Yuki Daruma

The overnight snowfall got the kids all excited about building a snowman. It is their first significant snowfall in three years afterall. So we went out and built a snowman and gave him a dog too. He didn't tip over, contrary to how it looks. But our attempts to fix him might have hurt him. He's still standing, for now anyway.

Recent Pictures

This is Kaori's recent artwork. The owl isn't copied from anything, the teacher just kind of showed them how to draw it.










Cole has recently taken up rock climbing. Here he is at our local health club, Lifetime Fitness. He can climb all the way to the top.
















And here are our trick or treaters.












By the way, I'm leaving the current poll up until I get more votes. Four isn't enough.

Jack-O-Lantern Time

One a frigid, snowy, windy Sunday afternoon we braved the elements to pick out our pumpkins for Halloween this year. We did a fine job in spite of being bundled up and in a weather-induced hurry. What you see at left are the fruits of our labor. Nice don't you think? Remember, you can click on the picture for a larger view.

More Art

The second installment of Kaori's art. This one isn't a reproduction but it focuses instead on perspective. See how things in the distance are smaller than things closer up? Like the small tree on the opposite shore versus the taller cattails. She's a budding artist.

Yellowstone National Park

I recommend a trip to Yellowstone National Park but must add that ours was definitely enhanced by kids that behave and travel well in the car. We did a fair bit of driving throughout the park and Cole and Kaori were so good the whole time.

Highlights of our trip were seeing the animals, scenery, geysers in Yellowstone and playing Uno at night. Surprisingly, seeing Old Faithful erupt was a bit anticlimactic. Maybe my expectations were too high or the rest of the park just outshone its most famous member. Evidently Old Faithful is neither the biggest nor prettiest geyser to watch. And ever since an earthquake in the park in the 80's is it not the most reliable. Now it erupts every 90 minutes give or take 10.

Click here to see our pictures from Yellowstone. Fair warning here, there are a lot of pictures. You will see many buffalo, elk, bighorn sheep, rock formations, waterfalls, kids and hot water springs. Unfortunately no moose or bears.

Old Faithful

As the countdown on the left says, the kids have a couple days off from school this week. So we've decided to take a little mini-vacation to Yellowstone National Park. We'll be staying at the Snow Lodge near Old Faithful. The lodge is appropriately named since they do have a couple inches of snow already. Might be a little chilly but we're planning on having fun anyway. Pictures to follow.

Kaori's Cats

Kaori started a new drawing class last Thursday after school. She enjoys art so much and really enjoyed her art class in Tokyo that she wanted to do another. This is a drawing of Charles Wysocki's "Kitty's Treat". I think each week they'll do another drawing of a famous painting or piece of artwork. See the original here.

"I shall return."

Last weekend I was lucky enough to once again return to Japan and see some friends. On Friday I ran around the Imperial Palace with friends and then we went out to eat. Over the weekend I went to Murakami to participate in a triathlon. Unfortunately the sea was too angry to allow us to swim so it became a run/bike/run event. Still quite enjoyable.

I returned Monday to my family that I missed very much. Still I'd like to repeat the trip sometime. At left is a picture of my friend Chiba-san and me.

Cole's Football Picture

Cole enjoys being a football player. He likes wearing the uniform and having people watch him play. I'm sitting at all the practices for 2 hours. Go to all the games. Buy the snacks and drinks and drive him all around. Then when he finally grows up and gets on TV he'll probably say "Hi Mom!"

Of Weather and Health Clubs

Obviously one big difference between Tokyo and here this time of year is the weather. About now Tokyo is still experiencing 85 degrees from morning to night with an equal level of humidity. It generally stays the same all day. Last Tuesday I got up and it was 70 degrees at 6:30 AM; a pleasant day. The very next day was less than 50 at the same time. Did Fall fall that quickly? I mean I'll be the first to admit I'm a weather-wimp but let's have a little more gradual movement here.


Also in Tokyo the sun spends much of its day high up in the sky, relentlessly beating down on you from above. I had forgotten that here in the northern altitudes it tends to be low in the sky during morning and evening hours, providing little warmth while also serving to be a blinding light; quite effectively hiding any oncoming traffic. Soon it'll disappear over the southern horizon not to be seen again until Spring. Listen to me, sounds like I live in Northern Alaska.

When we were in Tokyo I would ride my bike the 2 or 3 miles to local pools to swim and consider it an easy trip without the hassle of riding and changing trains on the subway. Plus it was an easy way to get a few miles of training in on the bike. Well, here it seems I can't be bothered to ride even the 1.2 miles to the local health club. My excuses are that I needed to hurry to get back and pick up the kids, that I needed the time to continue to unpack stuff at home and that the road to the club has very narrow shoulders and it is scary to ride on. This last excuse has the added benefit of even being true. Anyway, I've vowed to do better in the future. As long as time, traffic and life permits anyway.

Moving In

Moving into a house isn’t something you do over the course of a weekend. It takes weeks and even months. This is the task we have now set upon for the third time in three years. The kids especially enjoy visits to our storage so we can pick up new “treasures” in our boxes and bring them home. One advantage of not marking the boxes very well is the excitement of finding long forgotten momentos, toys and trinkets. I could name a few distinct disadvantages here but I’m focusing on the positive.

Well after the troubles with buying our house we are finally in and the very reasons that we wanted it in the first place are paying off. We liked the house for the neighborhood which was full of children, playsets and young families. The first day that the kids and I spent here they were gone for most of it playing with the neighbor kids. They just decided to go knock on their door to see if they could pet the dog. Turns out they have girls that are 6, 9 and 12. Two doors down from us are brothers that are 7 and 9. Currently one of Cole and Kaori’s favorite activities is to go and introduce themselves to the neighbors. Quite out of character for them. Lately the neighborhood kids have been coming out of the woodwork.

Mowed the lawn and it took me one and a half hours. That was just straight mowing time; no bagging. Definitely have to check out the riding lawn mower sales at the end of this season.

Cole is endeavoring to play tackle football this Fall. I didn't get to play tackle football until seventh grade. He's very excited and has his pants and jersey and helmet and everything. I'll definitely have pictures to post for that.

Vroom, vroom

I have now mowed two lawns since being back, my dad's and my brother/sister-in-law's. And I have two observations.

First of all, I didn't really miss mowing lawns. Not at all. Not a bit. Not in the least. Call me lazy. Yardwork isn't high on my list anyway, but then neither is housework or workwork. So it is something that I didn't really notice was gone but now that it's back I want it gone again.

Secondly, I seem to be out of top lawnmowing form. I've been smashing into things, running over stuff, barely able to keep up with the self-propelled lawnmowers, spilling gas on myself, etc. I guess this isn't a skill that gets lost over the winter months but definitely atrophies over 3 years. I'd go without it again though if I had the opportunity.