The trees outside our balcony have finally pushed up high enough to start blocking our second-floor view, making it more and more difficult to wave bye to Anthony as he heads off to school.

I took the shot above this morning, then returned when it started raining in the afternoon...

The pictures seem really muddy, though. Not sure why.

To say that neither Fumie nor I have a green thumb would be a mild understatement, to say the least. (Fumie and Anthony were able to grow some tomatoes last year, though they didn't taste good.)

Fumie's mom is much better at tending greenery, which is wonderful because as part of the monthly Shimajiro series of activities she's subscribed to on Anthony's behalf for years (previously mentioned here, here, and here), came a little setup for growing a sunflower.

It has the little pot, a watering pitcher, and a stages-of-growth chart with a little marker that the kid moves as [...]

The best part of any travel for Anthony, it seems, is getting to swim in a pool, and after the busy second day of our trip to Ishigaki Island in the far south of Japan, Anthony finally got his visit to the pool. I played with him at first, but as the sunset approached, I grabbed the camera...

Metering somewhat for the bright sun left the rest of the frame underexposed, which allowed what little color there was in the sky to be exaggerated.

Meanwhile, with the setting sun, Anthony got cold and retreated to warmer climes...

The sun got [...]

Well, thought I'd be releasing a new plugin for Adobe Lightroom today, but ran into a roadblock that killed it at the end. Sigh. So, I've decided to take the evening off from plugin development and get back to my story of our recent trip to Ishigaki Island. It's part of Okinawa Prefecture, but is 400 miles further south-west from the main Okinawa island, just shy of Taiwan.

It was a short but photogenic trip. Today's story picks up in the afternoon of Day 2, with Day 2's morning already posted, as well as a mid-day trip to a secluded [...]

On Saturday Anthony got to play in a park with two friends he hadn't seen in a while, kindergarten classmate Monet, and Gen (my friend Zak's boy). The park near Gen's house in Otsu (just over the mountains from Kyoto), ojigaoka park, is wonderful, both for kids to play and for parents to photograph.

The boys gravitated toward destructive play that involved "building" a "road" near where some minor construction was going on. This "road building" mostly involved throwing rocks....

Here's a view from the other side, showing the little construction zone they were violating...

I was curious what it [...]