Marco Polo

Okay, this is rather embarrassing. I learned how to play Marco Polo this summer.
I don't know how I missed that in my childhood but I never got it. This summer at the beach Travis taught Jake and Max how to play in the frigid pool at the house. It was incredibly diverting. Two shivering boys giggling their way around the pool with a "blind" Travis telling them they were making it waaaaay too easy on him. The poor boys would stay in the water until they were shivering and their lips turned blue then they would make a dash for the hot tub. They spent a large portion of their pool time in the hot tub. From which they would toastily bask in the jeers of the adults gathered and could not be enticed back into the pool. At other times, they enjoyed lobbing freezing, water-filled balls from the pool at their unsuspecting sisters lounging in the hot tub with their pool noodles.

Julia now feels that no beach house is complete without a hot tub and Jacob will not even look at a beach house that doesn't include a pool table. Jo, well, Jo found a way to make her preference known as well.


Jo, my ever intrepid, was fascinated by the pool. She took more than one header from the stairs and was utterly unconcerned about consequences. She played until her Mom finally made her go dry off and warm up and at one point she shivered for a good 30 minutes after being dry and in her fleece pj's. Mom wised up after that and consigned her to the hot tub though she was mightily suspicious of all the bubbles.

Jo happily played in the ocean and in the pool but could've done without the hot tub or the pool table. Jo must also have a sand hole to sit in to have a complete holiday.

Wow, am I on a roll, or what?

Okay, so, here is the background story.

Allen walks Jacob to school every morning at 7:50 am. Julia loves to walk with them and then, on the way back, pepper Allen with questions like "when do I get to go to school?'' "Where is my school?" and she tells me that Dad told her she is BIG enough to go to school just not OLD enough. This was just in the first two days of Jacob's school. So, last Saturday, I am talking to Angie and telling her that she must convince Mayci not to tell Julia she is going to school. I don't have to hear about it. Angie says "You have to come check out this pre-school".

So we do.

Julia cries and doesn't want to leave (the classroom) and I think "WHATEVER" it's only 2 1/2 hours a day four times a week and it's FREE.

Today was Julia's first day and it was like, there's the door Mom, don't let it hit you on your way out!

She loved it, loved it, loved it AND was appropriately pleased at my return 2.5 hours later.

So what does a former homeschooling mother do with 2.5 hours and one child?
I actually scrubbed screen doors, vacuumed out my car and put clean sheets on my bed all while engaging my number 3 child (she dutifully washed with her washcloth, played with the steering wheel and jumped on my bed, and talked a lot about "ulia" and Jacob, mostly asking where). I might have to stop calling her "three" and give her a real name, now that I have 2.5 hours to think about it.

School Days...

Well, it has finally happened...Jacob has asked to go to school. Today is the first day.

We went to the Welcome Back Night and Jacob met his teacher, saw his classroom and explored the school. Jacob will be taking swimming this year at school and he already knows some kids from church and baseball.

The teacher only made me a little nervous when she proclaimed, no less than three times, that she is not mean only strict and that the kids will learn the difference. She then spent about 15 minutes explaining all the different ways that cursive writing can be done wrong. On the way home I asked Allen how often his cursive writing is critiqued in his occupation....hmmmmm. I'm not sold but we will see how it goes. I hope he is having fun!

Trophies and Tap

Baseball season and dance class are now over and both Jacob and Julia had a blast. Julia finished her last dance class and Jacob recieved his trophies for his team winning the championship. Jacob's team the Pirates went undefeated (19-0), something that has not happened for 30 years. Julia had so much fun in dance with ballet and tapping away with her friends.

Here she is in her little pink tutu. There is nothing like a chokehold from a friend to get your dancing juices flowing. The last image is a recent picture of Julia.


Jacob's team, the Pirates, with all their trophies. Then a couple of pictures of Jacob with the team championship trophy and at home.

