In fact the very first house tour that we did was a house tour,

And then earlier this year we did another house tour

But that was at our old house. Since then we found out that we had to move

We moved into this new place and now we're getting settled in,

We're just at the point that we're ready to give you a house tour.

And we have a big bonus this time

Because Ruth has the house all decorated for Christmas

So not only do you get the house tour, you get to see the Christmas decorations.

All right, let's go!

[Life in Japan Theme Song]

Hi! Come on in!

Ok!

Look at this festive, festive door.

Hi - come in!

Hello!

Look how tiny our entrance is compared to our previous house.

My goodness. How about that.

I see that some things have made the move.

They have. The important things.

Should we do an official house tour?

Let's do it! Especially now it's all decorated for Christmas. It's super cool.

First we're going to come to the Little's room.

It's the secret agent room.

Come in!

Joshua, we must find this camera now!

Go and look at your book!

OK

What is it?

I see it!

Ah! Let's catch it!

Oh my goodness guys!

Whoa!

Can you change? Oh! You can change the colors of your lights?!

That is cool! Look at that.

That's fantastic.

Alright, let's see. What's your favorite color?

This... and yellow.

I like this. Oh yea?

Girlfriend, how about in here? Challenges compared to where they used to be and now here.

This actually is a pretty good size.

The problem we've had is with the closet.

Because they open but the closets are way bigger.

So you can only get really narrow little drawers in there.

And then with the bunk bed that shelving unit— I mean our bund bed just fit perfectly.

Yea, that was fortunate.

Otherwise, it's pretty good.

We actually brought more furniture in here than we have now, don't we?

Yea, we've gotten rid of already some stuff.

It's the constant story of our life. Nate?!

Nate!

Agent?! I made it as a secret agent!

Wow!

Moving on

Then there's our room which is the least interesting of them all.

It's our favorite bed.

That's all the kids' favorite bed.

This is the kids favorite

I see it!

You need to watch me jump on it.

Oh gosh!

And then we have the tiny 4 tatami room (6.2 square meters/67 square feet)

Becca and Anna's room

Which they also have some cool lights. Let me plug their lights in.

Look at that. I just did that, because there was nothing to do.

Boring!

Oh my goodness!

See, they have ambient lighting.

I'll give you some editing to do.

We want to put like a comfy chair here but we haven't bought one yet.

And this had more furniture in it and then we...

Yes, we had a dresser in here but it just took up too much space

Because we have these weird-shaped ducts that come in here.

This whole room has a wierd shape.

So we bought drawers for under their bed.

So all their clothes are under their bed now.

Wow.

There's no space for our backpack.

I know- that's like Daddy's backpacks too.

Moving on.

Toilet.

This was on from the beginning.

Oh yes, we did not put that on

But amazingly it's in English.

It's screwed on. What?!

And then... shower

So this bathroom compared to the old one...

So, when it's teeth-brushing time all four kids are trying to fit in there and it's just a little bit tight.

Oh no! I don't have anything to use!

The oforu area, the bath area, is very nice. It's small, the tub is small. Everything's small. But it's nice.

And then you walk into our living/dining area and our extra tatami room

Which if you've seen our kotatsu video— that is the show of that video.

And it's our music room, it's my office. It's the everything room.

So- it's where we hang out. A lot.

OK Kotatsu time! Can I?!

Come, yeah. Everybody Kotatsu time.

You never know who's awake in the morning because this is how we find them.

And once they go into the Kotatsu?

Never come out.

It's hard to get them out.

Oh yep, there's one. There's another one.

This is often how we discover them, isn't it?

Bye!

This room has been kind of a challenge...

It's nice because we can close those Tatami doors

But the challenging thing with this room is that it's open, window, door, door

So that's the only solid wall in this room

So finding a place for our sofa which is large and our tv which is large was a little bit of a challenge.

But we think we've got it—well, we've already moved the sofa once since we've moved in

So who knows how many more times we'll move it.

It's a process getting settled in. But right now it's how we like it.

And we bought a smaller dining room table because our other one was just way too large.

This space, even though it's small it looks spacious because we have it open

And it opens to the tatami room which then makes it feel more spacious.

My kitchen, however...

It's much smaller than my previous one.

Included in it—like right here, which I'm not going to show you because it's a mess—is my laundry.

So my kitchen's from here to here.

And then I have a freezer and a fridge and then I have my mixer.

And then lots of trash.

Lots of trash.

Something that we noticed with the fridge — it's not a magnet.

It's not a magnet when we bought it.

So all of our magnets now from our travels

Are here.

