Tanabata Festival

Alice has embraced helping in the kitchen. Especially when she gets to lick the bowl clean while Mom is busy putting the cake in the oven.

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Helen has been reminding me to make her a new pink dress since last summer. Here is this year's model. Is there anything better than pink and flamingos?

I've been trying to get a lot of baking done and cookies into the freezer in anticipation of summer. The girls are always willing to help.

The girls love when Ryan comes home and they get to try on various and sundry pieces of his uniform. 

Last weekend was the Tanabata Festival, which our kids love. They get to walk/run all the way up and down main street swimming through streamers. On the right you can see the squid drying out on a squid spinner.

In the picture below is a new food for us - a Japanese waffle in the shape of a fish filled with custard filling and topped with whipped cream and strawberries. It makes me think I need a new waffle maker.  

Here is a short video of a man making my favorite Japanese noodle dish - yakisoba.  It would have been longer, but the batteries ran out.

Happy 4th of July

Life is so good when you get to have snack time outside.

 A couple weeks ago we did some serious yard work. Family working time is our favorite - sticks, bugs, worms, mud, flowers -- could life get better?

It takes some really big muscles to drag huge bags of leaves across the yard.

 A couple of weeks ago I went to the 8th Asia Pacific Conference on Clinical Nutrition, in Tokyo. Here I am with my friend from Reunion Island and another woman from Japan. Below is my complimentary lunch from the first day. I think that was my first bento box - and it happened to be vegetarian with all the complementary nutrients that are currently the rage. A woman from Africa summed up my feelings nicely when she said, "I think I am going to be hungry this week."

Last year I ordered this fabric, it came around Thanksgiving time and I finally started working on the dresses in May. One of the challenges is that it doesn't really feel like July here until August. The girls love the spinning potential of the dresses best. Don't worry, Alice is not in the choke hold, as it may appear.

We have a great new foil dessert that got 5 stars in our home. Take a sugar cone and spread peanut butter inside. Mix together marshmallows, chocolate chips, and pieces of banana. Put tasty morsels inside cone and wrap with aluminum foil. Cook for 3-5 minutes on coals (or in oven when it is typhoon season).