It turns out that Anthony's art project, A Fish That Can Suck In Anything, was a more than a hit just here at home. He was one of several who received recognition for interesting, individual thinking in their art project, in the form of an "Idea Award".

The prize was lunch with the principal, who has street cred with the kids (one of the sports-day activities, for example, had him dressed head to toe in a blue-spandex super-hero suit that I would certainly not have the guts to don.).

Anthony said that he enjoy it..... it's normally a bit crazy [...]

The entrance to our home is currently graced with an objet d'art that Anthony made in crafts class last month (pictured here at a bright window in the living room). Assigned to make something that they each thought would be great if it actually existed, he made this なんでもすいこまれるさかな!!! ("Can suck in Anything!!! Fish").

I asked whether it was actual size, to which he replied "No" (you silly daddy!), "It's as big as Kyoto Tower". Kyoto Tower is fairly big – more than 100 meters tall – as can be seen in many of my blog posts, such as this [...]

So, after a fairly relaxing four-hour drive (three hours plus stops) in beautiful weather, we arrived at the lavishly-named Omaki Onsen Spa Garden "Waen" (おまき温 泉スパガーデン和園). I actually never bothered to parse that full name until now... here's what it means: "Omaki" is the name of the area with a few natural hot springs (onsen). "Spa Garden" is their description to try to sell you on it being a nice place. All those are adjectives to the real name, "Waen", whose characters in this case mean "Peaceful Garden".

Anyway, the attraction for us was that it was in an area [...]

I'm really swamped with Lightroom plugin stuff this week, so I just don't have the energy to address all the photos from our recently-completed short snowy New Year's trip, so I'll dip into the photo archives for some low-hanging fruit.

I attended an event at Anthony's school in November, and noticed his drawing on the wall, of his favorite event from his school Sports Day the previous month: tamaire (玉入れ). Teams stand in an area littered with beanbags and try to get as many into a basket held high up on a pole before time runs out. This event had [...]

I discovered a great way to get a fun group portrait this morning: carefully set up camera on tripod, turn on a self timer set to take a picture every second, make final delicate focus adjustments, announce you're ready to run and join the picture, than loudly bump the whole setup as you clumsily move away. Feign look of shocked "oops". Everyone laughs. Interval timer takes picture. Hope the bump didn't ruin the shot.

I did that for this shot this morning, except for the whole "on purpose" and "feign" thing. I like the result.

Anthony's mom's dad's 95-year-old mom [...]