Whew!

I have been experiencing serious technical difficulties. I might have updated sooner if my computer hadn't wigged out and if I had had a few moments of quiet. But anyway, I'm doing it now, so pipe down.

Anyway, I was tempted to begin this post with the famous opening line from A Tale of Two Cities, but it wasn't quite that dramatic. Most of the time.

Eric, Anuska, Olivia, and Eric's niece Ashley (a very mature teenager who rocks--I am interested to see how she turns out) were her for almost 2 action-packed weeks. We did a hell of a lot in that time, including:

• A beach weekend in Shimizu
• A two-day camping trip on a beautiful lake somewhere
• Lava Cave/Suicide Forest
  
• Lots of playground/zoo trips
• Several rock shows starring TBM, DJ Macky Ramone, and an all-star cast of local rockers
• Lots of late nights
• Karaoke
• A near-fatal lack of sleep
  
• A trip to Harajuku/Meiji Shrine
• The swan song (again?) of TBM, which was more like roadkill (or as Jeff likes it "a stake in the heart")
• Minato-Mirai day

It was chaos, it was crowded, it was occasionally dramatic, but mostly it was many moments of love and quality time between adopted families. These guys are our anchor to Seattle and to who we are.

As for the rest of what I could relate, I will just let the pictures speak for themselves. C'mon, view the slide shows.

Part I
Part II (lots of these were taken by Anuska, who got sick of lugging her big - superior- camera around and takes much better photos than me)
Through Anuska's camera

Relatively quiet around here for the moment. Jeff goes to the States next week for work, and next weekend, we are going to Yamanashi with Wilson and family for the matsuri.

I need sleep. Lots of sleep.