Goings on in June

June is going by nicely and we've actually had some cooler days.  Enjoy it while we can!  Summer will be upon us soon and I recall the heat and fear of heatstroke last year!  

Tetsu enjoys sitting in his garden and soon the blueberries will be ready to harvest.

(A couple of the sketches I did of Tetsu's garden for a sketching challenge)

My friend, Nobuko-san, and her daughter visited us while they were in Nikko and we took them to various places near us and spent the day together.

There ia a little-known area near the temples of Nikko that have 70 some of these little stone statues along the hiking path.  The legend is that if you walk along the path one way and count the statues, that on the way back there will be a different number.  We didn't try to count all of them...

The construction continues behind our house though it is moving farther to where the actual factory is going to be (we will just have the road leading to the factory behind us).  Even so, the house has been shaking as the site is being bored and tamped down etc. 

This the view in the other direction with the new road leading to where the factory entrance will start.  The road drastically narrows to meet the original road right next to my kitchen.  That road used to meander through a forest and wasn't wide enough to service two cars abreast.  Now look at it!  Even a sidewalk!

Here I am standing where the forest used to be at the to-be-built factory entrance.  The first house there on the left is our house with the other houses in the neighborhood also bordering the factory property line.

As far as we can predict, our view of Mt. Nantai will not be interrupted from our bedroom window once the road is completed though the factory is planning to put in landscaping with some trees and lawn along their property.  Hopefully the trees won't be too big at least for a few years.

Look at that magnificent sunset I caught the other night!

We are getting rainy days and even had a typhoon that resulted in school being canceled in Nikko.  The trees were really bending wildly and everyone was warned to stay away from rivers and the seaside.  (No seaside where I live).

I used the extra day to finish up the wall hanging that I had been working on.  I just wanted to see what effect I could get using black bias tape (which I ended up having to make myself as the store no longer carried the width of tape I needed.)

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Luka-kun graduated from pre-school this month.

Both Taiga-kun and Luka-kun enjoy playing in the water and going to the local pool.  I couldn't tell at first if this was Luka or Taiga!  (I'm pretty sure this is Taiga).

Having a picnic in their backyard.

Actually Leiya's family is planning to move this month so she's been doing a lot of cleaning, rearranging family schedules to accomodate realators, and traveling (to find new living arrangements!)  More on that later.  I loved the house that they've been in these past 5 years.

Takumi celebrated his 41st birthday. 

Happy Birthday, Takumi!

And that's about it for this month so far.  

Off to bed!

A busy month of May

Okay...  Let's see...  We've had a pretty busy month this month though a lot of it involved cleaning...

The reason we were doing major cleaning, (besides it just being spring) was because my friend from high school days and her husband were coming to Japan we were spending three days with them before they headed off to other parts of Japan with a tour group.

Jane and her husband have never been to Japan before though they've been talking about it for 40 years.  I am a regular visitor at their house when I'm in California but this was the first time for them to see the Japan I've talked about all these years.  Though they were going to stay at a hotel in Nikko, we knew that they were going to stop for a couple of hours at our house so Tetsu (especially Tetsu) got into cleaning mode inside and out.

What is that photo above?  Now that it is getting warmer, Tetsu is out in his garden all day and he is cleaning the shed that we've had stuffed with junk for years.  He keeps finding odds and ends of broken tools and cast away items and he's now made himself an artistic display board at the side of his garden.  What all is there there?  Old broken wall stones... broken shovel handles... rusted hammers and thermometers... even old sofa springs!  This is how Tetsu decorates his yard!

For my part, I washed windows and floors.  All for a two hour visit at our house with Jane!

So Jane and her husband arrived and first off we went out for a sushi and tempura lunch.  Chopsticks are a challenge for them!

We took them to Oya, the rock quarry I was in when the Great Tohoku Earthquake struck 15 years ago.

My friends are interested in everything!

We got to our house and spent most of the time in Tetsu's garden (good thing he cleaned it up!)  They brought us both Dodgers shirts with Otani's number on the back.  They know how much Tetsu loves Otani!  Tetsu also got a Dodgers hat.

We browsed photo albums and got caught up on my family.  Me in my Dodgers shirt.  Tetsu and I have decided to wear our shirts on the days when he is listening to the Dodgers games on the radio.

