Saturday, January 20, 2007

We Came Out of Hibernation....Temporarily

We haven't left the house much in the past few weeks. First everyone was sick and after we started getting better we were just plum tired. Whatever bug we caught did us in for a good long time and I hope it is long gone from these parts. I did manage to drag myself out to the yard and clean up the toys from when the grandkids were here for a week after Christmas. That was one day last week when it hit 75 here, now it's back down in the fifties. I know that all of you who have snow and ice storms want me to stop whining but come on, this is supposed to be Florida!

Today we went to the Japanese New Year celebration at Bayview Park. It was put on by the Japan Club at UWF. Matsuriza Drums is a fantastic drum group from Tokyo. They were great! I took a short video of them, didn't get the best parts though cause I was too busy watching.








Aaron, Brandon and Tori had their names done in Japanese Calligraphy. I still get impressed when Aaron reads Japanese. It all looks like artwork to me. They also got to dress in kimonos.


They tried a few foods. Onigiri, which is a kind of rice ball with something inside, wrappped in seaweed. Brandon had to ditch the seaweed but Aaron loved it. Udon noodles were next.
Udon Noodles. Brandon gives it a thumbs up! The girls took it outside.
It looked really pretty in the bowl and I guess it tasted good since they all ate it. I'm not very adventurous with food. I really wanted a chili dog.

I talked to a lady about the Japanese intensive language classes that they have in the summer at UWF. We'll have to be on the lookout for registration so Aaron can go. They also have an authentic Japan house in the International building that we need to check out.

Aaron and Brandon wanted to try making onigiri so off to the store we went for ingredients.

The Process


VOILA!

Last we had to go to the big oak outside of the community center. The kids have played in this oak for years. There used to be a big branch they could all sit on but Ivan knocked it down. The tree is still standing. We thought a pic of it might entice Ren and family and whoever else wants to come, into a visit to P'cola!





2 comments:

Ren Allen said...

Ooooh, ooh!! SO many lovely memories of our free children climbing in that wonderful tree and sitting on that branch. sigh.
I need to go dig out all the pictures over the years.:) double sigh.

OH, remember the uptight biatch that said "that is an accident waiting to happen!!"? Too funny. Nobody broke anything climbing that tree, but Jalen broke his arm climbing the clothes dryer. Go figure.

pair dog said...

My kimono picture is HORRIBLE.
BLECK!!!!!