My wife's parents are visiting us from Japan. This is their first trip to Minnesota. They came to meet the new baby, but I am sure that they are interested in seeing some of the sights around Minneapolis and Saint Paul (as well as around Monticello.) On Sunday, my parents, Kazuko's parents, and myself went to the Mall of America. (The Mall of America is the largest shopping center in the USA. There are about 450 stores and restaurants, as well as an indoor amusement park.) At the mall we...

Hey there friends. I hope that your day is going well. It is lunchtime here in Elk River, Minnesota. I think that the menu reads "Pizza Burgers." We'll see how those taste! After lunch I am going to have an important meeting, then I will probably be on my way home. We'll see how it all shakes out. Did you see the Christmas lights? Scroll down. Kazuko and I put them up yesterday. That was a lot of fun. They look so pretty in the dark! I think that I am enjoying my assimilation...

Hello there! I hope that you are all having a happy day out there. I am doing well. I finished another day at work. I only have three workdays left until I can meet our son. That will be exciting! It is hard to concentrate on anything else. I am really looking forward to all of that stuff. This morning I woke up to two surprises associated with owning an old house. My first surprise was that my kitchen sink wasn't working. Apparently the pipe that leads to the kitchen sink froze du...

Hello there! I hope that all of you are having a happy day. It has been snowing on-and-off here in Monticello, MN. The streets and sidewalks are basically clear, but there is a light covering of snow on the grass. It is beginning to look like winter. The sad news is that it looks like our oldest hedgehog, Chippy doesn't have a lot of time left. He has lost a lot of weight and he is very sluggish. The poor guy is almost at the end of his life-expectancy. He has been a really good pet....

Today is Tuesday. It is like a Monday because I spent all day Monday having meetings about school. So I come to work with a whole list of things that I need to get done. I find that downtimes during meetings are really good times to write to-do lists. So naturally the day after a meeting is an especially busy day at work. I want to get a lot of things done before the baby comes next week too. Who knows how much my life is going to change after that? So, did you all watch "Joe Millio...

Hi all! I suppose that I should start with the biggest news of the day. Kazuko just scheduled her cesarian section. Our baby will be coming out in the morning on Wednesday, November 12. I am sure that the days leading up to that date will be long, especially for Kazuko because she is awfully excited! (Me too of course!) I am home from work now. Today was full of meetings. In the morning we talked about reading, writing, and science in our school district. In the afternoon, I had a ...