Summer Lovin'

We have been having a blast this summer. Now that everyone is healthy we are making the most of getting outdoors. We only do excursions twice a week since Jason and I are both working on projects that require us to be home. Also, these excursions are a little exhausting and require a bit of recovery time. Like yesterday's trip to the beach. Without a car, getting four littles and their reluctant father to the beach was not an easy feat. We left early and came home late with countless station transfers in between. The sunburnt shoulders are proof that we not only made it to Utsumi Beach, but that we played in the Pacific Ocean for as long as possible.


One of the reasons we are enjoying summer more this year is due to the recent acquisition of the long sought after Family Bicycle. It makes getting around so much easier that for a few days it was hard to keep us indoors (and working on those projects I mentioned earlier).


We have a few more excursions before Nico has to return to kindergarten (for marching band practice of all things). Science museum, zoo, Pokemon movie, and the city fruit park. Sebastian is really excited about the last two things. The lull between the excursions are deemed boring but I think he also likes the lazy days too of reading comic books and building monsters in clay.

Summer is now ranking as the number one season on our charts. How's it going on yours?

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明けましておめでとう！Happy New Year!
We got our year started with steaming bowls of ozoni, served in special Oshogatsu Pokemon bowls, of course.



Then we were off on a Mama-venture, code for trips that involve lots of travel and little planning. Sebastian said he wanted to see mountains and Nico said he wanted to see snow so without further ado, we were off to Nagano.

We lighted in Nagiso, a small town known for lovely onsens and their tradition of wood turning (i.e., making beautiful bowls and trays from the local forest). There is also a trailhead for the Nakasendo, an old post road that connected Tokyo to Kyoto. I thought that is where we could get our bit of mountain-intake but Nico's wish for snow came true and we were not wearing snowshoes (or boots for that matter) so we had to content ourselves with walking around the small town.

Nagiso looks like it would be very nice to visit, you know, on a non-major holiday when everything was shuttered. They had a pedestrian suspension footbridge that crossed the town's namesake river, the Kiso. The kids played for a bit in a park where they were obviously preparing (though there was no one there) for a bonfire with a daruma perched on top of a tall stalk of bamboo.
The kids had at least fifteen snowball fights while we were in Nagiso, which was really exciting for them.






In the end, we took an express train home as the sun was setting and ended up eating fast food for dinner. This was another highlight of the day for the kids since fast food has been somewhat banned from our diets.

All in all, a good start to the year. Here's to 2012! (she says, raising her glass of water) The best to you and yours in this new year!

xo