Monday Night Football

Tonight's mascot

Photos Phorgotten Phrom Phamily Phun

 

I just plugged the camera memory chip into my computer and discovered the Family Fun we’ve had in the last couple of weeks. Kaz brought us these nice crystal glasses from Tokyo for our beverage enjoyment. That might be Sue’s favorite summertime beverage and tonic might be one of the ingredients.

Here’s Kazuho enjoying orange juice from my vintage 1982 Gorman Thomas McDonald’s glass.

On Labor Day Weekend we rented a bike for Kaz and hauled our bikes down to the Mississippi River trail. NiceRide is the equivalent of Milwaukee’s Bubblr Bikes. I hear San Antonio has a bike rental deal, too. Speaking of San Antonio, The Berg’s and our family will be in San Antonio at the same time in October. Get ready for us Steve and Liz!

We had a good time. Today we will drive down to Rochester not to visit the Dali Lama who is getting a checkup at Mayo but instead for Kaz’s first soccer game of the season. Both Makiko and Johanna The First had games at this same school in Rochester. Swoop Falcons!

That’s the high bridge in the background and downtown St. Paul.

Kaz is learning slowly that American kids do homework and the homework is very hard when it is in your second language. Gambatte! (Try Hard!)

 

We visited some new homes on the Parade of Homes, a tour of expensive houses with way too many bedrooms and bathrooms. On of the houses was so big it took six large steps to walk from the sink to the stove. Cooking would be a lot of exercise.

 

Off to school!

This is what happens if the bedroom door remains open. . .

 

Last night was the Homecoming Dance at school.

This picture is for my Mom. Mom, this is how I have my laptop set up on a stand with a mouse attached and also a keyboard and external speakers. I can take it with me if I need to but I mostly use it in my computer room / office. I have the stand on a couple of books to try to improve the ergonomics. I am playing with the trombone quartet later today at the annual Oktoberfest Party over in St. Paul. Have a good weekend everyone!

Art Work

 

We’re finishing up our room re-do with some enlargements of photos we’ve taken. Here’s what we’re thinking of….

Doug’s Concert

 

Doug and the Inver Hills Community Band had their 2nd to last Summer Concert last night at Edinborough Park in Edina.

It’s a nice indoor park with a great stage, nice lighting and a non-buggy place to enjoy the concert. There are some apartments connected to the Park which have “balconies” overlooking the stage and park.

This is one of my favorite people in the Band. I’d like to know how long Barb has been playing the bassoon. I hope I can still play something when I’m her age.

The trombone section at work

They had a great singer with them last night. Sam sang several numbers but his energetic rendition of “Funiculi, Funicula” got the biggest applause.

These guys were in the audience with bellies full of lasagna.

Family Fun Day

 

Sue invited our e-decorator, Laura who was in town visiting her family from Chicago over to see her creative work. The dark blue pillow cases are not part of Laura’s plan for our room but the cat is integral to the design.

 

Laura thought we should bring the 1999 Japanese Pot up to the room because it embodied all of the classiness and correct colors required of this design.

 

We got some free tickets for the Minnesota Zoo at the St. Paul Prep orientation session. We went to the zoo yesterday on our first Family Fun Day of the school year. This is a grizzly bear taking a dip in the pool right in front of a large gathering of zoo tourists.

 

It was a hot day but we spent about four hours walking around in this enormous zoo.

 

Puma

Minnesota Lynx

This is an Amur Leopard having a snooze.

 

Sue showed her true farm roots by making friends with the goats.

 

The goat barn.

 

It was Tokyo Hot with temps in the mid 90s.

 

This caribou was running laps just for the sport of it. I think caribou are also called reindeer as in Santa Claus’ Eight Tiny Reindeer.

 

An Amur Tiger having a nap – nemute imasu.

 

The Shark Tank!

 

It is really a great zoo and only about 20 minutes from our house.

 

We even went to the new screened-in outdoor butterfly exhibit. Afterwards we stopped in at the U to drop off Kaz’s phone and computer for her brother Hide to work his computer scientist miracles. He did perform those miracles and now Kaz has a functioning computer and phone! Hurray!

One Mississippi, Two Days, Three Million

 

On both Monday and Tuesday this week Kazuho and I took the 68 bus downtown for bus practice. It is pretty easy to use the bus but once she tries to connect/transfer with the bus, it gets a little more difficult. Sue has set up a Google drive for photo sharing with Mr and Mrs Shinohara. From Google drive it is probably much easier to download full pixel photos. We stopped in for a cup of coffee at this non-Starbuck, non-Caribou, non-Dunn Bros coffee shop. Kaz had green tea that looked like oolong to me.

 

In our errands around South St. Paul we stopped down by the river, the mighty Mississippi River. As a geography lesson, I told Kaz she could hop in a boat here and float all the way to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. That’s downtown St. Paul upriver from South St. Paul. The tall building second from the right is Cray Plaza where St. Paul Prep is located.

 

Ravel has a new BFF, a Best Friend Forever. Kaz brought the boys some hand-crafted cat toys that they have to play with under supervision. Kaz gave us a pair of really nice crystal glasses and she brought a great hand-made scrap book explaining Japanese culture.

 

We transferred to the Green Line light rail to get to the capitol building.

 

Unfortunately, the capitol is closed for construction so we walked around the plaza and looked at the giant map of the counties of Minnesota. Three of the five million people in Minnesota live In the seven counties of the Twin Cities. The Twin Cities metro area is somewhere around the 15th largest metropolitan area in the US.  I will ask Kaz if she misses being surrounded by the millions and millions of people who live in Tokyo.

This morning after I meet one last time with our old pastor intern Aaron, Sue, Kaz and I will go to the Minnesota Zoo for a family fun day. Later in the day we are hoping to meet up with Hide, Kaz’s brother. He is going to offer some tech support to get Kaz’s new computer working better.

(Picture me shaking my fist in the air yelling “Windows 8.1!!!!”)