My Garden

I'm happy that I have a halfway decent amount of things growing this year and looking good with a promising harvest. (In the past I'd only get one weak looking veggie per kind.)
Shiso...the seeds had spilled over from last year's plant and just exploded.

These Japanese cucumbers were started from seed. Five of them sprouted and looking healthy.


Can't wait for this little guy to get bigger. There's about five little guys right now.

Satsuma-imo, Japanese sweet potato. Took one I bought at a store and soaked it in water till it started to leaf. Cut them up into about seven separate plants and planted them. Keeping my fingers crossed on this one.


Myoga with a little shiso on the side.

Basil.

My raised bed down below in my backyard. Got a yellow pear tomato, a red cherry tomato, and some sort of pink tomato. Also a watermelon, carrots, pumpkins, more sweet potatoes, Anaheim peppers, and red onions. In a separate raised bed I got some radishes and korean melons going. Hope we don't have early snow. That would suck.

Downtown Los Angeles 2010

Our last summer adventure, a visit to Downtown Los Angeles. Since my brother doesn't live there anymore, I didn't think we'd be going to LA for a long time but they came to visit and were staying there for a couple weeks, so we planned a get-together.

Gotta love the carpool lane. Haven't seen this sign before though. For a newbie like me, thought it was a little dangerous to have to read all this and figure it out while driving.
Dodger Stadium happened to only be a mile away from where we were going so we squeezed in a quick visit. Luckily one of the gates were open and we got to check it out from the inside.

Sage's Dodger penny from one of them penny souvenier machines.

Olvera St. The middle school Spanish class has a field trip to this "street" (more like an alley...) so Emi's been wanting to see it.

We parked near Chinatown and just walked everywhere. Walking allows you to stop and see more things, like this cool sign post of Los Angeles' sister cities.

...and this bike rack (?)

Disney Concert Hall.

The outside garden had a large mosaic rose. We were taking a self-guided audio tour so we had these "phones" to listen to.

Close up of the rose. This thing must of taken a long time to create.

Cool spheres at the gift shop.

Chinatown.

Dim Sum... Mayumi knew of a good, inexpensive place. Must of been years since we've last had dim sum. It was good.

I must admit, I was surprised Emi posed for me all on her own. This is an inside joke picture.

Later we see this sign...oops! ^_^

Lots of cute knick-knacky stuff.

The ginseng bulk bins. Never knew there were so many varieties.

I think these are illegal? Maybe that's why the workers started approaching us as we were taking pictures.

Dried abalone from Japan, on SALE $1274.25/lb. Crazy...

I wonder if they eat this like jerky...

Little Tokyo was next. More cute shops.

Visited the Japanese American National Museum. A lot of stuff from their imprisonment in US concentration camps after WWII.
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I think we ended up staying for about nine hours, with lots and lots of walking. But we had a good time, and it was a nice little getaway before school starts Monday.

Jazzercise God

My girls got to meet the Jazzercise God, Judi Sheppard Missett, founder and chief executive officer of Jazzercise. She owns a house up in our community of Pine Cove and occasionally drops by to teach a class. They weren't too thrilled about taking a picture but some day they might look back and think it was cool.

Abby's Muffins

Abby made some pretty tasty blueberry muffins the other day. There were some leftover batter so we got to use the new muffin top pan. ^_^

Family Time

Headed down to San Diego one last time for summer to meet up with Mitsu who drove from Michigan to SD to only stay for one night before flying back home for work. He did leave his wife and son in SD so we can all play.

The "kids" table...soon to be the "teenager" table.
My dad made chirashi-sushi with some yummy seafood. Being a sushi chef for many years I bet he misses making sushi. The corn in the background is from their garden. They tried growing corn this year.

Teru playing Wii Archery.

My mom playing Wii Jetski. It looked really funny. ^_^

Played some bowling thanks to the Kids Bowl Free program.

Abby's a pro at Wii bowling, but found out real bowling is more difficult.

Had a quick lunch at a Japanese ramen noodle shop before saying goodbye to Mitsu.

Torrey Pines State Beach.

Abby had fun boogie boarding.

And then she got cold and enjoyed the warm sun. ^_^

Three generations picture.

A goofy pic, we placed the camera on the floor and self-timered it.

The kids "let's see how tall you are" pic. Sekai has finally grown taller than Emi. David and Teru's got this bet on who's going to be taller when they're eighteen.