Hello there. I am at homewith Kazuko and Kenny. My mom and dad and Kazuko's mom and dad are also here. We're having a nice time. It is interesting that our parents are able to communicate somehow without speaking each-other's language. On Saturday night, we had a little party at our house to welcome Kenny and Kazuko's parents. I cooked some ribeye steaks outside on the barbecue. Ribeye steaks are awfully good! This afternoon we may go someplace nice for lunch with both parents. Ma...
Hello there. I hope that everybody is having a happy day. I am doing fine. I am a little sleepy. Kenny likes to wake up at around 10:30 at night. I really like to have time with him when he is awake, so I need to stay up later than usual so that I can enjoy some time with the baby when he is awake. He is so cute when his eyes are open and he is alert! (Of course he is awfully cute when he is sleeping too. He is a good cuddler.) I am hoping to get my computer back from the repair sho...
Happy Friday Everybody! Today is the last day of school before Thanksgiving break. On Monday and Tuesday I will have conferences so it isn't like a week off, but the students will have a nice long break. Last year I taught my students a lot of stuff about Thanksgiving. I had accumulated a lot of good materials to use to teach about the holiday. A few minutes ago, I realized that I had forgotten to teach any Thanksgiving-related stuff to the kids this year. I must have been too preoccup...
Hello there! Big news for us! The first thing is that we have finally gotten our computer back. I am posting pictures that I have taken of Kentaro and myself that were taken a few hours ago. As of today, Kentaro is nine days old. He is getting cuter and cuter every day. It is so surprising that as I return home from work each day, he looks like a different person. I am so happy to see that he is getting bigger and bigger. The second piece of good news is that I have gotten my new g...
Tomorrow we will be celebrating Thanksgiving. It is an American holiday that is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. The holiday is related to European settlers coming to the United States. It is used to commemorate a shared feast between the Indians and the Pilgrims in the early days of settlement. (There are also some troublesome issues of perspective, but I choose not to discuss them here.) My family will get together to have a special dinner at my grandmother's house. Typ...
Hello there. It is a lazy Saturday afternoon. Kazuko is feeding the baby, and is about to take a nap. My mother-in-law is watching ice skating on television. I am sitting at the computer, enjoying a cup of coffee. It is such a nice relaxing day to stay inside and enjoy what we have. I have even been able to refresh the photographs on my website. You can take a look if you'd like. After two long days of parent-teacher conferences on Monday and Tuesday, our Thanksgiving holiday star...
Hi friends! I am here at home. I just enjoyed a nice dinner of pork chops that Kazuko cooked. She is pretty good at cooking yummy food for us. After dinner, we gave Kentaro a bath. He is all nice and clean now. We dress him up in pretty warm clothes all of the time so he tends to get sweaty, and he needs a bath. Now he will be alert for awhile until he gets sleepy again. (He is sitting in the living room with Grandma right now.) Other than those stories, I don't have much to write...
Hello there! I have had a nice relaxing evening. I had a chance to take some pictures of Kenny, Mommy, and myself. Here is what our little friend looks like at the age of seventeen-days: The first picture is one of Kenny with wide-open eyes as he lays on the changing table. (Thanks for the table Isabel!)
Hello there. Happy after-Thanksgiving to all of you! We all went home pretty stuffed last night. It was hard to think about food until this morning came. Right after we woke up today, we brought Kenny to the doctor. He and his mother were due for their two-week check-up. Mom and baby are doing very well! It is nice to hear good news. After the appointment, we went back home to pick up grandma (Kazuko's mom,) and we had lunch at Perkins, and then we went shopping at Cub Foods. At P...
Hi all! Kazuko, Kenny, and I, my mother-in-law, and my parents just got home from grandma and grandpa's house for Thanksgiving dinner. We all came home very full! My plate was full of yummy food. We had: turkey, squash, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, wild rice, pickles, pumpkin pie, and pecan pie. It was all very yummy. The pickles that we ate at the dinner were very good. My grandmother had pickled them herself. I think that I will go to the supermarket to buy some jars, cucumb...
Hey there. I am in the middle of a long day here at the school. I have conferences all day. I am writing during the first lunch break. I can hardly wait for the day to be over because I will have a five-day Thanksgiving vacation. On Thanksgiving, we will be going to my grandmother's house. That will be Kenny's first trip out of the house. It should be exciting! Now my biggest problem for the rest of the day is: am I hungry enough to go to get lunch now, or should I wait for the din...
Hello there! I just got home from taking my father-in-law to the airport. It was so nice that he was able to come to see the baby. I was sad to see him go. He is a really interesting guy. I suppose that we'll meet again when we go to Japan next summer. Driving to and from the airport was really slow and dangerous today. Going there wasn't so bad actually, but the traffic got really bad on the return trip. About five miles from my house the roads got really slippery and i...
Hello there my friends! I hope that all of you are having a happy weekend. I just finished watching the day's sumo matches. Tomorrow's match between Tochiazuma and Asashoryuu will be awfully interesting. I am predicting here that Tochiazuma will win (even though I am a Asashoryuu fan.) Anyway, this is what I looked like watching sumo tonight. It was fun! Today I had an interesting day with my mother-in-law and my father-in-law. The first thing that we did was to drive to Sam's...
Last night I went to play a golf simulation game with my friend Andy and my father in-law. It was fun. We "played" nine holes on a course in Banff, and nine holes on a course in Hawaii. Of course the simulation isn't as good as real golf, but it is as good as one can get in November in Minnesota. Surprisingly I tend to get the same score playing simulated golf as I do playing real golf, so I suppose that the simulation has some sort of validity. Today is Thursday. After work I will go...
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...