Michelle is just a bitty thing here, just a few days old. Note the greenery on the lanai. Yep, that's corn. And Brussels sprouts. And carrots and melons and zuchinni and all sorts of other wonderful vegetables and flowers that got blown away in the fall typhoons. Sigh! We'll try again this year.
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Bath time. Gettin' to be a mighty full tub, even without Brian's dinosaur. By the way, bubble baths are not a Japanese custom. Putting any kind of soap in the bath would be like putting food coloring in the rice cooker. It simply isn't done. The very thought is horrifying. The bath and the rice cooker are the two purest, most sacred vessels in the Japanese home. Putting anything in them other than water or rice would violate their 'purity'. But try telling that to your kids. |
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Michelle is sleeping, but if she's dreaming, it must be a nightmare: the night of the living frogs. Yet all Calvin wanted to do was show his little sister the interesting frogs that he had caught for her. Grandma Kariya's house in Gobo, Wakayama, has a large garden full of things to fascinate a boy like Calvin, including bugs of all kinds, birds, land crabs, and, of course, frogs. And Calvin is the all-time champeen frog catcher. He can clean out Grandma's garden of frogs in a short evening and still have time to pick up a bug or two. I generally manage to persuade him to let them go the next day, but we have been known to bring several home to Rokko Island for the terrarium. |
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When we bought this Sesame Street toy for Calvin almost 7 years ago, we were outraged at how much it cost -- 12,500 yen, or about $140. But now that it is on its third child, it doesn't seem so expensive. A mere 4,000 yen per child. | |
Yep. Back to the pouch. It, too, is on its third child, though B grew so danged big and heavy so fast that he didn't get to ride in it for very long. |