The Cannon Family Homepage

Rockabilly dancing in Harajuku

2009-07-10T05:50:00.003+09:00

Nothing says manly like a bunch of dudes dancing in the street in a circle, playing air guitar and flaring the collar on their leather jackets. This is the image created by the rockabilly scene here in Harajuku. While it's just another sign for what makes Tokyo so unique, I do have to give these guys credit for the really brash display of public alcohol consumption and greased up hair-do's. It's been a revival of sorts. Word is these guys and gals dressed up in Grease-style 50's era leather jackets and poodle skirts and danced through the better part of the 80's and 90's before the goth-enthused Harajuku girls stole the limelight. Now it looks like the Rockabilly is making a comeback.

There are multiple rockabilly clubs that meet in Harajuku on Sundays and they all have their own audio equipment that they blast for public consumption. And it wouldn't be Japan without there being some sort of hierarchical structure in place for the club - not everyone can be as outgoing and with their dancing moves. Some people are relegated to play air bass and others are more "back up dancers."

There seems to be enough room for the greaser-rockabilly man and the goth-Harajuku girl, though. That's good to see. You'd hate there to be acrimony between Fonzi and Little Bo Peep. Speaking of the Harajuku girls, there was one who looked like a kind of Strawberry Shortcake doll, who seemed to like posing for people.

Click on the picture to go to a small gallery of shots. Or watch the youtube video I shot below.

Fresh Fish

2009-07-07T09:00:00.001+09:00

I went to dinner with some coworkers last night. We ordered a plate of sashimi and on the plate was a fish that had seconds before been alive and well, but who now sat on our plate skinned and carved up into sashimi. We were told not to put our finger in the fish's mouth, because it was still "alive". Low and behold the fish kept opening and closing his mouth, and would even constrict its head and tail if we touched it. Talk about fresh fish!

There's something awkward about looking at a fish who seems alive, and who's being used as a platter on which is served carefully slices of his own meat. I think to myself that I'm sure glad that's not me. But he was delicious.

Father's day...a bit early

2009-06-20T10:00:00.001+09:00

It is the expat tradition in Tokyo for many wives and children to flee Tokyo soon after school gets out for the summer. What remains is a lonely fraternity of bachelors who loosely assemble during the week to keep from missing their families too much. I've joined that fraternity for the first time as Shelley and the kids flew home to LA, and then to Evansville last week. I am nearing the end of week 1 (5 weeks total) of being "home alone."

Consequently, we celebrated Father's Day a week and a day early. Anthon has been preparing to celebrate Father's Day for weeks, and has been really excited about it. One time, upon overhearing Shelley and I talk about one of my gifts that I stumbled across (a case of Dad's root beer) Anthon thought it was important that he gets himself out of bed, walk into the kitchen, climb up on my lap and say that he had something very important to tell me. He proceeded to whisper in my ear what my present was - a laminated necktie he made in school with his picture on it. Anthon really has owned this year's Father's Day - overruling Shelley on the style of umbrella they were giving me and insisting that he hide the gift himself. His reasoning is that it's Father's Day and I'm HIS father...not Shelley's. You can't help but be flattered.

And to top it all off, I got two songs sung to me...the best presents of all.

The photo shoot

2009-06-18T15:30:00.000+09:00

We have a neighbor, I guess an ex-neighbor as of today, who might as well be a professional photographer. Basically he's my idol. He agreed to take a few shots of Ella and Anthon - this in the middle of all their packing up and moving, mind you. Impeccable timing, once again, by the Cannons!

Anyway, Ella fared pretty well, readily flashing her cute smile. The flash took its toll on her eyes, however. She kept rubbing and covering her eyes, even folding herself in half to get away from the flashing light.

The photos I'm posting here are just the raw, scaled down photo without any cropping or photoshopping. There are some real possibilities here that show Ella's little personality. Look at the gallery and let us know if there's one that you particularly like. While the photo shoot focused on Ella, Anthon wanted in on the action. You can see his enthusiastic, boyish personality in almost every shot.

If anyone is interested in the photographer, Ryan Young, or his work, please visit his website Ryfoto.com. They'll be relocating to the Arizona area in case you want to hire him to do some work for you or your family.

