Visit from our cousins

Takayuki-san, Asako-san and their kids Yohei, Kosuke and Marin visited us this weekend. We had a great time just hanging out together. We had a barbeque on Saturday at mom's house. The kids played teather ball, played in the kiddie pool and did some chalk artwork.

We're always sad to part ways after our visits but are thankful for the time that we do get to spend together!

setting up the grill

teather ball!

filling up the pool

Marin watching from the sidelines

and the clothes come off...

watching Madagascar... again.

taking a picture with 4 kids is a lot harder than it seems!

one last family photo

hugging good-bye (Yohei didn't want to leave)

cool picture, eh?

Garden - first stage

So check out what we've been doing to our yard. We rented a sod lifter and cut our garden design out... well, Paul cut it out. There was no way I could manage that machine! It did in less than an hour (not including the sod removal and clean up) what it would have taken us days to carve out by hand. Thank goodness for tools... and my strong husband. I never realized how heavy sod is! He also did a beautiful job with the lines - better than my lines on paper.

It's a work in process but it's a good start - we'll be posting process shots as we go.