Just keep rolling.

Well here we are again, fancy that.  I am back to the dinner pictures.  Mostly because I am having to wait my turn for dinner these days.  The table is packed. 

Last night we had the daughters favourite, Gyoza.  These were home made beauties thanks to my wonderful mother in law.  I fed my face in a serious manner and all the garlic in my system gave me a wild night.  My dreams were so vivid I felt like I was actually awake.  When I woke up I was slightly confused as it felt like I hadn't been asleep. 

On a different note I have been trying to catch the mother in law in action.  She is very camera shy.  Two nights ago I caught her with her fingers in the gyoza mix.

Tonight I was too slow and slipped away.

We are eating maki sushi this evening.  It looks lovely and I can't wait for a seat at the table.  People are gobbling it up.  I sure hope there is some salmon left by the time I get going.  In other news I went fishing with the father in law today.  The weather report was calling for 2.5 m waves but the day broke sunny and calm.  So we decided to go for it.  We went with another of his local fishing buddies.  Below is the picture of all the fish I caught.

No you aren't missing anything.  I pulled in a big fat goose egg.  Also the called for weather did arrive in the end.  Brutal.  However, I managed to keep all of my cookies.  It was a wild ride home but we made it safe and sound.  Hopefully I will manage to catch at least one more fish before we head back.  That is it for tonight.

Love out.

And then there was one.  With the start of all day (9:00 - 2:00) kindergarten for Kohei this week we are officially down to one kid on school days.  Yesterday the Mrs and I went shopping for running shoes and even though we took the little tyke it wasn't so bad.  Between the two of us we managed to keep him occupied and try on shoes.  Happy day. 

It turns out I really need the shoes as I seem to be gaining ground in the old mass department.  Apparently massive amounts of free time without the need to look for work or do much of anything else is not the healthiest life style.  Who knew?  Fortunately the kids routine is pretty set so I can try and build exercise and purpose into my life around this.  It should work.  Guitar lessons are still a possibility.  I was thinking about a gym pass this morning.  I also may take it upon myself to prepare a dish every night for dinner.  I made a really nice Thai Curry last night basically from scratch.  People enjoyed it.  I enjoyed it a little too much.  I am pretty sure that is the other side of the fitness equation.  Portion control.  Basically when I am not exerting much energy every day there is very little need for the 2000+ calories I am used to. Not that I plan to start counting but I just have to leave the seconds and after dinner snacks out of the equation.  Basically I need to drop about 20.  Then I will be at a good weight for next springs running season.

In other news the youngest was mauled by a dog.  Well, okay, he was bit on the right side of his mouth by the little shitzu we live with.  He cried a bit but had finished with the water works before Kiyomi, who was practically hysterical after seeing it happen.  He is doing fine here two days later and seems to be healing well.  Here is a picture from the day after.  The one on the right is from just now.

One more reason I don't like yappy little lap dogs.  In the second picture the little tough guy is holding the bat I bought yesterday.  At the sporting goods store I decided to get a bat and ball to play with at the park.  Kohei seemed to enjoy trying it the other day at Kindergarten so I thought what the heck.  Well was that ever a stroke of genius.  Last night before dinner we went to the park to try it out.  Total success.  Two other neighbourhood kids and a mom joined in our make shift game and we played baseball for about 45 minutes straight.  Both kids were whacking the heck out of the ball and even though they didn't seem to get all the rules and the bases were hard to find as they were just scratched in the dirt it was a blast and no one wanted to go home for dinner. 

Finally this is a picture from dinner a few nights back.  Te maki sushi.  Good stuff. Hope everyone's well.  And thank goodness you guys are all blogging like mad. 

Signing off from Glass House Central.

Love out.

Here is what you've missed.

So it has been just over a month since I touched down in the land of the humidity blues.  I arrived to find the daughter still in school and everyone else getting used to the heat.  Some outstanding events so far.  We had a dinner party in Ijuin with Sushi and such. 

I believe it was actually a birthday party for the daughter and yours truly.  Good times.  This is a picture of the littlest one modelling the latest in bug catching fashion. 

We have caught cicadas, butterflies, dragon flies and some kind of stinky bug.  Good times.  Most of the time we stick around here at home and just hang out.  The kids do lots of playing and fighting.  Good times. From oldest to youngest we have Atomu, Kiyomi, Kohei, Lilo, Tsubasa, and Kazuaki.  Sometimes Nanamu comes to stay over and she becomes the second eldest. 

So one day it was hot and we went down to the marina and swam off the back of Yoshiteru's boat.  We tried to do it the next day but it was low tide and harbour was pretty yucky.  So we took the boat out for a spin and swam in the open ocean.  It was pretty fun even if I did get a good sunburn.

