Backyard antics

 Boy, it isn't hard to get Ellie posing and looking cute for the camera !

Fun in the sunny outdoors

We started out the day with our typical Sunday bike ride with 8 kids (and Dawn) to Southland, sweated and pumped iron until our legs and arms were ready to drop and then headed home.  The temperture got up to almost 30 C today!  While Darcy did some running around and Ian napped I got out the sprinkler and pool and the kids ran around the yard for a while...

Katy asleep at the table!

Laurel at the park

Here is a rather contemplative shot of Laurel at the park...

Getting into it

 Florence seemed more interested in cake by the time the second one rolled around :)

Two birthdays, one day

With Daniel and Florence sharing a birthday, it was bound to be a busy day.  To start it off I flew all the way from Okinawa!  It was a gorgeous day for April in Calgary so we took advantage of it...

Extra day

With an extra day in Japan, I had some time to kill at lunch so I took a quick walk  around the hotel to get some shots and see what I could see.  It is close to the American base, so there were a lot of bars and pawn shops, but the street scene below is pretty typical.  I was pretty tempted to go in and try on the red suit :)

Fugu and hot coffee

This is my favorite Sushi spot in Okinawa - if I may have a favorite spot in a city I've been to twice now...  The atmosphere is great, the food is tasty, and it just has a nice feel to us.  It helps that I'm with locals that they recognize when we come in.  This is the same place we had beef sashimi when I was here last time, and this time I tried Fugu.  I suspect I would not have tried it had I read up on it beforehand - apparently blowfish is highly toxic if not prepared right.  You have to have a license, and supposedly it is quite safe if you aren't catching it and preparing it yourself.  However, finding out after having just eaten something that it might kill you if not prepared right is one of those things that you all of a sudden feel flushed and panicked.  I lived to tell the tale, apparently!  I suspect it is kind of like other things - we eat food all the time that if prepared incorrectly might make yo sick or worse (like sushi, or ground beef, or other undercooked meats), this is one more to add to the list.

 

Japanese vending machines are the best ever - they dispense cold drinks and super hot coffee from the same machine.  Under each item it is either blue or red, hot or cold. Nothing like getting a nice hot coffee with milk and sugar on the street when everything is closed.

Korean in Japan

I'm over in Japan for 10 days, and last night we went out for some Korean barbecue.  In this style of restaurant they have an open grill on the table and you order plates of cuts of meat, vegetables and so on.  Kim Chi is available in different varieties.  Pricing is all you can eat (for about $20), but you are emphatically warned not to order food and not eat it.  Interestingly, two kids under 5 eat free, but more than that are charged $10 each.

I ended up ordering beef tongue as one of my choices, figuring I might as well experience a new flavor.  Delicious, but definitely a different texture than steak...

Post hunt fun

After playing in the park at Claire's for a while, we headed to Dawn and Ryan's for lunch and then another family game in their park.  We played a couple of hours of baseball with some of the older kids.  It was pretty fun now that the kids are at the point where they can hit, throw and catch pretty well!