Trying again...

 

Okay--here is one of the pictures I tried to post last time. This is Fox and the kids on the way down from Kompira-san. I am still having issues with photo uploading--I need my little brother!!

I am going to plow ahead without photos (sad). This week is health week at Cash's school. Every day, they are checked for something different--dental, internal, etc. Fox and I had the lovely job of doing a home check for pinworms. Good times. Cash is learning more Japanese, but unfortunately, it seems to be more along the lines of the bad stuff. Japanese children and parents here have a very specific way of vocalizing their annoyance--it is almost musical whining. We live in the country where the local dialect does have quite a tone to it. Cash has gotten this part down quickly, and we are trying to re-train him from doing it.

Yesterday, we went to our friend Nauko's groundbreaking ceremony for her new house. I had seen a ceremony online before, so it was really fun to take part in it. Basically, the designer/artichect of the house takes the new family around to each of the neighbors to introduce themselves and invite them to the ceremony. Then, new neighbors and old friends gather outside the house (at this point, just the frame) and the family enters the house, where a temporary shrine is set up. The family prays there, and then the builders pour sake from the top floor for luck.
Nauko and her little family then threw traditional mochi from the top floor and then, for the friends below, about 100 bags of chips, including Coco's favorite shrimp chips. The kids were ecstatic. Japan is definitely the land of snacks! Someone here told me that only smaller areas in Japan do these ceremonies, so that is another little note in our long list of why we love our little countryside.

In other news, there is so much wheat growing here right now. We see fields and fields of it, whereas a few years ago, we saw zero. Fox and I were so thrilled--could whole wheat be coming to Japan to stay? Alas, no--all of this wheat will be made in to white bread flour to keep the 700 udon shops in our prefecture in business. Darn.