Merry Christmas, Mele Kalikimaka and メリークリスマス from the Biesingers!

We have had a busy and fun year full of great  and unexpected blessings, which seems to be the pattern of our life these past few years!  Here are some of the highlights of 2015:

私たちは今年、素晴らしい日々や予期せぬ祝福や忙しいさと楽しい一年間を過ごしてきました！ここに2015年のいいところをいくつか書いておきます。

We have a new member of our family, Kai Sawai! He is an 18-year-old Japanese boy who has been staying with us since April and will be here for another year and a half at least while we goes to high school at American Heritage of South Jordan.

We love him and have really enjoyed having him as part of our family. He is an amazing break dancer, artist and is learning to play the guitar and understand crazy American things (like the Tooth Fairy, Halloween etc.) He is a great big brother and the girls love to play with him.

日本人の子が家族に入りました！４月から澤井海という十八歳の男の子が高校を卒業するまで（だいたい一年半）家で住む予定です。優しい子で、一緒にすごく楽しい時間を過ごしています。たくさんの才能があり、特技はブレイクダンスと絵を描くこと。ギターも習っています。花と彩とよく遊んでいます。彼女らにとっていいお兄さんになっています。

Hana will be turning 10 next month and we can’t believe it! She is a talented, fun, smart and beautiful 4th grader. She enjoys playing with friends, drawing, reading, dancing and singing, especially songs from Disney’s Descendants. She started learning the flute and piano this year. We're so happy she and Aya are best friends.

花は来月十歳になります。ちょっと信じられない！よく友だちとの遊び、読書、絵を描くこと、歌うこと、ダンスも好きです。花は彩と仲がよくて非常に嬉しいです。今年からピアノに興味を示していて、すぐにレッスンをしてあげようと思っています。

Aya is 6 and is in first grade. She loves playing with her friends and drawing too. She had a really fun Sonic the Hedgehog birthday party in August. She is always making us laugh with her funny antics. She enjoys making up little songs on the piano and mom is excited to start teaching her official lessons soon.

彩は六歳のとても元気な女の子です。花と同じように友達との遊びと絵を描くことが好きです。最近の好きなことはソニックザヘッジホグです。六歳の誕生日のパーティはソニックがテーマでした。彩は明るくてよく笑う子です。私達も彩によく笑わせてもらっています。

Geoff and I have been very busy starting and running 2 businesses this year.  I am a professional organizer and help people declutter, simplify and organize their homes and offices and I love it! I also teach meal planning/cooking classes when I can as well as work on a website where I put organizing, cooking and life simplifying tips (http://www.plantomakeitsimple.com/) It’s not very fancy yet (I’ve been teaching myself how to make a website as I go along) but I plan to upgrade iit a lot and make it more functional and pretty in the next year as part of our organizing business. I’ve had a lot of requests to offer my meal planning and other organizing classes through my website so that will be one of the things included. 


今年私とジェフは忙しくて、２つの自分のビジネスを始めました。一つは整理整頓プロのビジネスです。家とオフィスの整理とともにウェブサイトで料理のクラスもやっています。(http://www.plantomakeitsimple.com/)　ウェブサイトは作ったばかりだけどこれからアップデートするつもりです。

The other business is one that we started this year, but have been researching and planning for a long time. We will be bringing Japanese and other foreign students to Hawaii and maybe Utah to study English and American culture. This brings our love and education of Japan, languages, Hawaii, teaching etc. all together and we’re really excited about it. We went to Hawaii in November to do a pilot program for some Japanese recruiters who bring student groups to the U.S.to do programs like ours. We all had a great time. It was a very busy week for us but we thoroughly enjoyed being back home in Kapolei and seeing many of our good friends and Ohana there. I think going to church at our Hawaii ward was the best part of the whole trip! (Love and miss you all so much, Kalaeloa Ohana!)

もう一つのビジネスは留学に似ています。日本とほかの国の大学生と大学に入ろうとしている方をハワイとユタで留学のような経験をさせてあげます。第二の言語とアメリカの文化の勉強と体験をめざしています。

We have been so blessed to have had so many amazing Japanese, Chinese and Korean students and teachers live in our home throughout the 10 years that Geoff and I have been married and we love and miss each of you! Come visit us in Japan or Hawaii when you can! We are excited to provide similar experiences for other students through our business.
毎年、日本人と中国人と韓国人の生徒たちを受け入れて、家族にも生徒たちにも貴重な経験になるようにします。このようなプログラムもやっていきたいと思っています。

And that brings us to something else exciting…we are heading to Japan on December 30th and will be there until June! Geoff has been asked to be a principal at a private college in a rural mountain town north of Tokyo, called Yuzawa. The name of the school is Mikuni International College (http://www.mikuniinternational.org/) and it’s amazing place for Japanese college students to live and learn English. This college was started by a good friend and college professor of ours along with many other amazing Japanese and American board members interested in providing an affordable place where young adults in Japan could learn English, grow spiritually and have fun. This is exactly the kind of thing that we feel passionate about and have the education for so we are really excited! This all came about suddenly so it’s been a crazy few months getting everything ready to go but we feel strongly that this is what the Lord wants us to do and things have been falling into place to make this happen.