I am in the middle of a beautiful swam dive here.  Really it should have been video.  Next time, next time.

Another big outing was taking the kids on the giant Ferris Wheel at Kagoshima Central station.  It was a prize for Kiyomi.  She managed to read five pages of a book in less than half an hour.  That is a Japanese book.  She has come a long way.  I am hoping that her anxiety will be way down when she goes back in September.  One step at a time. 

We also went for a visit to the Kindergarten Kohei will be attending.  They had a little summer festival and we went and enjoyed cold stream noodles, sno cones and fireworks.  The teacher was pretty worried about Kohei joining in September but after the festival it seemed like a lot of his fears had been allayed.

I am still not working although I am starting to sniff around at some offers.  It is such a blessing to finally be back in the blog hunt.  The reason I am finally blogging is that I bought a new USB cable so I can download pictures.  Still lots to think about and lots to do but more and more life is starting to flow.

Love out.

D.

Damn Computers

So my blogging has kind of gone for a shit. There are many contributing factors but the largest is the fact that my computer no longer wishes to recognize my camera. At least most of the time. So this means I have to take the memory card out each time I want to download and get the pics directly off the card. If our camera didn't have to be taped shut because it was dropped within the first few weeks of us having it then that wouldn't be such a hassle. So yeah technology is getting in my way. That and the busy-ness of life. Our house is officially on the market today. With the possibility of people coming to see the place I should have been more motivated to get stuff done today but in the end I wasn't. We are packing books and trying to declutter. I need to find a new source of boxes. All in all I think it is going pretty well.

Here are some candid kid shots. They are pre-dinner. The daughter wasn't feeling up to much. Thus the hide behind the apron.The son was being helpful moving a chair back from his room (fort building) so that we could use it for dinner. Is it just me or does he look way older than he should.So this evenings dinner. Don't try to kid me I know that is what you're really here for. Well I don't plan to send you home disappointed. It was chirashi sushi, coleslaw and shake and bake chicken. Followed by dessert. Man my wife does a great job of looking after us. Huge props to the lady in my life.Why the big dinner you ask? Well we had a second birthday dinner for the littlest one today. Originally we planned to celebrate with some friends but they had something come up and we had some semi-sickies here so it didn't work out for having people over. Just meant more for us in the end. And in the more for us department the middle child managed a new record for chicken drumsticks. Seven. If the youngest ever develops a taste for human food we might be in trouble. Below is the second candle opportunity. The cake was a store bought angel food covered with whipped cream and blueberries. Very nice. The video is of the actual candle blowing out ceremony. Notice why flames and babies don't mix.

Well that is all to report from here. With one day of regular Olympics to go, I am sad, satisfied and kind of looking forward to spending less time in front of the computer. Hope all you Vancouverites have gotten your fix. Love ya.

Pork Sushi.

Well they came in two different dishes but they were both eaten at the same meal so I think the title will stay. The tonkatsu were pan fried instead of deep fried so hopefully they were a little healthier than would normally be expected.The maki sushi was delightful as usual. We had tuna salad as the main filling tonight but I personally went heavy on the avocado and cheddar cheese combination. The kids were all about he umeboshi (pickled plum). We had two guests for dinner. It was a warm family Sunday evening dinner. And now it is time to get back to work.Some quick picks of the Chia Head that the family managed to snag in this years christmas gift exchange. Have to mention that the wife is totally yucked out by it and each time she walks past it she wants to smash it and dump the remains in the garbage. Her constant talking about it is starting to get to me and I am getting kind of a weird vibe now. What do you think?
It is starting to sprout. I don't know if this will help or hinder its survival. Time will tell.

A little help here.

So yeah, we went to the lake today for a swim and I have returned home without my wedding ring. You haven't happened to find it have you? We are pretty sure it is somewhere in the middle of the swimming area anywhere from 20 to 120 feet off shore. Yes, we do have plans to go back to the lake tomorrow. Me with snorkle, mask and a t-shirt to wear in the water while I troll around. Fingers crossed and hoping for a miracle. Not holding out much hope however.

As for dinner we had sushi. This is definitely the right meal to have on a hot day after being out and about. The wife whipped up both tuna salad and salmon salad type fillings. Both were great but the kids went nutso on the salmon and it is completely finished off. I also partook of the vegetable offerings. All in all filling and delish. But don't just take my word for it. Below is the daughter expressing her pleasure over having such a fine feast. I know it wasn't vegetarian but with the minimalist fish filling I will give it an almost. Really hoping to get my yoga on tonight and try and vanquish all the bad lost ring thoughts I am having. It is one of those things were the harder I try not to think about it the less I am able to think about anything else. Well shit, welcome anyways.

