The last day of Anthony's school before breaking for the summer -- the Japanese school year starts in April, so summer break is during the middle of a grade -- included a sleepover for all the first graders, right at the school. I went to pick him up at the appointed time on Sunday, but he ended up playing with some friends for a while.

First we piled the kids into some cars and headed over to a nearby river play spot, one that Anthony played at last year. This year, though, he wasn't really in the mood to play [...]

So, picking up where I left off at the end of my post the other day about last fall's Daimonji Hike, we were at the top of the (short) mountain and sat down for lunch.

At one point, Anthony and Kana-chan sat quietly eating lunch....

The functional part of the sentence above is "one point," because at all other points they were being crazy and silly, as this pair are known for.

It went on and on.

I was giving my relatively-new Nikkor 70-200/2.8 a try, prior to getting its autofocus repaired, using it manually. One of the shots was [...]

Anthony has almost doubled in age since he started preschool, and today his tenure as a kindergartener ended. He graduated preschool today, and starts first grade next month.

Anthony looks sharp in a suit, but a kid should look like a kid, so the shorts Fumie selected maintain that perfect balance of "dressed up" and "still a kid". It's the same ensemble that Curious George modeled a few weeks ago, with a real necktie and all.

The ceremony wasn't too long, with some speeches and songs, but eventually the kids were called up in alphabetical order, and soon it was [...]

I feel absolutely overwhelmed with stuff I want to write about and share.

I was hoping to finally get around to posting about some interesting things from last week's trip to Kanazawa. I'd already done one post with a few pics from Kenrokuen Gardens, but there's so much more, including the interesting "Modern Art (Japanese Style)" train station, and a pool you can go into without getting wet...

However, those plans got interrupted because Saturday was the graduation ceremony at Anthony's preschool, which created its own subject matter that awaits posting. I did do the one already, but I could [...]