そして楽しいニュースがあります。１２月３０日に日本に帰ります！６月まで新潟県の湯沢町で住み。ジェフはみくに国際学園(http://www.mikuniinternational.org/)という学校で塾長として働きます。

この学校は日本の大学生が英語を学ぶための学校です。また、精神的に生徒が成長し、前進するための場所が構想されています。私たちはこの学校を見つけるために助けてくれた教授、渡部正和さんと学校について学びました。私達は若い世代の日本人を、特に教会の人たちを助けるのが好きだと感じています。ビッグチャンスが突然私達の前に現れたのです。これは難しいかもしれませんが、神様が私たちにしてほしいことだと思っています。

We plan to come back to Daybreak when we get back. We love it here and have enjoyed living in our yellow house on the lake. So many great friends in our community here!

This is our gorgeous view from our master bedroom

We also can’t wait to be back in Japan see our Japanese friends and “family” and enjoy some good Japanese food! We love Japan and feel it’s our home away from home and have been missing it very much. We’ll be blogging about our adventures here on our family blog (http://simplehomeinparadise.blogspot.com/) for anyone who is interested in following along.

私たちは日本に行くことをとても楽しみにしています。私達の娘達を友達に紹介すること、そして日本の素晴らしい文化を紹介することも楽しみにしています。日本は私達の第二の故郷です。私たちは皆さんと会えることを望んでいます。

We are so thankful for our Savior whose birth we celebrate this time of year. We know He lives and because of Him there is peace and joy and family and forgiveness and hope. We hope to remember Him more this following year. We are also so thankful for all of you! We have amazing and supportive friends and family all around us and are blessed to meet more wherever we go. Please let us know if there is anything we can do for you and know that you are in our prayers.

このクリスマスの時期にイエス・キリストの誕生を記念して、数えきれない祝福に感謝しています。イエス・キリストが生きておられることを知っています。イエス・キリストの誕生、生涯、また復活は平安、幸せ、永遠の家、希望をもたらします。

日本の友達に感謝しています。会える日に楽しみにしています！

Love,

Geoff, Rachel, Kai, Hana & Aya Biesinger
ジェフ、レイチェル，海、花、彩・ビーシンガー

p.s. All of these photos were taken by the very talented Nicky Soulier. You can check out her website at: http://nicholettephotography.com/ Thanks so much Nicky!

And a few more for those people who REALLY love us (aka the Grandmas)...

 

The most amazing family vacation EVER!

So we just returned from a vacation and it was absolutely AMAZING! The dream vacation that we have always wanted to do-my whole family (parents, siblings and spouses and all their kids-yep, all 28 of us!), on a Disney Cruise, in the Caribbean and Bahamas in super amazing concierge suites! (This was an awesome surprise gift given to us from one of my generous siblings and spouse so we didn't even have to pay for it!)

The whole crew, all 28 of us, at church on Grand Cayman-love all of these people so much!

CAR, PLANE, BUS AND BOAT
Getting there...

The 3 Musketeers insisted on sitting by each other on the plane

Grandma was amazing and had both of the babies on her lap on the airplane for awhile!

Our hotel shuttle taking us to get on our boat! We filled  up almost every seat

OUR SHIP-THE "DISNEY WONDER"

http://www.nedcruise.info/disney%20wonder.htm

The shops

1 of the many pools and at this one you could watch movies at night on the huge screen!

 The kids loved the Mickey Pool and it was hard to drag them away.
The Mickey Pool aboard the Disney Wonder in the Bahamas / Photo: Chrissy Pierce

McKenna dancing with Grandma to the live piano music in the Atrium while we waited to meet more Princesses. The piano player was super talented and didn't use any music!

Our ship also had this really nice movie theater where they played all kind of fun movies that are currently in theaters, we watched "Into the Woods" and "Big Hero 6" while we were there.

Natalie and Aya 

It was so fun to get a big group together and go to the shows after dinner every night. My favorite was "Disney Dreams"

 One of the highlights for the girls was of course meeting Elsa and Anna! They were so cute and fun and talked to each of the girls for awhile, answered there questions like "where is Olaf?!" and admired their Frozen art work so they were in Frozen heaven.

