Vacation Time

Just procrastinating before I start final preparations for a four-day family bike trip starting tomorrow. It may seem like I am always on vacation, but it is stressful for both Tomoe and I making sure customers' needs are met, so last week Tomoe and I did take a working vacation. I say "working" because wherever we go we are always looking at it in terms of how we can use what the area has to offer in the future.

This time we took a trip to Hakuba, where we lived for one summer, to pick up some chickens from a friend I had only known via his blog for a few years. They are definatly a couple we will be going back to meet in the future. Perhaps to enjoy one of his back-country ski tours.

We also met with a friend (also my previous boss's wife) and loaded up on hand-me-down clothes for Mona, who is quickly outgrowing anything we already had, such that Tomoe had to cut the legs off of some of the suits. (don't worry, she did it when Mona was not wearing them).

A visit to a goat herder friend, we realized we might have to be careful with Mona around our own goat (she seems to be quite tasty). Of course later we were informed that there is no need to worry because we have been asked to please not keep a goat this year due to the recent foot and mouth outbreak in Japan. If our goat got it, all the beef and dairy farmers in our area would be forced to kill their own animals.

We also paid a visit to a couple of fellow "I-turners" - people who have left the city for the countryside. This is a couple we knew from our days in Tokyo and they moved out at the same time we did. The state of their house indicates that they are obviously more organized than us, they spend less time fighting and more time working, or they just had more money to hire professionals to renovate, as opposed to having a completely non-carpenter Kevin trying to do it all by hand (all the while fighting with an equally non-carpenter Tomoe about what is the best way)! Their house is amazing and is going to be a stopping point on our future tours.

They have nice goats too.

Finally, on the way home we had a nice picnic at a shrine along the way, and Mona enjoyed (until the diarrhea came) her first taste of fresh veggies.