In last week's "Family Bike Outing on a Brisk, Blustery Kyoto Afternoon", I wrote about the start of our weekend family bike outing, ending with us heading toward Kyoto Gosho, the grounds of the old imperial palace (which may not be that "old", since it seems that the emperor actually stopped by while we were there, the first I'd ever heard of such a thing).....

It started to sprinkle a bit, so we headed home, and another, larger ginkgo tree was glowing as if it had been transplanted from Chernobyl....

I mentioned the other day that I didn't really care [...]

Anthony got a new cousin today, but last week got a new member of his own little family, a stuffed plush pig he's named Buta-chan (ぶたちゃん, which essentially means "Little Piggy" in Japanese). He's a gift from one of Fumie's ballet friends, Aoyama-san, who has never met Anthony, but sort of fell in love with him via my blog.

George and Buta-chan became fast friends, so I may need to get another plush-toy passport. As I write this, Anthony, George, and Buta-chan are all sleeping together.

Anthony learns one new kanji ("Chinese character") a day in school, and it just [...]

We went out for a family bike ride today, sort of repeating our bike outing last May, though today was quite brisk... cold, windy, mostly overcast with occasional moments of bright sun.

Continued here...

Anthony got a big Star Wars™ LEGO™ toy for his birthday, and combined with the various other LEGO™ kids he's gotten before, he has a huge collection of pieces and parts.

This morning before school he used various pieces to build a little fighter craft, as he's done many times before, but today's seemed cute because it seated three characters (in this case, three Republic Clone Soldiers) like peas in a pod.

I'd taken off the cockpit canopy window for those shots; of course, a spaceship has a canopy and Anthony included it, but it made for difficult photography (even [...]

Like any kid, I suppose, Anthony certainly loves getting new toys. He turned 7 years old recently, and enjoyed opening presents at his little party. But a present from my baby brother and his wife arrived later, and we kept it secret for a while until Anthony's busy school schedule allowed enough time to enjoy it.

I was impressed again that he actually looked at the card. At this age I don't think I ever did, except perhaps to look to see whether it contained money. 🙂  He could read his name, but didn't know what the squiggly underline was [...]