Outdoor Fun

June is the rainy season here. And, well, it's definitely delivering. Also, super humid and sticky and icky! But we are still making the best of it, getting outside when we can and just accepting that it will be wet, muddy, and sweaty.

Part I

A few weeks ago, Jacob's school had a "day camp" day at a local campground. This was something between a family fun day and an organized family field day. It was totally awesome, really beautiful, and lots of fun.

First, we got to ride in the little school bus out to the campground:

The campground was really pretty. It also had a pretty fun playground area, which the kids definitely enjoyed!

Then it was time to sing songs and make lunch (which involved both making the campfire and washing the veggies).

Lunch was . . . yakisoba! Here's the grillmaster himself at work!

Which meant that my kids ate grapes, cookies, and juice.

Afterwards, there was a scavenger hunt and some races. This was exactly as awesome and as successful and as hilarious as you'd think it would be.

And then we went home and the parents collapsed. The end.


Part II

Our town had a big international culture festival, celebrating the cultures / traditions / foods of all the different people who live here. I'm not sure if this was a thing when we lived here ten years ago, but it is definitely a thing now - this festival was crowded! There were so many countries represented - booths were selling food, crafts, books, art, fabric, toys, etc. It was really fun. 

It's also interesting because it's my sense that there are comparatively few Americans here and that even Americans + Europeans + Australians together aren't the most significant foreigner group. I think there are far more Chinese, Indians, and South(east) Asians here - but I might be wrong about this. Anyway, whenever we go to Tokyo, I'm always shocked to see and overhear so many Americans and so much English. That is definitely not my daily experience here. It's not that there aren't foreigners here (there obviously are, many of them!) - it's that the distribution makes it a pretty diverse place to live, which is sort of unexpected in Japan.

The international festival also included a ropes / challenge course. Natalie could not wait to try it! She did great!


And then we celebrated with shave ice. Because: duh.

A few more random festival pics:

Part III

A few more random festival pics:We've also been going to the local parks. This takes lots of sunscreen and reminders to drink water, but, well, on nice days we feel like we have to get out because soon enough it will be raining again.

A few more random festival pics:Of course, no post (or park trip) is complete without ice cream. Consider this my sweet conclusion:

One month left

It seems like I'm only able to make monthly posts - which, at this rate, means that this may  be my last post (ever? from Japan? who knows?). I'd like to do one more Japan post about the kids' schools, though.

First, Father's Day and belated Mother's Day pictures. Both were very lovely!

Here's our Father's Day lunch:

 
Jacob's school did a little Mother's Day event. Natalie's school was out that day, so she attended, too.

My Mother's Day gift? Jewelry, of course. Modeled expertly by the gift-giver, who told me "I just gonna wear it for a little while." (Also, all my money is train-themed clothing these days. It's like a commodities investment or something.)


Actually, I also got a very lovely silver bracelet, but it's shockingly hard to take pictures of your own wrist without looking like you have ogre hands. So, well, you'll have to imagine (the bracelet, not the ogre hands). Possibly not helping on that front is this puppet of me that Natalie made me for Mother's Day....

In truth, I love it and hangs above my desk.

The other fun thing we did for Mother's Day was to go to the Nippori fabric district. I'm not a very skillful seamstress, although I have friends who are. I did some shopping for myself and some shopping for them. My hope is that I'll be able to make a tank top for myself and some matching pajama pants for our family. But there was lots of beautiful stuff! (There are also lots of people who have written about Tokyo fabric shopping tips; We only found the English map later in our walk through the neighborhood, but we also only went to the fourth floor of Tomato - plenty for us).

I'm really glad I got to do this - it was definitely something I wanted to see. Now I just hope I bought the right fabric for my projects!

Speaking of things that I wanted to do before we left? Show Natalie the imperial palace! The gardens are some of my favorite in all of Tokyo.

Definitely a summer garden, right? We also have summer out in Tsukuba. 

I don't know when my kids got so Japanese that taking off their shoes was a requirement of sitting on a park bench for a picnic . . . .

Japan doesn't do daylight savings, so the sun is rising here around 4:30am. Now that we've had the summer solstice, things are improving - by two minutes per day. I never, ever, ever want to hear people complain about the time change again. Ever. By evening, we are all veeeeeery tired.


But the next day, the kids magically have energy again.



And the parents have . . .  coffee! We have discovered an amazing way to make coffee ice cubes. We take our coffee very seriously. 

The coffee is required. The cozy is optional.

Mike was in DC for a week this month. That was challenging, but we managed. My biggest fear was that I'd have to take someone to the doctor - but that didn't happen. So, hey, the whole week was a total success! Here is a dinnertime picture I took of the kids when he was gone. This was early in the week: everyone is smiling and dinner looks sort of healthy and balanced (the baby doll is not part of dinner).

In closing, watch out for bears. And for children pretending to be kitty cats instead of going to bed. Both are equally harmful to your ability to enjoy a nice, quiet evening.