Sunday, July 3, 2011

Up on Rokkosan

This week's Saturday excursion - we went up Rokko Mountain to Rokko Country House.  It was very beautiful.  It's lovely to be living near mountains again.  
The boys showing off their best Pokemon poses.  Except for Bear, who is quite a pill about having his picture taken these days.  (Some friends from church went with us.  That is how we acquired an extra kid.)

Go-Karts


Paddle Boats




Creepy koi that swarmed around the boats looking for food.
We went up to the top of a tower in a little shopping complex for a beautiful view of Kobe city.

Even though my eyes are closed in this picture, I still thought it was the best one.  Once again, Bear is being a pill.  Maybe he's getting his teen angst out early, so he'll be an angelic teenager?  Maybe?

Apparently you can ski here (on man-made snow) in the winter.   This hill is about the size and grade of the bunny slope at Alta.  The lift seemed like a bit of overkill.

In not-so-good news:  Remember how right after we arrived in Japan we bought several planters and dirt (or so we thought) and planted a garden?  It turns out we bought fertilizer and planted our veggies in manure.  They all died within a couple of weeks.  So, we tried again.  We weren't as ambitious the second time - just three tomato plants and a bowl of lettuce.  They were all doing great, and a couple of tomatoes were starting to turn red.  Then, yesterday, Luke went outside and announced that the tomatoes were gone.  I rushed outside, and sure enough.  They were completely gone.  Not pecked at or gnawed at - just gone.  I am very sad.

3 comments:

Fran said...

Luke reminds me of one of my kids on a trip to Yellowstone.
Tomatoes gone!? Where did they go?

kelsey said...

So pretty and fun.

You may be sad to know that I laughed about you planting your garden in manure, but I didn't laugh about your tomatoes being gone. Not fair.

Which kid, Mom?

Fran said...

The kid was the mother of Bear and she didn't want to go on a family trip because that seemed lame and she was the oldest kid home at the time and so she stopped smiling all the days we were gone and only spoke in sentences of 1 or 2 words at a time until the drive home when we reached Burley, 40 miles from home and then she started chatting and laughing. It's one of our favorite family vacation stories.