The new office

The College of Education moved into a new building which was completed just before the start of this fall semester, in August 2011. As a result, for the past few months I have been enjoying a new office with lots of sunshine!

Thanksgiving at the beach

We had a nice Thanksgiving holiday at my parent's house in Virginia Beach, and enjoyed a few days of warmer weather. We stopped by the beach last Wednesday afternoon and had a walk on the boardwalk, and Luke played on the beach for quite some time. Next year we need to pick up a surfboard to keep at Nana's house for days like this :)

Ian is walking!

Over the past couple of weeks, Ian has been going through a lot of developmental changes. We had a feeling that he would start walking around the same age as Luke did, and sure enough, it was within about a week -- with both of them starting around their 10 month birthday.

Here are a couple of photos of him walking last week while visiting our family in Virginia:

Tyko

I'm not sure what it is, but Luke has a character he likes to play called "Tyko".

Halloween 2011

What blog doesn't include photos of the kids at Halloween? Okay, so here we go... We all dressed up as skeletons this year -- a skeleton family.

Osaka

I was in Osaka, Japan for a few days in October, working on a research project with partners at Osaka University. There wasn't much time for sightseeing -- none, in fact. But I did ride the Osaka Monorail a few times, and passed a station called Banpaku-kinen-koen 万博記念公園駅 (which is quite a mouth full). This was the site of the 1970 World's Fair Park. There is a famous landmark here, the the Tower of the Sun monument, which I enjoyed seeing from the height of the monorail riding by.

The new cat

We've noticed a new cat in the neighborhood over the last 2 weeks. He's friendly and likes to come over and see us at the front door. Luke really enjoys chasing him, and occasionally cornering him.

The little chef

Luke has been helping out in the kitchen lately. He's a good helper, and always dresses the part.

Make your own fun

Luke has been interested in characters lately, and his imagination is growing everyday. So with nothing else to do on a cloudy Saturday afternoon, we all helped him design a Super Hero outfit.

Okay, it started out as just a simple pair of bat wings to "fly" around the house, but once the mask was cut out and we found the old Dracula medallion from a past Halloween, it became more and more about "saving the world" and posing on the porch.

Ian even joined in as the sidekick.

Luke is three

Yesterday was Luke's 3rd birthday. He had a party with his friends in the morning, and then with his family in the late afternoon. I was teaching an evening class at the university, so we decided to open gifts and have a piece of cake when we could all be home in the afternoon. Yukari, as always, did a great job with decorating -- this time with an Anpanman theme (a Japanese cartoon show). She also made a very interesting, and tasty, jello cup -- made of layers of jello and yogurt. Yum!

He took a couple of phone calls and online video chats from relatives, and received many nice gifts from his aunts, cousins, grandparents, and - yes - from his parents too! Ian got to play with the life-size "Diego" balloon -- so he had a wonderful day too.