Today was our 10th wedding anniversary.

It wasn't quite what I might have visualized 10 years ago – we were all pretty tired, and even normally robust Anthony was a bit under the weather – but Fumie and I got here together, and that's what it's all about.

Her mom invited us for Happy-Anniversary pie (a pie that Anthony felt the need to put candles in)...

Anthony was torn between wanting to put candles in, and wanting to eat the chocolate card and chocolate eye...

You may well be wondering why an apple pie for a 10th wedding anniversary, [...]

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Anthony's kindergarten had a field trip yesterday, so the pickup time and location were different from normal, this time near the spot in Kyoto where the Kamo river joins the Takano River to become (oddly enough) a different Kamo River.

He wanted to play more, and his friend Akiko-chan hadn't left yet, so we decided to go down to the river together to play. I didn't have my nice camera with me, but I took a few snaps of the fun with my cell-phone camera.

Akiko-chan's mom and I spent much of the time yelling "nooooo, not in the water!" [...]

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I ended my previous post about day 2 of camping with Anthony with the story that we'd returned from dinner in time for the sunset.

When we got out of the car at the campsite, Anthony was playing with a superhero toy of some sort that he got at the store. (Because camping is special, "we" decided that he can get a small $2 or $3 toy each day that we happen to go to a store while camping.)

A boy about his age was walking by with his mom, and made a comment about the toy. It turns out [...]

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Picking up my "Camping with Anthony" story from after our early-morning walk on Day 2....

The campground is on a cliff overlooking part of Kotobikihama (northern Kyoto Prefecture, Japan), a large beach more than a mile long, with many distinct sections. We spent the rest of the morning, and the early part of the afternoon, exploring, but it eventually came time to get wet.

Nearest the campground was a section of wide beach fronted by rocky outcroppings....

( Anthony is right of center )

In the picture above, you can see Anthony sitting in a small stream that's cutting through [...]

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Picking up my "Camping with Anthony" story (about my camping trip with Anthony to Kotobikihama beach, in northern Kyoto Prefecture, Japan) from after the end of Day 1....

On the second day, the sun rose at 5:07am, and, unfortunately, that means that we did too.

We decided to talk a walk along a path to a big hill we could see along the coast, stopping by a big beach in between that the path dipped down to.

As I mentioned yesterday, the amount of yellow pollen dust that the pine trees produced was staggering. Maybe some clever bees enlisted a [...]

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