Anthony turns 7 on Friday, but we had his birthday party today because he comes home from school earlier on Wednesdays.

We're not big on extravagant parties, and didn't have the time even if we were, but we did a couple of things that really made it fun for him (besides cake and presents, which are a given).

We filled the hallway with balloons, and hung a few from the ceiling, to make a little gauntlet area for him to come through when he got home...

It looks fairly lame in the photo, but it was much nicer in real [...]

So after getting dressed up and then taking care of final preparations, we headed into the Heian Shrine for Anthony's shichi-go-san long-and-healthy-life blessing event.

Most people go in the small entrances on either side, but we thought to take a group photo in the exaggeratedly large main entrance (just out of frame to the left in the shot above), but it turns out that the only shot I got was the one that opens this post, with Anthony standing there looking out at the vast (and shockingly empty) courtyard.

It's the same courtyard where an annual festival has people throwing [...]

Anthony's shirts, all lined up to dry, made for a colorful display this afternoon.

So, finally getting back to Anthony's shichi-go-san event (explained in the "getting prepared" post), after finally getting all dressed up in a traditional hakama for the first time, Anthony got his formal sandals and we headed out toward the Heian Shrine's main entrance...

Continued here...

Having been busy with travel and sickness and offline projects for so many months, I think the geek in me was itching to produce something new, so to add to yesterday's new plugin for Adobe Lightroom, today I add another: Extended Search.

Due to Lightroom infrastructure limitations, the search interface is not as smooth as it could be, and there's a nasty bug in Lightroom that sometimes rears its head to make things a bit frustrated, so be sure to read the details on the plugin's page while giving it a try.