Update: The Fam

Just some photos of the little ones -- they're growing so fast!



My sister-in-law loves being a mommy :)



Aaron meeting cousin Mady for the first time. He wonders when she'll be big enough to play ball.







One of Aaron's new favorite things is playing with Grandpa in the workshop.



Grandpa shows him all kinds of cool things, like magnifying glasses.







Hello, Blue Eyes! What a pretty little girl my niece is!







And who's her favorite auntie? I am, of course.

St. Louis "Marathon" Weekend

Here are a few more photos from my first weekend in St. Louis...



We went to the Arch, of course, and I got a history lesson on its construction as well as a few cool photos.



Touching the Arch is supposed to be good luck, so we gave it a whirl.





I also got to sample some St. Louie cuisine, including the famous Imo's pizza and toasted ravioli! Yum!



Art Hill and the museum in Forest Park on a gloriously sunny day.





This was the first time I'd been to one of Stretch's races, but I think grabbing a cup of coffee while I wait for him to get to the finish line will work nicely as my regular race day routine.

Yamaguchi Prefecture -- Kintaikyo and Iwakuni-Jo

On our way to Kyushu, my kids and I hit up Yamaguchi Prefecture to see one of the most famous bridges in Japan -- Kintaikyo (or "The Brocade Sash Bridge" in Eigo) -- and to hike up to Iwakuni-Jo, the only castle on our tour of Nippon. You can just see it perched charmingly on top of the mountain in this shot...



The kids really enjoyed the bridge, which is so steep that it's actually a staircase on the center arches. It rained the whole time we were there, but that just added to the misty mystique of the mountains and the river.







The kids were troopers and didn't complain about the rainy walk at all. Kat got some great shots on our way through town, and we had a pleasant, mukade-free stroll through the forest around the castle.





The main tower of Iwakuni-Jo

Sidebar about Japanese castles: Many Japanese castles and palaces employ what they call "nightingale floors" -- a special method of floor construction that produces deliberately squeaky floorboards. Why, you ask? It's a security measure; squeaky floors are very hard to sneak across. Just consider it ninja citronella.



The view from the top of the castle tower was definitely worth the soggy hike.





The rain may have soaked us to the bone, but it didn't dampen the kids' spirits -- a couple Yakults and an ice cream, and they were ready to hop back on the bus and rock on to Kyushuu.





Alison even found some Kitty-Chan gear, which kept her spraying glitter out her ears for hours! :)






Kat picked up some hair gel and took advantage of everybody's wet hair to Manga-fy the guys. Their level of awesome reached OVER NIIINE THOOOOOOUUUUSAAAAND!!!





The bridge between Honshu and Kyushu



We stopped for a quick "set-o" menu dinner that the kids then supplemented with munchies from a nearby market.





This was one of a few stops where we crossed paths with another EF group, so our bus drivers hung out and shot the breeze while the kids ate and shopped. And yes, the little stuffed animal charms belong to our bus driver. Japan may be the only country in the world where a straight, grown man can get away with this sort of thing.

Beautiful Miyajima Park and Shrine

Most people go Miyajima to see the famous torii, shown here. This is one of the three most-photographed spots in Japan, along with Mt. Fuji and Amanohashidate. When the tide is in, the whole shrine seems to be floating on top of the water -- quite a beautiful effect. I, however, really enjoy touristy spots like this because of the people-watching. Here are a few winners...



Little girl playing on the shrine's enormous stone lanterns



Japanese couple stops in front of the torii to consult a map



Photo op is side-tracked by a couple of social deer



Photographer directing a crowd of uncooperative tourists



Crane posing contemplatively in front of the torii -- He was a big hit with the photo-takers around me. I estimate several hundred shots of him were taken within the four or five minutes he was strolling around out there.



Japanese boy making a wish. One of the great traditions at Shinto shrines is to write your wish on one of these papers and tie it to a tree or a fence like this.





Canal and nearby shops around the back of the shrine



Sidebar about Japanese food: Josh is absolutely my hero for munching down this tako (not "taco," but "taKo" -- Japanese for "octopus") he got from a vendor at Miyajima. Way to be a culinary adventurer, Josh!

Everybody else waited until we got back to Hiroshima and the kids got to taste their first okonomiyaki, which is Japanese for "the good shit" (or, more literally, "what you like, on a grill").



Okonimyaki, which is a very popular food in Kansai, is typically described as a "savory pancake containing cabbage, eggs, flour, pork, and a variety of other ingredients." The Hiroshima version, seen here, also features noodles and MAGIC. The kids did indeed like it, and it became their unanimous new favorite Japanese food.

Status Update: G is Stir-Crazy

My life is a bit of a dichotomy. In the summertime, I hardly sit still. This past summer was especially action-packed -- as you probably noticed -- so much so that I took my cat to my parents' house in June and didn't pick him up again until mid-August. I took over 2500 photos in four countries over the course of those three months, and I wrote nearly 200 pages, including personal journals, notes on traveling, bits of fiction, and of course, this blog. This is my idea of a rewarding summer: every day worn threadbare and something to show for it in the end.



If I could live this way twelve months a year, I probably would, but the bills don't pay themselves -- even those sneaky "auto-pay" ones -- and I've yet to find a creditor who'll take a story or a photo in lieu of a check.



So when autumn comes, as it invariably must, I turn to the other half of my existence. I dust off stacks of novels, inventory boxes of ball-point pens, and attempt to find my glasses. I dig my dress clothes out of the back of my closet and polish my boots, and the transformation is complete -- from rootless amateur travel guru to studious, sensible, state-certified literature teacher. Camera for dry-erase marker; plane tickets for ID tag; travel brochures and maps for Browning and Shelley, Miller and Vonnegut. My seat-of-the-pants lifestyle vanishes in a neat stack of syllabi, the regulated chiming of bells, the daily comings and goings of my students -- each face in its assigned place at the appointed time. Even when I don't tell them where to sit, they establish their own routines and cling to them stalwartly. They arrive not just at the same time each day, but in the same order like clockwork: Labrina, Ethan, Taj, Kelsey, Tyler... David arrives two minutes late with a pass from the office.

This is what I do from the first of September to the end of May. Not a bad gig, really.



... But if you know anybody who takes stories and photos instead of checks...