Having been engulfed with a big project, I'm sort of surprised to see the week has evaporated and that it's been so long since my previous post. I'm back to reality because Anthony turned 8 yesterday....

Adding it to the present (LEGO™) from his Aunt Namiko and Uncle Shogo (who got married three weeks ago), the result was a triple-crown of LEGO™ birthday joy...

Before eating I took a snapshot of the group...

Namiko and Shogo brought the "HAPPY" used at their wedding reception to add to the festive décor.

Oddly, Anthony wasn't particularly hungry and so soon excused himself [...]

We're back in Kyoto for a month now, but it seems I've forgotten to post this summer's picture of Anthony in front of the tree he planted at 1 year old at my folks' place in Ohio. I try to get a photo with him each year, such as at six years old, four years old, and three years old).

His tree is the evergreen, which though it's hard to see, almost reaches the top of the frame.

The other tree's broad leaves had some beads of water that I'd not quite seen before...

I had my Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 [...]

Earlier in the year I wrote a few posts about a restaurant/cafe with large private grounds called Sunainosato (寿長生の郷) in Shiga prefecture, about an hour's drive from Kyoto. The expansive grounds are open to the public, and are quite pretty.

A photo of an actual jump did appear on the previous post in this series, and I like it a lot even though his head's cut off.

Also, this was about the time that I got the photo featured in "Anthony Growing Up: the Tipping Point"

After lunch it was time to explore more of the grounds...

As I mentioned the other day in "A Couple of Striking Photos", we went bowling the other day with Zak and his kids.

The 24mm prime wasn't really appropriate for the bowling alley, so I mostly used the Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5. It came in handy when Zak's kids, Gen and Zoe, were playing. (They fight so little that I think they don't realize that they're siblings....)

Gen, 22 months younger than Anthony, eventually started picking up some good form himself...

... though my inability to get even remotely close focus remained.

Keeping mostly off the computer for a week has been good for the arm pain I suddenly got at the beginning of the month, so I'll hazard a short post.

Today we visited Gen, and all went bowling. Was fun. I bowled a 137, which was good for me. (Once long ago I dated a girl whose folks both bowled 300, and with their pointers was able to bowl a 172, a personal record unlikely to ever be broken.)

I totally missed focus and exposure on the shot above (though the version seen here is after trying to overcome the [...]