On Father's Day, I took the girls up to the mountains for a day of hiking and beautiful views. I didn't even realized it was Father's Day until much later on. Though we had gone hiking before, this was the first trip up Kamuriki, a peak that can be seen from just about anywhere in town.



Tomomi stayed home with Noah, and I took the girls in the car up the mountain to a small parking area on the side of the winding mountain road. From there, it was only about 30 minutes to the top with the first half walking on a gravel service road. The second half was a well-maintained trail. Steeper, but Anri ould handle it just fine. Sara rode in the pack on my back.

On the way up, Anri was a bit scared of bears, even though there weren't any, but I told her that if she sang somgs or talked while walking, the bears would not come near us. So she sang "do re mi" all the way to the top. At points along the way, we were rewarded with beautiful views of almost the entire range of the North Alps. At the top, we could see all of Chikuma, the town we live in, as well as the valley leading south to the city of Ueda. While at the top, we had some snacks and juice by the little Shinto shrine standing there.

We'll be going again, next time with Tomomi and Noah. The hike is easy and it would make a good spot for a family picnic. For photos, click here. This is our June 2008 photo album and photos from this day are toward the end.

As spring arrives, I have been very busy working on a number of things. Preparing for the new baby, revamping the website (again) and building things to make this rental house more of a home.


Tomomi is ready for baby #3 to get out. Her belly is huge and since her due date is March 31, the baby could be here any day now. We're all looking forward to it, though we're not sure how Sara will handle it yet. We'll see.

In the mean time, we have been getting ready for having 5 people here rather than four. We bought a collapsible crib so the baby can sleep downstairs when we are not up in the bedrooms, and I have been building a toy box for all of Anri's toys. This toy box is the start of my plan to make this home a little more livable for us. I got a plan online at FurniturePlans.com, downloaded it, bought the wood and tools necessary, and built the thing. It is actually a blanket chest, but works well as a toy box. And it is really big.



It took a long time to build, but it is finally done, and now only needs to be painted. The color will be a very white pink, like the color of our soon-to-blossom cherries. I plan to dilute the paint with water and apply it, allowing the wood grain to be visible through it.

But I don't plan on stopping there. The next project, time allowing, will be a bunk bed for the girls: Anri on top and Sara below. The plan is from the same source, and based on what I have seen it looks easier to make than the toy box.

And as if that were not enough, I have also done a little fine tuning to the website. Namely this weblog. Until recently, I had been manually coding my own entries, taking a lot of time to do so. I just finished adapting the site to work with Thingamablog, an open-source blog tool. Now, things are a lot easier to do. I still have to input a lot of the older entries, though. I will put these in a little bit at a time until they are all done.

In the mean time, we're just waiting for the baby. We'll keep everyone posted!

Anri started a ballet lesson on Tuesday and liked it so much we decided to sign her up!

The place was Nagano Ballet (Japanese only). Anri showed a willingness to try, in spite of a total lack of coordination, but hey! It was her first time in a ballet studio. While the other kids were all jumping in common time for the first three beats per measure, Anri was just jumping happily to no particular beat whatsoever. It was really funny to see!

At the end of the lesson, the teacher, who we imagine has to have a lot of patience to do her job, asked Anri if she liked the lesson. She did, so we got her little pink leotard and signed her up.

Anri tried out her beginner ski set for the first time! She had fun for a while, trying to walk around in the new-fallen snow all over Anzu-no-Sato, but couldn't stay up when the skis slid out from under her!



Daddy held her up a little bit, but she soon got tired and wanted to be carried. Next time we go out on the skis, I'll take the advice of a ski instructor friend over here. Use a hula hoop -- parent holds it in front, around the child, and the child holds it from the inside. Then the parent can just walk and the child on skis will slide along.

I hope it works! There are more pictures from Anri's first ski here!