This is spring break, and today we spent a fun day with our family.  It might not have been the wisest thing we have ever done, given the unusual circumstances of the day– but it was fun!

We decided to go for a family bike ride across the inlet to the San Juan Baptista Park.  It took most of the morning to get the bikes de-winterized – pumped up –  and ready to go.  Then we were off!

It became really windy, but it was still so fun to be out together.  I have to say that our third child whined the whole way up the very long and steep hill (walking her bike most of the way) –  but a fun time was had by all on our picnic, most of the time!

What we thought about later was how it perhaps wasn’t a wise decision to take our family biking along the shoreline of Ishinomaki… since we had been under a tsunami advisory all day.  Because of the major earthquake in Chile yesterday, this morning at 3 am there were the unmissable sirens and loud announcements over the area loudspeakers, telling those along the shoreline to evacuate and all others to be on the alert. As a result of the this alert all day, a number of our Nozomi staff could not come in… one husband was not allowed to go home to his family while the advisory was in effect.  (The advisory was lifted around 5 pm;  only small waves came in to northern Japan as a result of yesterday’s earthquake).

Also this morning — while Eric and I were talking about the middle-of-the-night warning sirens, we had a pretty strong rattle – this one from an earthquake in Iwate.  It woke up our kids and got us all moving for our outing!  I have been seeing a lot written the past few days about the ring of fire earthquake zone.  The earth around us does seem to be moving quite a bit… I remain so thankful for the ongoing promise of God’s presence with us.  It has been a good, non-predictable day.