Gyoza and Yoga

Well the wife got up to some hijinx today. She managed to get some yoga in this morning while I was out for a run. The picture below might have been foreshadowing as she was already stretching even before getting her breakfast this morning.While she stretched these two were still conked out in the living room where they slept last night. I just didn't have the fight in me last night when bed time came and they still hadn't watched the movie they had been promised. So I set up the living room bed (two comforters and two pillows) and by the time the movie was 30 minutes in they were both asleep and I was into the movie. Back to this morning the littlest was engaged thusly as mom and I partook of our morning meal.
Now back to the wifely activties of today. She made those gyoza that were going to be made last night. Then to kick it up a notch she whipped up some sushi rolls with the leftover sushi rice from the night before. Who is this woman? Oh not to mention the salad.As is usual with gyoza I had trouble holding back. Fortunatey I was holding the littlest so I couldn't get into the usual feeding frenzy mode. And some were leftover for lunch tomorrow so there must of been restraint all around. To top it off, a bunch got frozen for next time. Yippee.

Just so you don't think I was totally slacking I did go into work today, did the shopping for this evening with the kids in tow, and made the chili for tomorrow nights dinner.

The International scene.

Tonight we have a two shot. A Thursday/Saturday double header, action packed with something for everyone.

Two nights ago we had te-maki sushi. The wife whipped up a whale of a weekend starter. Something to fill up your belly in any which way you pleased. There was a tangy tart tuna salad combination. There was also some natto with green onions. An aquired taste but one I have grown to love. In lower right you can see leftover turkey curry, vegetable soup, pork stir fry and mashed turnip. It was a leftover night as well as a te-maki night. Yes you could have picked from an amazing assortment of flavours. Definitely something for everyone.
Speaking of something for everyone here are the three youngsters posing down. Notice the oldest can hold the youngest. This could be good, it could be very good. Picture this, "can you go and get your brother, maybe give him a bath and feed him." Well okay that's not going to happen but the big sister thing is definitely starting to percolate.Now on Friday I totally forgot I had to referee some soccer games, so korrokke were ditched for a quick shepherd's pie. The daughter managed to get a ride along to one of her friend's older brother's birthday partys. Long story short, swimming and loot bag make daughter a happy girl. After getting my referee on again this morning I came home and spelled off the wife who finally managed to get her run in. It was supposed to be gyoza tonight but that is quite labour intensive so I offered to make pizza instead. I am not saying the wife jumped at the offer but she quite quickly gave in and we started making dough.


Now I am not saying it is anything like the pizza one might get in Roma or Napoli but we did try using the techniques demonstrated here. And our crust was excellent tonight. Light, thin and crispy with a really well risen edge. Everyone enjoyed it and it was some of the lightest crust we have ever made. The kids are pictured here with their own creations. They even got to shape their doughs. I came in with a few fixes at the end but then they did the toppings.
If you can ignore my cheesy grin. (the wife had me holding it for what seemed like ten minutes) you will notice that the pizza looks pretty darn good. They all did. I wonder what kind of zoning variance is needed to put a real wood burning stove into our kitchen. I will have to look into it.
I also made more squash and brussel sprout soup. Less veggies and more curry powder. The bowl I had was impossibly hot so I can't realy vouch for the flavour. The brussel sprouts were great though.

Lunch and Dinner

Well the lunch today looked so good I just had to take a picture. I was in charge of the french fries and because I started early and didn't rush things they turned out great. A little basil, salt and pepper backed in the oven at 450 for 35 minutes and then broiled for about two. I also nuked them for 3 1/2 minutes in a bowl in the microwave before starting and rinsed off the starch before and after the microwave. The grilled cheese were your classic sandwich maker grilled cheese. I love our 3 dollar sandwich maker. Picked it up at one of those garage sales in the parking lot of city park. Anyone can come and sell their junk at the tables. It looked so sketchy at the time and since then it has been used almost as much as the pizza oven. Lovin it. The Mrs. did a great job of her coleslaw and it was a complete meal. All the major food groups, vegetables, fried potatoes, cheese and ketchup. Those are the four main food groups...right?
After the rest of our event filled day (Bank, Post office, library, shopping, visiting friends, swimming) We arrived back home to a wonderful Te-maki spread with a simple yet heart warming bowl of miso soup. My classic blunder of the day was not buying the main thing I was sent out to buy. During the shopping I had taken a can of Tuna off the shelf and put it in the shopping cart. However, it never made it onto the conveyor belt or into the bag because it wasn't on the receipt and it sure isn't in our kitchen. So we were lacking the fish department. However, the rest of it was awesome and I am pretty content. Nothing a cold beer or warm back rub couldn't improve but that is true of pretty much anything.

