Hi, everyone!
Wednesday was Bill-kun’s birthday! In the morning, Karin-chan’s preschool had a street festival that we watched. Each class of five year olds made pretend snacks and small gifts, and all the classes had pretend money to spend, buying what they wanted. Karin-chan was a seller first for her class, then she got a chance to go shopping at all the classes’ tables. She and her friends compared notes on what they found. When we got home, Karin-chan showed me and her ponies the pretend shave ice, hamburger and cake that she bought.
Bill-kun and Karin-chan both had piano lessons after school, then their other set of grandparents came for birthday dinner. We all watched Bill-kun open his presents. He could read his birthday cards all by himself — both the ones in English and the ones in Japanese! He got lots of books, including my newest Lion-san book. His “big” present was a 3DS game system, and he knew exactly how to set it up!
Karin-chan helped Bill-kun blow out the candles on his birthday cake. It had his favorite cartoon character on top! Everybody got a party cracker to pop. When we pulled the string, a long streamer exploded out! Bill-kun was a good big brother and let Karin-chan play with his presents — even his new 3DS!
The next morning, it was time for Grandma and Grandpa and me to start back to Rochester. I gave Bill-kun and Karin-chan goodbye hugs before they went to school, then I had some time to spend with Original Lion-san and the hitsuji-sans before we left. We took a train to Shin-Yurigaoka, then caught the bus to the airport. When we got to the airport, we had time to eat at my favorite airport restaurant before we got on the plane. The flight back was three hours shorter than the flight going to Japan, because we had a tailwind blowing more than 150 miles per hour!
Grandma and I just finished giving out Halloween candy about an hour ago. In Japan, it’s already Saturday morning and Bill-kun and Karin-chan are all done with Halloween. This was a “Frozen” Halloween for their costumes!
Love,
Lion-san
It is nice you got to be there for Bill-kun’s Birthday and had your own party cracker! What fun. It was great you even got to see Bill-kun and Karin-chan’s Halloween costumes.