the house.

When we came home, I remembered it's not a simple process to put one on!

Thankfully, our friend Norimi came to the rescue but also had to ask

another Japanese friend for help as some Japanese have

difficulties in putting them on properly!

2006-06-25T15:54:00.000-07:00

PICNIC LUNCH AT TSUZU BEACH

We had one last get-together with Jake's

baseball team

and went to the beach.

2006-06-25T15:33:00.000-07:00

PLAY BALL!

Well the baseball season has ended and Jacob had his closing day ceremonies. We were blessed to have such a great coach for Jacob and we know Jake had fun on his first experience with baseball.

2006-06-19T05:27:00.000-07:00

Just some great pics of the kids

from the beach.

2006-06-19T05:15:00.000-07:00

Can you believe it, Anna's 5!

Sunday night we had cake and ice cream with some friends to celebrate and then, Monday, Daddy took the day off to go to the beach. I think Anna Riley had a good time and we are so thankful to the Lord for her.

2006-06-16T22:18:00.000-07:00

Can you tell what Jacob's missing?

Yes, he lost a tooth yesterday (Friday) leaving that big signature smile that says, "I'm seven years old." He put his tooth under the pillow last night before falling asleep and when he awoke he found 200 yen in the place he left his tooth.

2006-06-14T17:23:00.000-07:00

Butterfly Museum

We took a homeschool fieldtrip and at the end all of the kids learned how to catch and hold a butterfly.

2006-06-14T17:09:00.000-07:00

Iris' in Bloom

This week the iris' are in full bloom at the Kintai Bridge. The kids went out to sketch the flowers as we enjoyed God's creation.

2006-06-12T04:25:00.000-07:00

おこのみやき　と　おむすび

The Yamada family that comes over every monday night taught us how to make okonomiyaki and omusubi tonight. Mike was the only one who liked the okonomiyaki which consists of bean sprouts, egg, cabbage, pork, fish flakes, and mountain potato in a pancake. Omusubi are rice balls.

2006-06-08T05:58:00.000-07:00

Kind of froggy...

This evening, Kayla and I had the opportunity to work on one of her final science projects for the year. We dissected a frog. I guess it would be kind of weird to say we had fun, because it was kind of gross, but we did enjoy the experiment. This is actually Kayla's fourth dissection project and our second one working together. She has dissected a worm, crayfish, perch fish, and the frog. We did the perch fish and the frog together. I learned that the specimens that we dissect are kind of smelly so this time I was ready with my mask.

2006-06-06T03:53:00.000-07:00

First trip to the beach...

I am a little jealous that I (Michael) had to work today while Sonya took the kids to the beach. It was a beautiful day and they all had a great time playing in the water and the sand. While at the beach they found a starfish and the kids tell me that they saw an eel(?).

2006-06-05T06:34:00.000-07:00

にほんごべんきょします。Nihongo Benkyo Shimasu (Studying Japanese)

We are so blessed that every Monday night one our our neighbors comes to our house and we exchange language lessons. The mother, Yuko-san, teaches our kids Japanese and we teach her daughter, Yukiko, English.

2006-06-05T06:26:00.000-07:00

They just love each other...

We had to capture this one for the memory books and share it with you. The girls crashed together in Mom and Dad's bed. They are always so much cuter when they are sleeping!

2006-05-31T04:30:00.000-07:00

During Jacob's Baseball games, Anna is one of his biggest fans. But by the 6th inning, Anna will often find ways to pass the time by doing things like running around behind the bleachers, looking for bugs or otherwise just being silly.

2006-05-31T04:15:00.000-07:00

"Take me out to the ball game..."

We all had a good time tonight at one of Jacob's baseball games. He has about two weeks left in his first season ever playing baseball. Jacob has grown so much over the last two months in his personal skills as a team member. Hope you enjoy the game as much as we did!

2006-05-29T04:17:00.000-07:00

Asa Zoo

This is where we ended up on this Memorial Day. It's located in Hiroshima a little over an hour from us. The weather was beautiful which was nice since it's been raining so much and it cancelled our original plans of going camping and hiking.