Julia's Modelling Job

Here are some pictures from Julia's second modelling job. She was the main character for this book of patterns for children's clothes.

Visit from the USA

Our good friends Isaac and Valerie came over from San Francisco to visit all their friends in Japan, and stayed with us for a couple of freezing cold days! Here they are with the kids!

Our Tree

I'm totally out of order here, but this is a shot of our Christmas tree, I put it up, actually, the kids put it up first, then I re-did it, on December 3rd or so, and took it down by the 1st of January. Our poor little house doesn't have enough room for a long-term Christmas tree, and besides, Jacq was having too much fun yanking the decorations off of it, and climbing up the trunk. Considering that our tree is fake, it was losing too many needles and I wanted to salvage it for at least a few more years.

Jacq all wrapped up

Jacq loved the wrapping paper from Christmas! With all that paper around she didn't need any presents.

Wish List

I found this bikini on the Vic.Sec. site, and loved it, maybe one day! Gotta work on the hips a bit.

Jerry's Birthday

Jerry turned 14 in November. We had a small party at our house for him, we bought him a cake from Costco, sang him Happy Birthday and ate ice-cream! I can't hardly believe my baby brother is growing up so quickly!

Our Family

We got a nice shot in for Christmas, here we all are, as you can see, Jason had a hard time smiling, he was mad at me for something or another!

Christmas Decorations

Here are a few of my new decorations for this year! Most are handmade, a couple were bought.

Christmas Day

Aimi, Jerry and Aimi's friend Emilie spent Christmas Eve and day with us, preparing for Christmas dinner, which we had together with my Dad and Shuko on the 26th. Our friends Roy and Kazu came over later for drinks.
Our menu:

• turkey with stuffing
• cookies, lots and lots of cookies
• apple cake
• stuffed paprikas
• egg nog
• lemon potatoes
• stuffed mini-tomatoes

It was great!

Christmas in Hashimoto

Here's the kids and Art playing Monopoly on Christmas Eve at our friend Patti's house, where we had our first Christmas dinner together. We almost didn't get a turkey this year, but at the last moment things worked out. Unlike the States, turkeys here don't grow in supermarkets, we have to either make the big trip to Kobe Cosco to buy one, or mail order it from the FBC. A 12lb. turkey costs about $40, give or take a bit. As you can imagine, we usually have turkey once a year--Christmas!