New Year!

2008!

Welcome to a new year everyone.

Here in Japan not much is going on. I fell asleep around 9pm with the local Troll population. Woke up at 12:05, just in time to catch the 'around Japan on New year's eve' TV show. It's pretty interesting to see the different places in Japan. There are some really beautiful shots of some of the nicer temples as well as some local color - including a Taiko show from Yubari, a town nearby that has been in the news a lot recently due to going bankrupt.

Got to see some fireworks this morning, courtesy mom's webcam from Norway :P I was however too busy with the kids to really enjoy it. This morning I also got my Christmas present from Kumiko: Ptolemy's Gate by Jonathan Stroud (UK ver. the link is the US ver.). We've both enjoyed the previous two books, so I'm looking forward to reading this in all my spare work time.

Tomorrow we are heading off to Marukoma onsen at Lake Shikotsuko, a place we quite enjoyed when mom was here this summer. The food was only so-so, but the onsen is fantastic, as is the view. I think both the kids will enjoy the baths as they both are big bathing fans at home.

Once we return from Marukoma on the 3rd things will get back to normalish. I still don't work until the 7th, and full time from the 16th, but Sasha is back at daycare and Kumiko is back up to full workload. In the meanwhile I'll take the opportunity to enjoy some skiing. I'm really looking forward to that.

Regarding the diet I mentioned the other day, I just hit my first target and I'm thrilled about that. I'll mostly leave that story off this blog, but if you want to follow that story you can check out my daily posting here.

Both kids are great. And Munchkin did her second flip today, and rolled halfway under the living room table. Quite spiffy. She also had her first taste of Orange Juice today, freshly squeezed. She was quite happy with the alternative to breast milk.

And with that I'll leave you with another photo.

Welcome

Ok, for the third time I'm trying this. Hopefully I'll be able to keep it going this time and actually write (ir)regular updates for you all to enjoy.

Not much more to say about that at the moment.

And since this blog is now officially an baby, here is another baby I know you all like:


A quick update:

Christmas was survived well, even with one sick child. Speaking of which, we're always learning new stuff as parents. It's kind of nuts. The really big thing this time was that life is much, much simpler if you don't worry too much about putting the kids to bed on time and let them have their nap as needed during the day. It actually turns out that it's easier to get them to bed at night if they have their full nap. I know, kind of odd, but that's the kind of things that have been hitting us lately.

In a similar vein my current diet is such an oddity that it is strange that it seems to work. Kumiko is continually amused/surprised and I'm quite happy the way it's turning out. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of me talking about this yet, just check out the following links here, here and here. I found out about it from the appendix in Freakonomics (which I didn't bother reading the first time around) and read the research paper it was based on. It was interesting, and simple enough, to give a try. So far it's working, and seems to be beneficial in other ways.

I'll post again as soon as I have something to share.

Take care and enjoy your New Year's eve.