September was a generally lazy month when it came to this blog. Shockingly, I actually went more than a month without a single post. Things were somewhat busy in the real world, and… well… Sometimes it`s a pain to resize and crop photos. And that`s really all there is - photos. No major news. Summer vacation ended, Motoki went back to kindergarten, and then we went on vacation the last(ish) week of September.
So, just to make sure that September 2008 doesn`t end up as an empty link on the side, I`ll do some back dated posts.
Kurikara is one of those places that, while being incredibly important historically, no one seems to remember. As we have some sort of obsession with visiting historical locales when autumn comes around (something in the air, I suppose)… On top of that we particularly enjoy forgotten historical locales, well, it was a place we couldn`t pass up. This made it the main destination of our trip. Was there anything spectacular to see there? No. But it was… historical. Read the rest of this entry »
We visited the same wonderful family we visited last year - and this time Motoki had a great time and didn`t seem to have much trouble keeping up with the girls. It was very easy to see the incredible difference kindergarten has made when it comes to interaction.
Motoki likes Totoro these days. I showed him the movie on a whim, and he fell in love with it. While we were walking around the grounds of Matsumoto Castle, my husband spotted a big leaf lying by the path… And pointed it out to Motoki as being like the one Totoro used as an umbrella. Read the rest of this entry »
Motoki`s aunt is getting married the end of October. So we bought Motoki a real suit. There is a jacket too, but it was too hot and once he took it off he wanted nothing to do with putting it back on.
The biggest event of September was a hair cut. Or rather, a cut that actually looks significantly different. This time, Motoki has bangs! Showing them off with the kindergarten summer uniform.
As a follow up to the fireworks we went to see, a few days later we pulled out the sparklers we`d received from Motoki`s kindergarten (They give them out at the beginning of summer vacation).
This is the first year we`ve actually taken Motoki to see fireworks.
We tried last year, but waiting around at the festival before the fireworks started was really too much of a hassle, and too tiring in general. (We`re not incredibly social people. Wandering around in a huge crowd for hours is NOT my idea of fun.)
This year, we found a festival relatively close that was doing fireworks. We were lucky enough to be able to find a parking space for free, next to the grounds, just 20 minutes before the fireworks started. And then we had the amazing luck of finding a place to watch literally just below the fireworks themselves. (We could see them being launched. Literally within less than 10 meters away. )
It was a wonderful experience, and Motoki was in awe. If I ask him about them now, he does a full body explosion motion.
