Welcome!
A shaky day at work
I’m on the “shink” to Nagoya, where I’ll be teaching tomorrow at Chukyo University. Although I have two more Fridays there, my classes at Togaku end on Monday, January 16th. It has been a very busy week, mainly because I’ve had to wrap up classes, mark papers, and get my grades in. Basic end-of-term teacher stuff. Things are going well over all.
The only shake-up came today during the afternoon when I suddenly heard my cell-phone shrieking. It was that unmistakable earthquake warning sound. My co-worker Clair and I were in the TK office, but nothing was happening. Then slowly the building started to rumble and then sway a bit. We were on pins and needles for a few seconds, wondering if the shaking would build up or wind down. Fortunately it soon subsided, and life went back to normal. That’s life in the big city! Turns out the quake was a 5.7 and didn’t do any damage. I’m grateful for that! This kind of occurrence has become a part of life these days.
Favorite Family Photos: Kids in a net
This photo was taken in early summer of 2011 at a new park playground near Toyama Station. They have this cool super jungle-gym thing that has nets and rope ladders for kids to play on. Here Luke and Max share a fun moment inside one of the nets. I took them there during one of my “carpe diem” weekends during work periods when I’d be away from home all week. I tried my best to make the most of my time with the kids, so I’d often be taking them to parks and stuff to play.
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If something bad happened and you could only save a handful of your photo collection, which ones would choose? That’s the question guiding this series of blog posts I’m dubbing “Favorite Family Photos”. It’s a chance to look back at the past 10 years and revisit special moments in our family’s history. These are our best and most precious memories.
Favorite Family Photos: Kids riding bikes
Max learned to ride a bicycle during the summer of 2011. We got here this little bike with training wheels, and she rode it with enthusiasm. Here’s a shot of her riding on the street in front of our home with her older brother. I really like this photo because it captures the kids’ smiles very well. Luke’s hand on his little sister’s shoulder is also a beautiful thing for me, signifying his love and support for her. Sure they squabble a lot, but in the end they are really close, something which shines through in this photo. I like this one so much that I’ve been using it as the wallpaper for my laptop and iPad.
Note: Color effects done with Colorsplash on my iPad.
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If something bad happened and you could only save a handful of your photo collection, which ones would choose? That’s the question guiding this series of blog posts I’m dubbing “Favorite Family Photos”. It’s a chance to look back at the past 10 years and revisit special moments in our family’s history. These are our best and most precious memories.
Favorite Family Photos: Max under a cherry tree
Max’s grandfather took this one of her in the spring of 2011, as the cherry blossoms were blooming in our neighborhood. It came out really well and brings up one of the things I love best about our neighborhood- the plentiful presence of cherry trees. There are a bunch right in front of our house and hundreds more that line a bike path around the park in front of our home. They usually bloom in the first week of April. That is a really really beautiful time of the year.
Note: Color effects done with Colorsplash on my iPad.
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If something bad happened and you could only save a handful of your photo collection, which ones would choose? That’s the question guiding this series of blog posts I’m dubbing “Favorite Family Photos”. It’s a chance to look back at the past 10 years and revisit special moments in our family’s history. These are our best and most precious memories.
Winter break is over; time to get back to work
I’m back in Nagareyama and after a very nice winter break. Work starts again for me tomorrow. My main job will be to wrap up my classes for this school year, which ends on January 16th. Then I’ll be free to work at home until April. I’ll be very busy with several projects, but I’ll have time to look ahead to that later on.
Looking back, I really enjoyed my time off with family. I was off from December 20th until today. Some of my highlights you can see in the photo above:
- A big road trip to Tokyo and Osaka with the family, including camping out in our small Nagareyama apartment, a day at Disney Sea, a long drive to Osaka, and then a fun day at Universal Studios.
- When we returned to Toyama, winter was in full force. We had a few big storms, and it was winter-wonderland time again.
- Luke & I went snowboarding only once, but it was an awesome day with perfect conditions. I’ll take one perfect day to five mediocre ones any time.
- Our neighbor’s daughter, who is in Max’s class at kindergarten, came over a lot to play.
- Lot’s of swimming. Lots!!! With long, exhausting sessions like this one. I trained with Luke for five days straight after we got back to Toyama, and by the last day I could barely move. I was smashed. Then we took six days off for Christmas and New Years. After that we did another 4 days. I felt tired but not smashed tired after the 2nd cycle. I’m encouraged by this progress.
