d@vidb dot net – Page 93 – all things d@vidb

Good news and bad news…

First the bad news…

Remember the excitement of all of our vegetables last year? Even though Kiko has had some pretty exciting mini-tomato results, it looks like our watermelons are in trouble. 🙁

We planted 2 watermelon plants last year and got 20~30 watermelons. This year we planted 4 watermelon plants and have got…. 1 watermelon.

I was doing my best to make sure that it stayed healthy so we could at least eat one watermelon this year (currently selling for 400yen for 1/4 a watermelon at the grocery store) when I came upon this:

looks good right? wrong.

… and no one believed me that dogs destroyed the last of our watermelons last year!!! Look at that split… a claw I tell you. 😐

And now the good news…

Noa can use his walker to walk around!!! … sort of. He can only use one foot… and can only go backward… in an arc… but it’s a start!)

DOWNLOAD NOA’S WALKER VIDEO HERE
希空くんのビデオ (歩行器！)

2006 Sunflower Festival

It took a long time, but we have finally put up a new photo-album! We hope to have more to come.

Today we took Noa (and our good friend Lee!) out to take some pictures with the sunflowers on display for our town’s annual sunflower festival. The town chooses a few plots of land (always near our house!) to grow a ton of sunflowers and people from all around the prefecture, and Japan, come to take a look.

Take a look at the new gallery here.

Here is a sneak peak:

Below are some pictures of Noa, us, and our good friend Lee enjoying the view. (Despite the popular view that Lee is a photoraph-taking genius and is currently trying to raise my photo-knowledge from 0 to some, I see him as my protegee whom I hope to impart some of my fantastical camera skills.) 8)

Noa kicks ass!

Not like you didn’t already know that… 😮

Anyways, Kiko recently took Noa to Ikuji Circle (育児サークル), a playgroup run by my town for children aged 2 years and up. Despite the age restriction, some of the children there are a bit younger, Noa being one of the youngest. Although I didn’t get to see Noa hanging out with other children for the first time, Kiko brought back some pictures. See how happy he is?

Look how cute he looks?

… and then Noa decides to kick ass. He takes no prisoners as he destroys the bossy girl beside him.

He then trounces a smaller baby with a fan for crawling too close.

and finally he rams her head in the ground to reclaim his empty milk cartons!

(note how he uses his halfness and his Japanese jersey to mount a surprise attack on the enemy.)

a cute picture

I found this cute picture in my phone! Did I already post this?

Our trip to Naruto

We took a trip to Naruto in Tokushima (our neighbour to the south/east/west) with Ayano-san last weekend. Naruto is famous for “uzumaki” which is like a whirlpool in the ocean. It is supposed to be quite exciting, but unfortunately the two times I have been there have been no whirlpools. The excitement was compounded by 0% visibility due to fog. 8)

(note the nice new jeans.)

Note Kiko’s hotness.

Because we don’t have any pretty pictures of whirlpools to show you, we will compensate by showing you pictures of a pretty little baby.

followed by pictures of the behemoth Japanese baby who is younger than Noa but looks like he is about to eat Noa (with his 3 teeth. Noa has no teeth yet.)

(Noa’s expression signals that he is distressed by the presence of fat baby-san beside him.)

And finally… here is a picture of me putting Noa to good use.

in transition…

Arg… I just realized we have so many cute pictures of Noa and us that I want to put up, but I have a backlog of photos that are waiting to be posted. I will post these now and give you a real update later! [Actually, I changed my mind. Although there is still lots more to update you with, take a look at the end of this post at the genius that is my son.]

Noa’s affair with Miffy is still going strong.

As is his love for the samurai haircut and the ring in his mouth…

Look at my new jeans… they are super.

and finally, bask in the glory that is my sons super high intelligence. (he can wave now!)

DOWNLOAD NOA’S WAVING VIDEO HERE
希空くんのビデオ (バイバイができる！)

bask i tell you. bask

Tanabata Festival

Here I ago, attempting once again to explain some sort of Japanese festival thingy that I don’t know very much about. So with wikipedia in hand, here I go.

Tanabata (七夕 lit. seven evenings) is a Japanese star festival celebrated on July 7th (or August 7th, according to Wikipedia. What’s up with that?)

Apparently there is some story where two people (stars) , Orihime (織姫 lit. seamstress (vega)) and Hikiboshi (彦星 lit. boy star (altair)) are seperated across the sky and connected by a river of stars. They are only allowed to meet once a year, on the 7th day of the 7th month of the lunar calendar.

There you go! Apparently it’s an old chinese mythology.

I am lazy, so watch me copy the rest from wikipedia:

In present-day Japan, people generally celebrate this day by writing wishes, sometimes in the form of poetry, on tanzaku (短冊, small pieces of paper) and hanging them on bamboo, sometimes with other decorations.

The bamboo and decorations are often set float on a river or burned after the festival, around midnight or on the next day. This resembles the custom of floating paper ships and candles on rivers during Obon.

Many areas in Japan have their own Tanabata customs, which are mostly related to local Obon traditions.

And now we have some super neat pictures of Kiko, Noa, and I celebrating our first Tanabata together in Manno (aka. Chunan).

Noa Update #6

I have decided to start posting more about what Kiko and I have been up to. Considering our move to Tokyo (and me to Gakushuin University!) very soon, we should have quite a few things to say about our trip back to Canada, our move to Tokyo, our new apartment, and our new lives living in poverty.

In the meantime, here are some more pictures of Noa!

This is Noa (in full team uniform!) with Ayano-san, our very good friend and dental assistant. She is currently looking for Noa’s teeth, without any luck. Noa has a part time job as a stripper.

A little bit of sad news… but one of my best friends here in Kagawa over the past 2 years, Nikki, has left back to America. We had a going away party for her with a few of our good friends. (Sorry about the picture Lee! Our little camera is on the fritz… damn fritzes.)

And finally this:

We like to dress Noa up in pink so it hurts less when everyone accuses him of looking like a girl.

Passion Fruits

Kiko’s Dad has a passion fruit farm thing happening on their island. Passion fruits are super. Since I don’t know much about anything, I found it really odd that the way you eat passion fruits is to swallow tons and tons of these little seed things. Considering that that is pretty much all I eat right now, can anyone confirm that I am not going to die or grow passion fruit plants from my stomach? Thank you.

People have been asking for less of Jotoro’s lookalike, and more Noa… so here you go. These are a series of pictures from Noa in June.

First we would like to announce that Noa’s secret samurai/ninja training program is almost complete. Here are the results: