Surprise news!

While we were traveling Leiya contacted us and after asking about what we were seeing and who we were meeting up with, she said she had had some family photos taken and she had a video to show us...

  

Ah...!  We were in for quite a surprise!

This is her way of telling us that Luka is going to be a big brother!

And she and Tony will be parents of TWO little boys!

In all honesty, I wasn't THAT surprised...  I'd been wondering if there was going to be an announcement for months but there hadn't so maybe I'd not read things right.  While I was still in the hospital in July, Tetsu celebrated his 70th birthday and Leiya sent him a card.   Look at all the work that went into that!  Leiya said she'd bought a card and then embellished it with photos of the family that she cut out and added.  She's got Takumi and Julieta and their two dogs, she's got four cats and John and she and Tony and Luka.  She's got me hanging onto the 70 and she's got Tetsu out in front looking like the kingpin of us all.  

And hidden away in all that, there is this baby...  Luka?  But why in the card again as a baby?  And what is that faint writing on the onsie?  
 

I kept waiting for Leiya to make an announcement (and I didn't say anything about my suspicious to Tetsu) but nary a word...  

It turns out I was right though for awhile things had been iffy and she didn't want to worry anyone.  Then she just decided to wait to make an anouncement until after they found out the baby's sex, and since she had asked a photographer to take family photos anyway, she just waited to tell everyone the big news.

"And that means...  how pregnant are you?"

Already 5 months!  She and Tony keep a pretty good secret!

The baby is due in late February.

Their family is growing...

And Tetsu and I are going to become grandparents AGAIN!!

Travel sketching

And today's post is just a quick show of the sketchbook I did about our trip to Morioka.  I can't really say I DID the sketching while on the trip but I did pick out a few memories that I felt I could recognizably sketch (thus lack of people).  

The notebook is lovely and usually used for collecting stamps from shrines and temples around Japan.  As I am not really interested in visiting shrines and temples let alone paying an offering for their stamp, I was hoping I could use this book for sketching.  Alas, the paper ABSORBED the paint and made it quite difficult to blend colors or layer them.  I was all for giving up but I perservered...

On the first page I sketched the tools I was going to use and my contact information.

And the first day of our trip I sketched Tetsu (it's supposed to be Tetsu!) driving, a tollbooth, donuts and coffee en route, ice cream and the ice cream shop.

The next day was at the hot spring, the L-shaped farmhouse and a Chagu-chagu umako trinket.

We got our gravesite cleaned up and decorated with flowers.  The verse is what is engraved on the stone but of course it is in Japanese...  This night went to the fancy restaurant that Takumi and Julieta treated us to and I tried sketching the curtained entrance to the restaurant...  And the very dear Matsutake!

We saw Mt. Iwate which is visible from most places in Morioka though some days it hides behind the clouds.

We stayed in a hotel downtown, still with a view of Mt. Iwate, we bought the peanut cracker/cookie specialty of the city and we spent the day with my friend Nobuko and Ito-san who gave us the lovely vase.

We made a quick stop at the Hachiman Shrine and saw kimonoed children being brought for blessings.

We attended our home church and then Tetsu had another long drive back to Nikko!

My sketchbook isn't completely filled (actually there are a few pages left and then the back side can be used for another set of sketching) but for all my grumbling about how the paint and ink wouldn't do what I wanted it to do, I am very satisfied with my first attempt at travel sketching!

And the last day of our trip to Morioka

Our last day in Morioka we left our hotel before the crowds and had a bit of time before church services began.

We drove past the Christian Center where I had come to work in Japan 46 years ago.  (It's been rebuilt since I worked here but the essence is the same.)

By chance we were near Morioka's largest Shinto shrine and we stopped for a few minutes.  People bring babies to be blessed and young parents will have an elegant baby kimono draped over the baby for the ceremony.

There were these interesting gourd charms that are bought and then hung at the shrine.  I'd never seen charms like this before.

It is also the time of year for 7-5-3 Blessings.  Girls, age 7 and 3 and boys, age 5 will be taken to the shrine for blessings.  It is a big event for the little girls who will be all decked out in kimono!

The red Torii gate is the entrance to the shrine from the city.

But our purpose was actually to attend church at our home church this Sunday.  For me there were bittersweet memories while we worshipped with the congregation.  43 years ago the church was in a buzz about Tetsu and my wedding here.  So many people at this church helped plan the wedding and reception.  Even then we were the youngest in the congregation in an already elderly church and every year that we return there are fewer and fewer people that we know.  This year there were ony 3 people that we knew from those many years ago though there were a couple of elders who were the grandchildren of friends from long ago.  Even they are greying though I remember them as kindergarten and elementary school students!