- Christmas was very white and peaceful. It’s not the big deal here as it is in the States, but we had a nice time going to church on Christmas Eve (with Luke altar-boying and acting in a play at the party afterwards) and opening presents in the morning. We also went shopping at a Toys-R-Us later in the day, and the kids enjoyed that. Surprisingly they didn’t want anything big. That was interesting…
- Most days were spent at home doing year-end cleaning and working on updating this blog. We got the back storage room cleaned and organized, a new bookshelf for the kids made, and rearranged the living room to make space for Shinobu’s beloved kotatsu. We also all got haircuts at Shinobu’s parent’s barbershop, which was nice!
- Getting this blog moved from Wordpress over to Tumblr was a MAJOR job, but it was a total blast. I’ve really enjoyed the hard work and now look forward to staying in touch all the more this year with this new & improved set-up. I won’t go into details, but it’s safe to say I had fun geeking out!
- New Years was also peaceful. We did the typical routine, which I wrote about here.
- Finally, as if to cap things off, we had a lovely afternoon with my colleague and friend Theron and his family yesterday. Now I have the secret to awesome pizza and look forward to making it more! I’m especially excited that his six year old son Jonah has hit it off with my kids. I hope they will continue to be friends.
So that’s about it for winter break 2011-12. Time now to focus on wrapping up this school year. I’ve got a lot of work ahead in the next 10 days, but I’m also looking forward to it.
Favorite Family Photos: Our home in winter
This is my favorite shot of our home during my favorite part of the year: on a sunny day after huge snowstorm. We had way more snow in the winter of 2010-11 than usual, which created a lot of trouble in our western-Japan region (Hokuriku). But it also created a beautiful winter-wonderland atmosphere, one that I really really love.
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If something bad happened and you could only save a handful of your photo collection, which ones would choose? That’s the question guiding this series of blog posts I’m dubbing “Favorite Family Photos”. It’s a chance to look back at the past 10 years and revisit special moments in our family’s history. These are our best and most precious memories.
An afternoon with Theron’s family:
My colleague and friend Theron came over to our house yesterday with his family for an afternoon of pizza and playing in the snow. We had a great time making the pizza. Theron showed me how it’s really done. I learned a lot! The kids also helped out and had a blast. Luke’s pizza, the first one he’s ever made all by himself (I usually help him), featured a happy face made from ham and pineapple. Theron’s son Jonah also made a pie, and it was either all meat or all cheese. After lunch we went outside to play in the snow. The boys made forts for a snowball fight, and I made a little incline for Max to sled down. As we played, the moon rose over the Tateyama mountain range. Awesome sight! We had a great time and look forward to more such get-togethers once Theron’s family moves to Toyama this spring.
Favorite Family Photos: Max playing in the snow
Max loves playing in the snow during the winter. Here’s a lovely shot of her outside our house during the winter-for-the-ages 2010-11. She especially loved sledding on a little hill of snow I piled up and making snowmen. It took a lot of prep to get her ready to go outside, so we only did this a few times, when the conditions and weather permitted. Still, those were fun times!
Note: Color effects done with Colorsplash on my iPad.
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If something bad happened and you could only save a handful of your photo collection, which ones would choose? That’s the question guiding this series of blog posts I’m dubbing “Favorite Family Photos”. It’s a chance to look back at the past 10 years and revisit special moments in our family’s history. These are our best and most precious memories.
Favorite Family Photos: Luke relaxes in the snow
In the epic winter of 2010-11, I had fun playing with the kids outside. We made snowmen, snow angels, did some sledding, and had snowball fights. Here’s a nice shot of Luke as he relaxed in the snow before making a snow angel. I really like how this came out- Luke looks natural and un-posed, a big plus in my book.
Note: Color effects done with Colorsplash on my iPad.
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If something bad happened and you could only save a handful of your photo collection, which ones would choose? That’s the question guiding this series of blog posts I’m dubbing “Favorite Family Photos”. It’s a chance to look back at the past 10 years and revisit special moments in our family’s history. These are our best and most precious memories.
Favorite Family Photos: Max’s 1st time sledding
Here’s a favorite shot from the winter of 2010-11: our daughter Max sledding for the first time. The snow was so high that it reached nearly over her head. I piled it up to make a mini-slope and then dug out a pit for her to slide into. It was a total blast. Max had a great time, as you can see from this video. I grew up in upstate NY, and I have memories of playing in snow above my head. I hope Max will remember this experience as fondly as I remember my days of playing in the snow as a kid.
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If something bad happened and you could only save a handful of your photo collection, which ones would choose? That’s the question guiding this series of blog posts I’m dubbing “Favorite Family Photos”. It’s a chance to look back at the past 10 years and revisit special moments in our family’s history. These are our best and most precious memories.
