Saturday, May 19, 2007

It's all about the teeth


The overwhelming theme of last week was teeth. Ethan cut his first two teeth and Andrew lost his first tooth and several days later lost his second. They of course had been holding on by a thread for over a week. As you can see from the photo his new teeth are in. He actually had the two "new" growing behind his baby teeth. Andrew hates this picture. He wasn't quite awake yet and he had "bed head".




These were taken last week as well, Ethan is getting so big. Six months yesterday. I love the black and white one. What sweet boys.....

Monday, May 07, 2007

ASO SAN (Mt Aso)




These pictures were taken while we were on our trip south. Aso san is about 50 km from Kumamoto city. We stopped here on our way back to the ferry that brought us back to Yokosuka. The weather was great but Aso received 25 cm of snow 2 days prior to our visit. Andrew thought it was great. He also thought that Aso was "stinky". We took a cable car up most of the way but did have to hike a good bit (a rather steep bit) to get to the overlook.

This from an online resource.......... Mt. Aso, which lies almost in the center of the island of Kyushu, is an active composite volcano. The crater, which measures 18 kilometers (11 miles) from east to west and 24 kilometers (15 miles) from north to south, is not only the world's largest caldera; it is also said to be the most beautiful.

Lisa...I've tried to post a comment to your blog and wasn't able to. And I've not done any knitting in about 2 weeks. I've been sticking mostly to socks and baby hats these days. Small projects with patterns I know by heart. That way when I have interrupted knitting (I forget what it's like to knit uninterrupted) I can find my place easily. Also small projects allow for instant gratification.

Karen (and MA girl Lisa also)....Now that we have Clemons watch out....1st place here we come! :)

Tanya...I want to see pix of your MD purchases!

Sunday, May 06, 2007

National Children's Day aka Boy's Day


May 5th is Children's day in Japan. Until recent years it was known as "Boy's Day". Tradition was to fly a carp flag for each male in the household. Now I think you fly a carp for each member of the household. I've noticed that most Japanese people on Kyushu (where the boys are from) still do it the old fashioned way (just boys). This beautiful flag set was "blackcatted" (Japanese UPS) from Andrew's baba(birth grandmother). And seeing how she's older and from Kyushu she sent a traditional set....one for each of my boys. We are the talk of the neighborhood. Most of my neighbors have out a little set(pole and carp are about 12 inches long). This set is huge. The largest flag is 2 meters long and the pole extends like 10 feet. Flying this thing the past week has made me feel like one of the "natives".


Tanya the "mystery" green knitted "item" from the last post is this beautiful handmade baby blanket (the picture doesn't do it justice) from Jenny A. She bought the yarn (don't ask I've forgotten)at Yuzawya. And thought it would be perfect for Ethan. She basically followed the dishcloth pattern until it was as wide as she wanted and then she decreased one side while increasing the other until it was the right length. Then she decreased both until the end. It is just perfect and we take it everywhere.