Two weekends ago, my wife and I took our son (Kenny) to see grandma and grandpa in Duluth.  Kenny had lots of fun up there. Me, the baby, and my parents. Kazuko fed the birds. Feeding popcorn to the seagulls. Kenny liked chasing the seagulls around. Grandpa and Kenny watched a ship come in.  Kenny was afraid of the loud horn when the bridge went up.  

My wife made a new pair of pajamas for our son.  I think that they look really cute on him. Kazuko (my wife) took this picture of Kenny (our son) in his new pajamas, while he was watching the Roadrunner on TV.  He loves that show.  He calls it "Mee Mee."

Tonight at dinner, we had a tomato/ meatball soup.  While sitting our son down for dinner, I didn't notice that he had been carrying his toy hippo. During the meal, baby had a happy time making what he eventually called "hippo soup."  He happily ate the vegetables and the meatballs out from around his toy hippo. Hippo soup:

Here are a few of the photos that I received in my e-mail the other day. Kazuko, Kenny, and Madeline, getting ready to head for the Renaissance Festival. Kenny looks cool in this one.) My friend Andy and I at the Renaissance Festival. (I look terrible, but this is a good picture of Andy, so it shouldn't be wasted.) Kazuko and Madeline at the Renaissance Festival. All of us at the mall last weekend. (Chialing took that picture.) Kenny enjoying the fish at the...

Today we met some friends at the Mall of America.  We did a little shopping, we visited the aquarium, and we had lunch at a place called The Napa Valley Cafe. Kenny had been asking us about Mei Mei.  The first thing that he said yesterday morning when he woke up was: "Let's go see MeiMei!"  Today he got to see her. My son and I at the aquarium. Lunch was okay (not spectacular.)  I had a crab cake, avocado, and cheese sandwich.  Kazuko and Andy had ra...

Our son likes to pretend that he's a variety of animals.  Here is a picture of him as an elephant.  The sock in his mouth is the trunk.

Recently our little boy has been crazy about whales and sharks.  (Especially sharks!)  He's always talking about sharks, looking at pictures of them, and watching them (or asking to watch them) on television.  He sleeps with a plastic shark and a whale, and he probably says the word "shark" over 100 times every day.  It is really cute! We've found two cartoons that feature sharks.  One is "Misterjaw", which is played during "The Pink Panther Show" o...

We gave our son a haircut today.  We put him in his highchair, and we got him with the Flobee.  He HATED it.  He screamed and cried, and his nose was running like crazy. In the two-to-three minutes that it took to finish, he was just as happy as before we started.  (I can't imagine how he'd scream if we took him to a stylist.)

Teachers in my district have to report back on Thursday.  Goodbye summer vacation!  I have finished a lot around the house.  (Everything except my wife's bookshelf and our screen door.  I can do those quickly, even though they may be a little late.) To prepare myself for the next school year, I bought a few new items of clothes.  I bought a pair of shoes, jeans, three shirts, and two t-shirts. Here are the shirts.  My wife and I had a bit of a disagreement ove...

Every year in Saint Paul's Como Park, a Japanese festival is held.  There is food, concessions, displays, and performances relating to Japan and Japanese culture.  It is a fun time for our family. This year, our friends Rob and Nancy came to the festival with us.  They brought their little girl (Isadora) too. Isadora is nearly one year old.  She is a happy, friendly little girl. We got to see some taiko drummers.  The group that we say played in a non-traditio...

I have a few photos to post.  There may be little relation between them, so this is a miscellaneous photo post. I have been pulling lots of tomatoes out of my garden lately.  I have given a few away, sold some, and have eaten a lot.  I may try to make some salsa out of future tomatoes. This is what my biggest tomato looked like sliced up on a plate.  That was a big one. Kenny is crazy about sharks (and dinosaurs) lately.  He is looking at a book about ...

We bought our little boy a "Little Slugger" baseball cap.  The kind that kids have been wearing for years.  I think that it looks cute on him. "Baseball hat" is another one of baby's quickly growing list of two-word phrases.  Others are "Kenny come" (come with me), "Mama nook" (look), "Mama animal ", "Baby animal ", and probably a few others that don't come to mind right now. He is also good at introducing himself, his mom, and his dad; but he still needs some work at sayi...

Yesterday my family visited the Minnesota Renaissance Festival with my friend Andy's family.  (One of Kenny's new words is "Andy".  That's cute.)  The weather was as good as one could get for one of these (low -70s and clear), and there were surprisingly few people.  (Apparently the first weekend is always slow.)  I hope that the weather will cooperate on the first weekend next year! Here is the cup that we added to our collection of "Ren fest" cups.  This year w...

Last night my wife and I met some friends at the Cokato Corn Festival.  (It is my friend Andy's parents' home-town festival.  Somewhere out by Lake Woebegone might be.)  It is a festival in a smallish town in the opposite side of the county in which I live.  We had a really nice time.  We saw friends, we took baby on the merry-go-round and the big slide (he screamed), we ate some pork chops, and we had all the corn we could eat. Kenny ate two pieces of corn. A...

For the past two days we've been holding a garage sale at my house.  On day one (Thursday), we had all sorts of visitors.  They bought all of our good stuff.  (I think that I priced most of the stuff too low!)  Today was significantly slower than yesterday.  I wonder whether Saturday will pick up a little... Outside at the start: Inside at the start: Kenny gets to play outside sometimes during the sale.  Here he was yesterday, playing what he call...