A day in Kamakura

Finally a nice warm day.


We had to take advantage of it obviously, and headed to Kamakura.



Our first stop was the Hase-dera.

It was beautiful and Kai was quite intrigued by goldfish.



Then we walked to the Big Buddha. \

Before going inside, you have to wash your hands.



And here you go.



Now templed out, some refreshments.



And finally, we headed to the beach.



A quite excited boy with all these sand and water.



Really excited.



So much so he runs into the water.



Playing with the waves.



Ah, got caught!



A souvenir.


Thomas Sweater

What can I say? I was just too impressed.



Nain knitted Kai a very special Thomas sweater. Seriously, it's amazing!

Jindai Park

On this relatively nice (= less cloudy) Sunday, we visited the Jindai Botanical Garden in Chofu.



Even though it was "relatively nice," it was still pretty chilly after all, so we escaped into the greenhouse. Needless to say, this bit of the park was pretty popular with visitors.



Once outside, Kai found a twig that had fallen from a cherry tree, and decided to name it "crocodile." He was qutie happy with this croc for the rest of the day.

Pasta Maker

We got a wonderful pasta maker from Huw and Sonja as a belated christmas present.


Thank you very much! You seriously have no idea how happy G was with this unexpected gift.



So, here goes our first try. Boys are working hard on it...



Happy moment.



Testing the result - it was brilliant!


Zoo Visit


Today, Kai visited a local zoo with his grandparents (and me, too).



Evidence.



Kai being pathetic as well as cheeky, taking advantage of poor grandpa.



Wait a minute, those sea lions look vaguely familiar...



Kai in awe.



One happy boy right here.

Valentine's Day

On this Valentine's day, I got some roses delivered by...



Can you see?



from the "secret admirer."


Kai had a great day as well - as evidenced in the below photos.



Yummy....



...I am helping....



The result.


A Valentine's Day cake for the certain somebody (can you see the bit where Kai tried to poke his finger in?).


Football

Yet another cold day, but that didn't stop those two (one of them after all grew up near the North Sea, wearing only short pants!) - Kai demanded to go out, so off we go to kick some ball.



Oh, I think the bigger boy is getting too serious and nasty against the small one...



Kai, who gave up on the game, decided to roll down the hill...

Saturday Again

G and Kai like to play with cards sometimes.



We bought those alphabet cards back in DC last summer, and I guess thanks to G, Kai can now read most of the letters.



Can you see his confidence?


We took it quiet easy this Saturday - went out for some Thai for lunch and then hit some bookshops to browse around.



I suppose that was plenty for Mr. Chan.



For dinner, we had this great lasagna cooked by G....Oh, yummy it was!

A day with grandparents

I had to run some errands today so Kai spent the most of today with his Japanese grandparents.


When I came home, Kai ran up to me to show me this picture.



A drawing of Snoopy by Grandpa.


After dinner, boys of the house spent some time with lego.



I just realized there is a huge gap between today's title and the pictures...

Yes, grandparents were really here, honest.


Cake

One of those days when you just had to attack your cake.



This particular cake was gone in few seconds.