We left Morioka with another long drive in front of us but arrived home safely and before the forcasted rain started in earnest.

It would sure be nice if we could get to Morioka more than once a year but it does take a bit of effort...  though the memories are worth it!

Day three of Morioka

Our third day in Morioka started with an amazing buffet breakfast again.  We sure ate well on this trip!  If you ever come to Japan be sure to do Japanese breakfasts.  Not the usual fair of pancakes and hash browns but still the choices different taste treats are wonderful.  At this hotel staff was busy making individual omletes and french toast for guests.  Yum!

We went BACK to the cemetery again to meet up with our friends and spent the day with them.  Nobuko-san was my first friend when I arrived in Japan 46 years ago.  

She and her husband live in the mountains of Iwate and he is a potter who is getting to be fairly well-known!  He usually makes large objects for hotels and museums but he gave us this lovely vase that we have now put in our entryway.  I love the rough and natural look of Ito-san's pieces.  

Only with laid-back friends like these could an hour be spent exploring the cemetery and thoroughly enjoying it.  Nobuko-san and I knew many of the people laid to rest here and it was fun to wander around looking for graves and remembering.

Just for reference.  Takumi and Leiya, the family grave is right behind the Morioka crematorium in the Christian section of the cemetery!  Up quite high!  It's been a long time since my kids were here so they may not even remember where our family ends up!

We went back to the lookout to see Mt. Iwate without the clouds that covered it the day before.

After walking around the city we ended up at a nice coffee shop for the last hour.  

Kenji Miyazawa was a famous poet from this area so I sat down with him for awhile.

Our last night in Morioka wasn't too exciting though we did have a good view of Mt. Iwate from the hotel in front of the station.  

In the evening we went to the station department store to buy peanut senbei (crackers/cookies?) which is the specialty of the city.  

Our trip is winding up...  Only a half day more!

 

The second day in Morioka

Our second day in Morioka started out with a delicious buffet breakfast.  Japanese hotels often offer this type of breakfast and there were choices from different breads, eggs and sausages to rice and different traditional Japanese foods.  

Finishing off with coffee.

Tetsu, still wearing the hotel's yukata, was very satisfied!

Though Tetsu was disappointed in the view from our room, (he had hoped to be able to see the whole lake) on this morning we were greeted by a full rainbow!  Actually, every time we have stayed near this lake (three or four times) we have seen a rainbow over the lake.  It must be a common sight if we can even see one the once a year or so that we get here.

We went back to the graveside to do more cleaning with a scrub brush and a final rinsing of the stones.  

Tetsu often wishes that we had our grave nearer to us so that he could weed and clean it on a regular basis.  Once every year is not enough for him and this time there was a two year gap.

The cemetery is against the side of a hillside and it is actually quite a climb up a gravel staircase and past unmarked paths to get here.  I was sure glad that I could do all the walking without any trouble!

We spent the rest of the day with our good friends chatting and eating.  Every so often when we see them I give the wife another of my quilts and she had two of them on her living room walls.  That one in the back was made years and years ago!  She seems to like my quilts and I am happy to have someone to give them to.

This evening we stayed in a very nice hotel and had a special Japanese dinner thanks to Takumi and Julieta who had given us a gift card for a fancy restaurant of our choice.  Tetsu would much prefer this Japanese style dinner over a fancy French restaurant.

Grape juice for me.

There were 12 courses to this meal and maybe you don't want to see all of it, but the specialty of the night was Matsutake mushrooms which are a very expensive type of mushroom that are hard to find.  I had never had Matsutake mushrooms although of course I knew about them.  This was Matsutake broth with other delicacies.

Whole Matsutake were presented to us...

...and then grilled in front of us.

Sharks fin custard was another delicacy that we have never been able to indulge in before.

There were steak and sashimi and sushi and noodles and vinegared dishes and little bits and pieces bursting of flavor.  A very memorable meal!

We finished off with a Japanese sweet and thick green tea.

I had thought I was going to get some sketching in while we were traveling but I realize I don't work well with distractions around nor when I have to think about time...  Still, while taking pictures of things I had in mind that I wanted to put some of the buildings and scenery into a sketchbook.  Ah...  The sketchbook is another story.  I started a new one that I'm having trouble using...  Anyway, here is my rendition of the view from our hot spring hotel room!