Ella is starting to walk

2009-06-16T16:00:00.000+09:00

Right before the family left for the U.S., Ella began to take some steps on her own. So while we'll be away from each for the next month, I'm full anticipating seeing Ella make the transition to walking full time.

Up until the day they left, she never would walked for me. Whenever we tried to get her to walk, she would end up walking on her knees with her arms outstretched and grunting - looking a lot like baby Frankenstein.

But here she is walking around and enjoying the laving praise we pour on her.

It's going to be a boy

2009-06-15T09:00:00.001+09:00

We went to the doctor last week and found out that we're having a boy. You obviously can't tell from this shot, but rest assured, we are. Anthon, of course, is excited. He told us, "I've always wanted a boy!" Ella doesn't know what's coming.

So this confirms what Shelley has thought all along - that there is something about being pregnant with a boy that really makes her quite happy. Unfortunately, her pregnancy with Ella was the exact opposite. Anyone else have a similar experience?

Our girl sleeps in the closet

2009-06-06T18:30:00.003+09:00

These are the instructions Shelley left for the babysitter last night. Brush teeth, say prayers...and don't forget to put Ella in the closet! There's part of me that feels guilty about putting our daughter to sleep in the closet. I mean, what loving parent puts their children in the closet for 10-12 hours at a time? Ella isn't the deepest sleeper and the slightest noise seems to wake her. To exacerbate matters, we don't have blinds in Ella's room and with Tokyo getting light at 4:00 AM, we've had a spat of days where Ella is up at 5:00 or 5:30 AM. Not good. So we've resorted to putting her in the closet. It's at least a walk-in, and we have a crib there for her. But we do feel bad, because we are putting her in a closet. In the movies, only unloved kids with mean parents put their kids in closets. I mean, is she going to develop some complex that will take years of therapy to unwind because her heartless parents put her in a closet at night, turned out the lights and closed the door? We're willing to risk it to give us a few extra minutes of sleep. Well, there goes parents-of-the-year honors for 2009. Better luck next year I guess.

Terra Cotta Warriors

2009-06-03T08:00:00.001+09:00

The other highlight to our trip throughout China was our stop in Xian to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. To get there, we took a 12 hour over-night train from Beijing. This is a pretty good option, especially with a family. There are some downsides, however.

1. Non smoking cars aren't truly nonsmoking as people can smoke at the end of the train cars and that seems to circulate quite nicely back into the other cars via the air conditioning system.

2. You're easy pickings by fellow train passengers who want to interact with you and your kids. This time I was the target. Some random lady who saw me on the platform buying drinks and snacks tracked me down and found my room and, uninvited, sat down to tell me all about why she was going to Xian. She probably would have stayed there forever had we not told her to leave our cabin...in a more nice way than I'm putting it.

The Terra Cotta Warriors were stunning. They were first discovered by a local farmer who was drilling for water and came across shards of terra cotta. That turned into the massive dig that we have today. If this had been the United States, then the guy who found this would undoubtedly be a very rich man...kind of like finding oil underneath your house. But in this case, the man who found this has a new job, that of sitting in a visitor center outside of the entrance, shaking hands with people and signing autographs for tourists who buy coffee table books. Look, is it a step up from farming? In my book, yes. But come on...this guy got shafted in grand scheme of things.

I don't know if it's comforting or not to know that wasteful government spending isn't a modern invention. A few hundred years BC, Emperor Qin, who's buried here, recreated an underground palace complete with an army to help him fight in the afterlife. So much planning went into this, that it was started over 30 years before the future Emperor died...even before he was made Emperor.

The whole compound is fascinating. It's one of these places where you can stand in one place and stare it would still be as stimulating after 30 minutes as it was when you first saw it. It's just hard to fathom how much time, money, people and effort that went into making these statues. The attention to detail and the sheer number of soldiers is incredible. Most have been broken apart underground and it must be so tedious to put them back together - like a giant 3D puzzle.

This place is still very much a slow work in progress. There are three pits, two still darkened significantly, denoting ongoing archeological digs.

As always, click on the pictures to take you to a small gallery of shots from the day. The youtube video below offers a brief look at the statues and the pits.

