Happo hill climb, Green park, and BBQ.

Last week while Kate and the children went to the rice field for harvest I went to Happo for a bike race sponsored by a local bike shop. The event is a hill climb and it is not a mass start. Each person starts 30 seconds behind one another. Although I am much lighter now (148 lbs.) than when I came (182 lbs) I am still slightly overweight for a true hill climber. The Utsunomiya Blitzen pro team showed up for this event and they were very fast. I ended up running the 13.5 km 10% climb route in 48 min 32 seconds. Typically this time would be top ten, but with all the pro and semi pro members that showed up I ended up in 22 place. In the end I was really happy with the result.

Colleen joined a choir group that meets after school. She has been practicing for a number of weeks now and will compete soon against other schools.

Kate went early one day and said they sound really good. I got the opportunity last week to watch them for a few minutes at the end of their class. They did sound really good and I will be excited to see how they can do in their competition. The children really take it seriously..

Today we went to Green Park with Hiro san, Makiko san, and Tora kun

The park has ponds and rivers running through it that the children can enjoy as well as a number of other attractions. This is the same park that had the obstacle course that Kate fell off the barrel and into the water on last year. Liam ended up with some crayfish from the river while the other children did their best to catch fish from the pond, but came up empty handed. I told Liam that his crayfish looked good enough to eat, but since none of us know how to prepare them we just let them loose back into the river.

After we finished at the park we came back to our home for some BBQ.

Kate, Makiko, and Hiro went to the grocery store to pick up the meat and vegetables while I stayed back with the children. We set up the grills and chairs in our front yard and started cooking.

The food was great, but Tora got ahold of something that must have tasted funny...

I hope to bring this style of grilling back to the US with us, it sure is tasty... After we finished eating we hung out by the fire and played. The children taught Hiro san their dances from last weeks Undo kai. Hiro san is a quick learner as you can see in the picture.

Have a good week..