Olive this work

Well it wasn't really work. We were going to make dinner anyways. We just made two dinners and had friends over to partake. Good times. I just keep forgetting the olives.

The wife and I had a sort of cook-off for our guests. She put together a beautiful assortment of ingredients for te-maki sushi. The shrimp and teriyaki salmon were big hits. People were rolling them up like they were going out of style. I think the guests even had some. I unfortunately was so focused on my pizza's that I didn't have any sushi. Fortunately, it is booked for a return engagement tomorrow as lunch on the road. Perfect.

As for the pizza's I kind of mismanaged this evenings quantities. I made only one true kids pizza, half cheese half ham and cheese. After that I made a cheeseburger pizza, probably too much onion for the little'uns. Cheeseburger is on the left, cheese/ham and cheese is on the right. Next up was a mushroom, olive, red pepper, onion pizza with a few slices of pepper salami on top. The last pizza had all of the left over ingredients, minus the olives (I am an idiot) piled high. I stuffed my face as usual (lack of pictures of these pizzas was do to face stuff and conversation) and if you tack on the bzzrs I had then I definitely over served myself this evening. But it was good.

We skipped dessert and the kids ran around the house playing various games and trying to play with various toys. Santa's Spiderman car thing is dead. The timer is busted and the batteries don't have the juice to get the car up and over the ramp. Do I try and take it apart and fix it. It doesn't look good but time will tell. Bath time, brush teeth, book time bed time. Gotta have a routine.

Oh yeah, it seemed like people thought the sushi won but they were probably just being nice because the wife is preggers. I mean my pizza kicked butt. But I will try to take my loss in stride. Next time I sabotage the rice cooker.

Sushi at last

So we finally got around to frying up the salmon and the making the te-maki sushi that was on the menu last night. And when I say we I mean my lovely wife. She sure puts on a spread. Notice the hand of my son reaching into the picture to take another piece of pan fried salmon. He loves the skin. I love the flesh and I think it is a pretty good trade. The other usuals were out in force, from our homemade daikon pickles to the cheese and avocado I tend to favour. The umeboshi was also nice. This evenings miso soup was a little flat. I think the wife forgot to put in the miso. She swears she did but I have my doubts. Eaters can't be complainers and I was sure happy to be eating this evenings meal.
This was the best my son could give me when I asked him to smile. He was bummed about not being videotaped so I had to get a least one shot in. Personally, I feel he is going through a very unphotogenic time. He just makes weird faces whenever there is a picture. I harken back to a certain grade 1 class picture where some of my classmates parents actually called my mom and complained about the face I had pulled in the middle of the back row. I thought it was the right thing to do at the time, not that any thought actually went into it. It was just one of things that had to be done at that moment. In the intervening years I have slowly overcome that habit of acting on impulse. For the most part. I don't think people can really change. They can curb their tendancies but they never leave. I am prone to being an idiot first and thinking about it later. Most of the time I really do think it will be funny.

Procrastination

Well I should be marking projects from last week but I just got bogged down. So here I am. The reason I still have this marking to do is because we were away all weekend. We drove down Wednesday night and drove back Sunday morning. It was a pretty great trip. Leaving on the Wednesday meant we had all of Thursday to do stuff as a family. The wife got a new pair of shoes, the kids got another dvd a piece. The son picked up a wedding outfit for two weeks from now.

Man was the daughter ever pissed that she didn't get equal treatment. She is a tough nut sometimes and I am worried about the day that my fatherly authority no longer carries the weight it does currently...."Because I said so" is my umbrella to her approaching hurricane winds. Lets just hope I have the sense to let go of it once she really starts blowing.

[ed. do you see what he did there, instead of writing that he was "in over his head" he tried to create his own metaphor. I really think he should stick to cliches and leave the real writing to professionals. ]

Yeah I just don't have the time or motivation to fix it. Damn.

On Friday we went out for a White Spot dinner with one of my buddies and his lady. Gotta love the white spot. Poor service and mediocre food you can count on. I should probably break our family out of that rut but the kids like the pirate pack and I am a big believer in the burger classic plate. It comes with a ceasar salad now. That was new and unexpected. It was great catching up and we should get some more quality time in a couple of weeks.