The Great Wall of China at Mutianyu

2009-05-27T08:00:00.001+09:00

It's hard to know where to start in describing our experience with the Great Wall. One can get caught up in the data points - like the fact that it stretches the same distance as a flight spanning the Pacific Ocean from Los Angeles to Tokyo (5,500 miles). It took centuries, plus the lives of millions of laborers, to build this wall. At its height, more than 1 million soldiers were used to guard the Wall. The construction is even more impressive when you realize that the wall basically lines the contours of these rugged mountains, no matter how steep. And at times there was some very steep hiking.

We started out our hike among a throng of other hikers, which at times can be really frustrating. But luckily the more you hike, the more solitude you find, which I think is the best way to experience the Great Wall. It's worth it to see the empty walkways and cool, dark guard towers in relative peace and quiet. Off the beaten path, you can see the wall in its original, unrestored state, being overrun by nature. Trees, shrubs and plants have busted through the Wall, leaving behind only small hiking paths in its slowly crumbling state. It was nature taking over one of man's most amazing creations - which makes for an interesting parable when you stop and think about it.

The biggest worry was the kids...specifically Anthon. He can be very sensitive about walking too much. But we found out on this trip that so long as you tell him stories, he'll do anything. He'll go anywhere...and there will be no complaining. He walked 70% of the way there and back...that's a lot of up and down for a 3 year old. A total champ. Poor Shelley, though, had to tell the same three or four stories probably 20 times each. Ella had it easy. She was in the backpack and took a number of naps along the way. Our guide, Flame, carried her a good chunk of the way. I had it relatively easy too. I was charged with taking pictures and video. I took over 400 pictures over the course of the day. Don't worry, if you click on these pictures it will take you to a gallery of shots from that day that have been winnowed down to something below 40 shots.

As always, I took some video and have it uploaded to Youtube below.

Japanese Honesty...

2009-05-26T08:37:00.004+09:00

I got the following email from someone in our office - it shows just how honest the Japanese people can be.

Did you forget to pick up 50yen from vending machine? We found 50 yen in vending machine in the lounge this afternoon. Please contact office services if you forgot to pick up 50yen. Thank you.

50 yen is the equivalent of 50 cents. Someone took the time to find the 50 yen, walk it up a flight of stairs to our office services team, who then had someone craft an email that went to over 100 associates in the entire office. That's a lot of work for 50 yen.

On a related note, vending machine drinks used to be free in our office, but with major cost cutting in effect that subsidy has been lifted. I can see how there could be vending machine mishaps. It just so happened that I lost a 500 yen coin ($5) trying to fish out my 50 yen for a drink. And as luck would have it, the 500 yen coin popped out of my wallet, rolled across the room and stopped underneath the same vending machine. I've tried for the past few days to get it and I can't. Nothing reaches.

I know what you're thinking, and no, I didn't try to claim the 50 yen as mine to recoup my losses!

Anthon has a good memory

2009-05-23T06:00:00.003+09:00

One thing we know about Anthon is that he has a really, really good memory. Almost too good. After reading him a story a few times he can pretty much recite the whole story for memory. If you purposefully mess up on a word, 7 times out of 10 he'll be able to correct you.

So harnessing that, Shelley has been helping Anthon memorize scripture verses. And Anthon has really taken to it. Here's the first one he memorized, Doctrine & Covenants 109:8. He has these cute little hand motions too that go along with it to help him remember.

We may try to do a series of these memorized scriptures. As many of you know, I teach seminary (early morning, daily Bible study for LDS high school kids). Our course for the year just ended...but it looks like I'll be teaching it again in the Fall. Every year there is a set of scriptures that the students are asked to memorize. Maybe if we can get Anthon to memorize the set of 25 scriptures this year, that will motivate the kids to memorize theirs. Nothing like a little competition from a 3 year old.

