In a post earlier this week about one of our mini outings to enjoy the cherry blossoms, I mentioned that Anthony had brought along a BBQ set that he'd received from my sister Marci and her husband, grillmaster extraordinaire, Marty Kreta.

I thought I'd blogged about when he got it, but it turns out I hadn't, so I'll remedy that now, because it shows such quintessential Anthonyness (and quintessential me: I thought the camera was set to autofocus, but it wasn't, so the pictures ar all out of focus until I noticed).

He ended up laying out the [...]

We visited Fumie's mom to have some cake for my birthday. Anthony gave me a card that he picked out himself. Mommy wrote "happy birthday" on it for him, and then he drew a picture on it. It was very sweet.

Anthony was still dressed up from the entrance ceremony held that morning at his preschool (wearing the same spiffy vest that he wore to it last year).

Considering that he was dressed nicely, I'm glad that he ate more neatly than the last time he had chocolate cake.

After the cake, Anthony sat with Mommy and checked out [...]

Having just gotten back from Malaysia, which included something like 10 separate flights (two each direction, and some round-drip excursions within Malaysia), Anthony certainly had plenty of time to absorb the "airport experience." So I thought it only slightly odd when he wanted me to make a "baggage checker" (baggage X-Ray machine) out of paper and tape. What he did with it, well, I thought amazing.

The white paper thing in the center is what I made for him, under his close direction and supervision (of the luggage chute, for example, he animately directed that "this needs to slope down"). [...]

After a day of cold drizzle yesterday, today (Easter Sunday) was glorious: sunny, warm, and cherry trees laden with blossoms. The area were I live was crazy-crowded, but I didn't have to endure it much because I was out most of the day.

I attended Easter Mass at 10am, which was full of mixed emotions because when I got there, I found out that the head priest, Fr. Asada, passed away this week. Every time I carried Anthony while going to receive communion, he'd pause to bless Anthony, then pat him on the head with a kindly "good kid." He'd [...]

The little path by the river next to my place is not heavily traveled, although foot traffic explodes in this whole area during cherry-blossom season, and so these days a fair number of people walk by. In particular, it doesn't hurt that some the cherry trees lining the river are already half in bloom -- the ones lining the canal will be much nicer, but they haven't yet come in. (Here's an old photo of the canal lined with cherry trees, where the canal runs in front of our place.)

Because I'm always behind the camera, I don't see how [...]