Recent pictures of Jacob and Jora. Julia and Jora got to enjoy looking at the trophies and be in pictures with the trophies but their older brother was much too protective of the trophies to let them touch them.

Land of Godzilla

I recently returned from the land of Godzilla (a business trip to Japan). A Japanese dinosaur museum was setting up a special exhibit and borrowed numerous fossils from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. I was sent along for technical support and fossil specimen handling. So I worked during the day in the museum and in the evenings our Japanese hosts took us out to different restaurants to try out the food. I really enjoyed the variety of Japanese cuisine along with their great culture. It was an awesome vacation… I mean business trip (Good thing Laura did not catch that slip).



One of the hotels I stayed in had a public bath available to men. I stayed at the hotel for a few nights and towards the end I decided to give it a whirl. It was a very educational experience. I took pictures at a different time when no one was there. I did not want to get beat up and it would have been a bit weird to ask one of the guys there to take a picture for me. You place your clothes in one of the baskets along the wall and then you enter the bath room and you sit on a little stool, wash (left) and then enter the water and soak (right). The third picture is of a typical bicycle parking lot. So many people ride bikes that there are large parking lots dedicated to only bicycles and very few people lock their bikes.


One morning while I was sightseeing in Fukui I came across this accident. Two small cars collided with each other at an intersection and a fire engine and crew were there. No one was hurt. The last picture is of Amy and I at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. We sat on barstools while all kinds of sushi and other eatables moved along the conveyor belt at eye level. We would choose what we wanted and place it in front of us. At the end you counted up the number of plates you ate and paid. Our host had been here before but had never seen a waffle on the line before so I tried it out.

This was an awesome temple complex that we visited. The setting was up at the base of the mountains where the largest cedar trees I have ever seen make up a grove around the various structures. It is here where monks are trained so no pictures of them were allowed and we were required to remove our shoes and talk in whispers. The gardens and architecture made for an incredible experience. I even got to ring the bell.

Here is one quarry where dinosaurs are collected in Japan. This is literally a quarry where rock is removed with jackhammers and heavy equipment. The Japanese love dinosaurs and nothing stops them from collecting. Also, on one of our sightseeing trips we came across a rickshaw and I had to get a picture with the guide and cart. Pizza delivery anyone. This cracked me up.

Who said one child bike seat was ever enough. The last two images are of another temple sight way up in the mountains above Kyoto. You can see a fountain where people are pouring the holy water over there hands and into the pool. Also, a great view of the city can be seen along with part of the Temple.

Japanese women in traditional dress pose along one of many souvenir streets. Finally, I managed to take this shot of the city of Osaka during takeoff on my way back to the United States.

Land of Godzilla 2

The rooms were much smaller than other hotels but the bathroom was awesome. The bidet is standard in all bathrooms with the water temperature at your control and convenience (you can see the controls on the right hand side of the toilet). I wish we had a bidet toilet at our home in Pittsburgh. There were also some cool squatter toilets in certain locations like some of the temples we visited. The third picture is of a typical street in Osaka.


Here outside the city of Fukui, I stayed in a hotel with a spectular view of the mountainous areas and architectural buildings of Japan. Rice patties dominate the low areas with tree covered mountains surrounding on all sides.

The Fukui Prefectural Museum is located close to the hotel and for obvious reasons is quite impressive. At a distance I thought it looked like a turtle shell but upon closer examination a football seems to better describe it. I met a fellow paleontologist while I was there and had some fun in the park area around the museum when not slaving away inside.


The food was amazing and quite different. Lunches consisted of eating in the museum from these wonderful lacquer boxes with a variety of food choices. I did get the hang of using chopsticks and tried everything at least once. We were invited to a dinner with other curators from the museum in which they tested us to see if we could eat whatever was placed in front of us. We sat around a low table with the paper wall partions separating us from other diners and had a typical male business dinner (Amy was the only woman). My favorite was teriyaki eel. I did try various types of sushi, sushimi, octopi, squid and various other sea creatures.