And our family and stuff. On the freezer, huh?

That's right. We figured out how to hang things on walls.

We got some sticker hooks and stuff.

What about the most important station here?

The coffee? The coffee got booted out of the kitchen because it did not fit in the kitchen.

So now we have it out here.

And then because it's Christmas time...

Our little Christmas window! And we don't have a fireplace, we have a Christmas window.

We have the stockings up there that already have some things in it...the nativity set.

And the all-important nativity set. The whole reason for Christmas right here.

[Mary] Oh, I'm about to have a baby!

Oh wait, where's Joseph?

Oh! Oh sorry, wise man.

Oh, you guys aren't here yet.

Oh! There's a stable! Let's go to the stable.

Oh wait, baby Jesus isn't here yet.

Ah! I'm going to have a baby!

[Angelic Voice] Hallelujah!

[Donkey] Oh, cute little baby! I'm going to... [Mary] Stop it!

That really didn't happen though, That didn't really happen?

And then the wisemen came and gave them gifts.

Probably brought them some food maybe. I don't know.

And the baabaa sheep goes like "Hi, baa!"

And wakes up the baby, and it cries.

That's not real too.

Since we do have everything decorated really nice for Christmas we'll do one more walk through once it's dark outside.

Because then you can really see the Christmas lighting.

Oh and if you notice this is from the old house, this light.

That's right!

Since they were tearing our whole house down they said anything we wanted to take we could take

So we actually took an air conditioner that was a part of the house,

We took this light,

Fun fact: our air conditioner now is our air conditioner from before!

That's true.

Anna! I need you to show me your favorite place to do art.

In the kotatsu. Just kidding.

In the kotatsu?! What's your second favorite place to do art?

No, that's not... that's my second [favorite place]

Oh that's your second? What's your favorite place

The favorite place is over here, huh?

Into the... wait, that didn't work.

Into the un—no, wait—known!

Oh, there we go.

Oh yes!

That is a fantastic art spot, isn't it?

Fresh air!

It sure is, huh?

And what a view from up here!

Look! It goes on forever-oh.

It's chilly out! Alright, let's go back in.

Bye Daddy!

Wait wait wait!

In our 19 years of marriage, Ruth and I have lived in 6 different places across 3 continents.

It's begs the question: what makes a house feel like a home?

If you ask me, it's when sacrificial love fills the space,

and our home is filled with the love of God in Jesus.

This makes all the difference.

It creates the kind of environment where family and friends alike feel welcomed and loved.

I've known Yoshiko maybe 7-8 years.

It's the cookies before the cookies, huh?

I eat cookies.

Oh, ne?

Yes, Anna's training her Portuguese.

Sarah, look at that dress! How nice! Are you eating Christmas cookies?!

Ah! What?!

Your thumb is red too! Look at that. Oh my goodness! What a red thumb.

Do you hide out in here when all the ladies are in there working on cookies?

Yep.

Cookie decorating time.

Yea!

Ok, so now let's just do a quick tour through the house at night so you can get the full effect of all the lights that we have up.

First we'll start in—well the genkan (entrance) area

We have trees and lights, it's just so nice.

And a dinosaur in case you were wondering.

Never know the things that our cousins leave over.

It's from my nephew.

And then Joshua and Sarah's room, which is their pride and joy.

Sixteen different colors Whew.

And then we have our hallway of lights.

I love it.

So pretty. It's actually quite bright.

Mmmm hmmm.

And then the girls' room is so pretty with their mood lighting.

Awww.

It looks like a grown-up/teenager room.

Yes, it is. Is it not? They're growing up.

And then where we hang out all the time.

Don't forget my little snowmen, I love snowmen.

The snowmen have been noted.

And then we have the hangout room.

Ahh! Oooh look at that Christmas tree.

The girls are ready to hang out.

Oh, they sure are.

These are all the holiday "feels" right here.

Yes.

OK, so there's so many things we love about our new place.

So once we come into the house, it's all on one floor.

Which is so convenient.

It's much easier to clean, there's no steps to clean

It's just—there's no wasted space.

We have large, very large balconies.

But we're close to the kids schools, it's so convenient.

There's grocery stores close by, we're close to a train station,

And since we're close to a train station there's so many convenience stores and things around us

Restaurants around us, which is just wonderful

I'm loving it.

Glorious! Glorious.

And Anna just likes it because she can chill on the couch.

And under the kotatsu.

That's right.

My bed. My bed.

She always sits on my leg every single day.

She sits on your bed? Because you're the bottom bunk!