The next day we wandered around the shrines and temples of Nikko with me trying to explain Japanese histroy that I don't even understand well myself.

We did a lot of walking this day!

We went up the mountain to the lake but it was cold!!

We saw a couple of monkeys along the road.

And had hot coffee and cocoa next to the Dragon Head Waterfall.

The next morning we saw them off at the Shinkansen entrance and they went on their way to other adventures in Japan.

So what else have we been doing?  Tetsu has been willing to join me doing exercise (cardio, stretching, yoga, strength exercises) on the Yes2Next website.  It's kind of fun to complete that everyday.

I completed a small version of the Robots quilt that I made for Taiga earlier this year.  This one got made completely from leftover scraps.  Along with the Strawberry quilt I made, I took it to our strawberry farmer friend giving the strawberry quilt to his daughter and the robot quilt to his son.

M-san finished a table runner that she will give to her brother.

Tony competed a master's course in business while working as a doctor in a hospital.  Quite an accomplishement!

Luka and Taiga got to check out a firetruck.

And they celebrated Mother's Day at Luka's preschool.

Takumi and Julieta and the doggies took a vacation up in Carmel and everyone enjoyed the beach.

And I guess that's been our month.  The days are finally warming up and the rice fields have been flooded and planted!

Spring vacation

Egads!  We've almost reached the end of April!  Whatever have I been doing?  I think the answer is "not much" but I'll have to backtrack and see if there is anything memorable...

Spring vacation started at the end of March and I had two weeks off from crosswalk duty.  And yes, I've committed myself to another year though I had at first said that I'd retire in March...  I've been a crosswalk guard for 15 years now, I really like my job, it isn't a hardship for me to be up and working early in the morning (and Tetsu doesn't mind much either), and it is nice to have a salary coming in...  So, though I've hit 70, the Nikko City Hall still wants me and so I'll be at the crosswalk every morning this school year too.

Actually I did get the time wrong for the last day of school.  The school has special ceremonies and I'd ASKED if the morning schedule was the regular time or if the children would arrive later...  I was told later...  However, I got to the school and the janitor let me know that everyone had already arrived.  I was the one who was an hour late!  (It's times like these when I think maybe I SHOULD retire!)

We got to visit with Marlene's family and meet her new grand-daughter.  Marlene's first grandchild!

April rolled around and I spent my free time taking classes on Skillshare.  Sketching in red and blue...

Capturing the rape blossoms along the road.

Along with the rape blossoms, the cherry blossoms bloomed and we really knew that spring had arrived!

There is a bank of cherry blossom trees at the cemetery across the street and that was about the extent of my cherry blossom viewing this year...

I spent a lot of my vacation working on the strawberry quilt from Elizabeth Hartman's pattern Berry Season.  When I first saw this quilt I thought immediately that I wanted to make it for our friend who is a strawberry farmer and who always brings us strawberries!  I had to buy the background fabric and the backing but the pinks and reds were from my stash.  Our friend also raises white strawberries and so I had to include a few of those in this quilt too.  

I think the quilt turned out pretty well, but it is very pink...  Our strawberry farmer friend is actually Takumi's classmate, male, and I got to thinking he might not really be into pink...  but I'm hoping his daughter will be.

And then I thought that it's not fair for the daughter to get a quilt and not the son, soooooo....  I've started making a robot quilt for the son.  It is another pattern from Elizabeth Hartman and the same one as for the quilt I made for Taiga-kun (which he still hasn't received) but this time I'm making a smaller version and with a light background.  I've still got three robots to go before I can show that...

John and Cleo are hanging in there.  John looks pretty shaggy here but he has since gotten a trim and a shampoo...  Look at the way he sits with his hind legs out to the side like that!

M-san brought a pattern of a table runner that she likes and so we have started making that together again.

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Tony celebrated his 36th birthday.

Luka-kun has joined a T-ball team.

Taiga-kun likes his cars.

The family went to visit Tony at his hospital.

Does he look happy to see them?

Construction contines on the road and factory behind our house...

But Tetsu is determined to make our sitting area outside a pleasant place, despite the high white wall...

And that brings me up to date!