More Princesses!...

I love Kimberly's Elsa pose 

Grandma and Gradpa with the 2 oldest grandgirls about ready to board the ship


This picture say so much-I love it!

 


OUR SUITE

Our amazing 2 bedroom concierge suite! When Glenn & Lynda (our awesome personal crew members whose job was to take care of our every need-no seriously!) found out about our birthdays coming up and decorated our door for Hana and I!


This is the floor plan, pretty amazing! (the girls room was set up with 2 twin beds though, instead of the queen that is shown here) http://www.themagicforless.com/disneycruiseline/cabins.shtml

View of our front room and dining room with the veranda on the right

I loved having this veranda! I'd never even had a porthole on any of my previous cruises so this was AMAZING to be able to sit and look out over the ocean and listen to the waves, one of my most favorite sounds :) Some people in our group saw pods of dolphins and watched them playing and following the ship!


The super comfortable queen bed in the master bedroom. The towels folded into animals is always so fun on cruises! Our bedroom had doors that opened onto the veranda and was connected to an awesome bathroom with a jetted tub, separate shower, 2 sinks and a walk in closet!

The turtle towel was my favorite, of course

This is the girls' bedroom, it had 2 twin beds and one that pulled down from the ceiling which was perfect for cousin sleep overs! They also had a TV, walk in closet and private bath with a nice, deep tub!

AMAZING FOOD! 

Bushmans love to eat and we all enjoyed the endless supply of yummy food 

At the "Animator's Palate" dining room on the first night, table 1...

...and table 2

All the kids loved the "Mickey bars" and ordered them for dessert pretty much every night.

Aya's love of ketchup went up even higher when the waiter made her a ketchup Mickey!

Pirate night-these 2 are wild!

Breakfast at "Triton's"

 Hana's pick from the buffet one morning, she took this picture with her camera

Aya discovered something she loved-Sprite!

Since a third of our family has birthdays in January (Jacob Jr., me, Mom, Oliver, Kimberly, Dallin & Hana) we had a birthday celebration one night at dinner. Our waiters brought out birthday tiaras and hats and these delicious little birthday cakes.

The birthday cousin twins, Hana & Kimberly. They were born only 1 week apart.

Finishing up at the "Beach Blanket Buffet"

All this good food and excitement can be exhausting!

One night all of the adults went to the fancy adult only restaurant "Palo" while the kids ate at the kids club or with the older nieces, it was delicious and fancy and so much fun!

Loved spending lots of time with my boy!

My brother and his wife and their oldest daughter who bravely decided to join the adults since she's old enough now!

My cute and amazing parents

My younger sister and her husband

My older sister and her husband

My youngest sister and her husband

The best calamari I've ever had!

This chocolate souffle (with vanilla bean ice cream, cream and fudge sauce) was one of the best things I've ever eaten! We ordered several to be brought to our room the last night of the cruise and secretly invited the adults over so we could eat them again!

GRAND CAYMAN ISLAND

On Sunday we were on the amazing island of Grand Cayman and it was so cool to attend the branch there. After church we headed to a sea turtle farm!

This is us being tendered to the island to go to church. It was so fun to be surrounded by my fun, crazy family the whole week. Also, doesn't Aya look so much like her cousin McKenna? The cute twinners.

 All 28 of us at the LDS church building on Grand Cayman

On to the turtle farm...

Sea turtles are my most favorite animal so being able to hold a baby one was a dream come true-such a cool experience! I loved how soft their skin was, kind of velvety.

It was hard getting the kids out of the pool with the turtles!

 

THE DISNEY PRIVATE ISLAND "CASTAWAY CAY"


http://www.fitzness.com/blog/disney-cruise-line-making-wonderful-fit-family-magic-on-the-high-seas/disney-wonder-at-castaway-cay_2/

View of the island from the ship

Geoff and Captain Jack! This Captain Jack was hilarious and very much in character

 

On the Disney private island, named "Castaway Cay (Key)" the being pampered and spoiled continued as we had private cabanas right on the private beach!

Outside of the cabana on the ocean side

Inside of the cabana, where we all hung out during a huge rainstorm

 

And of course, the beach!...my favorite!

Savannah getting a mermaid tail

 

AND BACK AGAIN...

We took up a large section of the airplane

On our way home! We did pretty awesome to not lose anyone (or our sanity) with all 16 of our children, two of them being toddlers!

Many thanks goes to the older nieces who each had a little buddy or 2 that they kept excellent care of! I wish I had one of them at my house full time! Love you Savannah, Samantha, Marianne, Evelyn & Brooklyn-you ladies are the best!

Until next time...