In other news we had a lovely dinner at my sisters place. We feasted on her sushi and beer (kids not so much, me way too much) and had a lovely evening filling each other in on where life is taking us. It is always nice to reconnect. One of the topics the sis mentioned was arrival and departure dates around the holiday season. We will be open for business from the 19th of December to the 3rd of January. Those who are coming feel free to make the most of this time. Those who aren't will be missed deeply and are expected to get here some time between Feb 28th and March 29th. We should have some new stuff to show off around then.

Well gotta get back to work. Gotta stop taking off the whole weekend.

Fall Cookout

Just like every good cookout this one had sushi. I called up some friends yesterday morning and said something along the lines of lets have a wiener roast in our back yard tomorrow. And now today is tomorrow so we had a cook out. The wife decided to make salad and then late in the game decided to throw in some sushi. Gotta love it when she gets the feeling. Isn't she just lovely. I get luckier every day. Anyways, I was in charge of the fire and the smokies, the guests brought the smores ingredients and our neighbour next door dropped off some peanut butter chocolate drop cookies. Along with the beers I bought in the afternoon it was truly a feast. Unfortunately, neither the smores, the fire, the smokies, nor the cookies managed to make it into a picture before getting gobbled up. Hers is the sushi before it was sliced.
In other news the daughter lost her first tooth today. Now saying lost is probably putting it slightly incorrectly. Last night it was still quite firmly in place, I mean there was a good wiggle there but not much more. So she pushed it way back and got it half way there and spent the evening and night complaining about her sore tooth and agreeing that she should have listened to us. It turns out the possibility of getting money for the tooth from the tooth fairy was just to pressing. So this morning it was no longer sore and was hanging mostly off. So she got a tissue, a good grip and ripped it out. Sure hope the tooth fairy can find a loonie.
My final section tonight is because I am pissed off. It may end up having no point so read on at your own peril.

I read today that the American government is going to spend about a trillion dollars of taxpayers money to try and fix the financial mess that they are in. I heard a commentator maybe 3 months ago talking about a law that was introduced after the great depression. It meant that financial institutions couldn't invest in sketchy investments like the sub prime mortgages. Then in the nineties the law was repealed because it was seen as punishing the big institutions because they couldn't reap the benefits of investing in all these new investment schemes. And now the American economy is in the crapper and threatens to pull the rest of us down with it because people believed the market was all powerful. The same Free Market Capitolists who fought to get that law repealed so that the "market could take care of itself" now want a bail out so that they can get their market going again. I can't tell you how frustrated I am. I feel like I am taking crazy pills, to borrow someone elses words. Do people not see what is going on? Will people ever get over their desire to have more? Is greed just part of our nature? There are people out there who have made millions of dollars which now need to be paid out by the rest of us in taxes. Why aren't all the people who made money on the way up charged. It just seems so monumentally unfair that some can rape and pillage the market and leave the rest of us holding the bag. I have no idea what my piddly little mutual fund is valued at these days but I am sure I don't want to know. Of course this begs the questions, Should I even have a mutual fund. There has to be a better way.

On conclusion I don't think that was very coherent. But I am moving on. Tomorrow is another day.

Slooooooooow Day

So it was Saturday all day, still is as a matter of fact. I guess we did get some stuff done. The apples all got picked. We got a box of pretty good apples for keeping and all the drops, bug holes and bird damaged apples that were still in good shape were made into apple sauce. Once you start canning it is hard to stop. We are down to 9 lids remaining from the original 48. I also made a batch of crazy hot salsa today with the remaining, jalapenos, chillis, and the three jabanero's. Four big jars and 2 small jars. The hits just keep on coming. We also cleaned up the garden a bit, just a bit, pulling out the squash and cucumber plants. There were about 6 small to medium sized cucumbers left on the vine and these six squash.
With only 6 this year I do not know how far they will stretch. Hopefully there will still be one for thanksgiving dinner. As for dinner in the background of the first picture you can see te-maki sushi. The wife's great pun to night , "goo ga nai ha no goo". Goo is the japanese word for ingrediants, so goo ga nai means no ingrediants. ha is pronounced "wa" and is a japanese particle that you don't need to worry about. "no goo" is a japanesified way of saying no good which you might actually here in you live in Japan. So altogether we have , no ingrediants is no good. With the word play on the double meaning of "goo". There the lesson ends. In fact there was plenty of goo and it was very goo but when comparing things with how her mother does it I can see why she worries. The key point I try to emphasize is that we are a family of four, two of which are mostly satisfied with one ingrediant rolls and then just eating the seaweed. So yeah it was an awesome dinner as usual.

Cute moment for the kids today. They are sitting watching a Japanese animated movie for the first time. They are both seated in front of the computer. The opening theme song is playing and they are clapping along, in time, totally engrossed. A really precious moment.