Mummy's been making Yukatas...

Here they are!

Anya & Sam's First Year in Japan (video)

I spent hours last night trying to make a book through the Apple Photo printshop thing. I figured if it didn't get done before classes start, it will never get done. Eventually it worked, and we'll get some printed. Here is a slideshow of my 'efforts':
We'll try to be more disciplined in organising the photos this year, and build it page-by-page. Maybe.

Anniversary Day

Today was our sixth anniversary. Where did those years go? We spent most of the day in the house, out of the heat and taking it easy after the Disney On Ice trip.

Daddy's culinary expertise knows no bounds. 

Once Sam woke from his super-long nap (he's been snotty and grumpy), we headed off to the Yakitori restaurant. This place is great.

I asked Anya if she'd still kiss Daddy when she's 13...

And after our collection-of-food-on-sticks, we went up to the Taiyaki stall. These are lovely red-bean, custard or sweet potato-filled, fish-shaped pancake-things:

Taiyakki stall. We love it. 

And then we hopped on the bus back to Rokko Island, to eat them by the big Obon lights by Rivermall. A nice anniversary evening.

Disney on Ice in Osaka

The summer break is drawing to a close. Yesterday we took Anya (Sam came too), to see Disney on Ice: Princesses. She had no idea we were going until we got there. She suspected something was up when we asked her to put on the Tinkerbell dress, but then the penny dropped when she saw so many people dressed in Disney gear around Osaka Castle.

Just after she found out. 

It was pretty good, though we all preferred the show in Jakarta last year, with complete stories. This one was a series of shorter dances of greatest hits songs from the princess stories. It was still fun, and there was a cool dragon that set fire to the ice.

We had expected the songs to be in English, but it was all in Japanese, which was pretty funny. I've been shouting "Arriell-u" at random times for the last day. Here are the 7 Dwarves doing their thing (go fullscreen and HD):