The Summer Palace

2009-05-18T17:00:00.003+09:00

If you spend any time in Beijing and read about its history, one thing becomes abundantly clear - the imperial family didn't spend much time out and about with the common folk. I'm sure that's the case with most royal families. But there are large tracks of land that was dedicated solely for the use of the emperor and empress, the summer palace being one of them. To further my point, a lot of the landscaping done around the palace, from its large lake to its Venice-like canals, were made as replications of existing famous Chinese sites. My point? I don't know how much the royal family, or their handlers, got around much. One has to chuckle knowing that after the original palace grounds were ransacked, the money to rebuild the grounds was taken from the money that would have gone into building a navy.

There are three things that make this a must see in Beijing. First is that this is every bit as much as gathering spot for locals as it is a tourist spot for foreigners and tourist groups. Locals can buy a month or year long pass to enter at the price it costs for us to get in for a day. You'll see these people in large groups Chinese line dancing. We're talking a hundred people all lined up dancing away. Others are doing group jump rope, kicking Chinese hacky sacks, which looks like a cross between a western hacky sack with a badminton shuttle cock, or by doing some rhythmic exercises with a ball and paddle.

The second interesting thing about The Summer Palace is seeing how this place was ransacked in the early part of the 20th century. Western powers trying to quelch a nationalistic uprising ransacked much of the palace, even destroying walls adorned with Buddhist statues. You could see heads of these statues lopped off. The higher you got, however, the more the heads were spared. I guess even marauders have certain height limitations.

Finally, I think the best part about being at The Summer Palace was renting a boat and floating around the lake seeing the entirety of the estate. During this time of year the many willow trees were drooping down into the water and their cottony blossoms were wafting in the air creating a really dreamlike state of serenity. It was really quite a nice feeling as we were floating calmly along the canals and lakes of The Summer Palace.

We spent our first full day here and it was a wonderful introduction to the city. Click on the pictures to see more from the gallery. The video captures nicely, I think, the three great things about this place: the people, the lake and the Buddhist statues. At the end you can see a pretty funny video of people gathering around like paparazzi taking pictures of Ella and how Anthon responds to being grabbed.

Baby news

2009-05-17T08:00:00.000+09:00

Shelley is 14 weeks pregnant with our third child. November 12th is the expected due date. We don't know the gender of the baby yet, but Shelley swears that it's a boy as this pregnancy mirrors closely her first pregnancy with Anthon. Anthon seems confident it's a boy too, though we're not sure if it's anything other than mere desire to have a baby brother. The doctor seemed surprised to see Shelley so soon after the last child. But as of right now, things seemed to be progressing normally, which is good news.

Ahh, the life of a panda!

2009-05-15T05:00:00.013+09:00

We spent one morning at the Beijing Zoo. The place was so crowded that we felt like the whole city decided to join us. It was Golden Week - a week of national holidays, so everyone had the day off. Seeing the large panda exhibit was definitely the main draw.

Upon seeing how these bears live their lives lazily lounging around all day, I'm flabbergasted that there aren't any major religious movements that believe the highest form of reincarnation is that of a giant panda. These guys have THE life. What would make it perfect would be a big screen TV and 24 hours sports broadcasting. What's so great about their perceived life isn't so much that they sleep and eat all day. But it's the way they do it. They look so brazenly lazy...mocking us with the life of leisure. They spread out, get comfortable, kick their feet back, life's good and they can't be bothered. I mean, what could be better than that?

Then of course you have a billion plus people spending their day off at a zoo, clamoring to look at these animals when we in all actuality should be emulating them in the comfort of our own homes! But the crowds pushed and yelled and it was one giant mess of people old and young. Who were the lesser creatures in this example? Yet all the commotion didn't phase these bears. They were chilling out, eating bamboo and looking like they are just the sleepiest, most content animals ever. I'll be honest, I had a lot of envy in my heart that morning.

If anyone knows of how I can be reincarnated as a panda bear, please let me know. Thanks.

Dinner time!

2009-05-14T09:00:00.001+09:00

Scorpions anyone? Shelley and I were walking down "snack street" in Beijing, which is a collection of booths that sell various food oddities. You can't miss the selection of grilled meats ranging from beef and lamb to, yes, scorpions. Look, I like my food with a bit of a bite to it, but THIS isn't what I had in mind...you know what I'm saying? These scorpion are skewered right before your eyes, the skewerer often being stung by the skeweree. Hungry yet? And to further entice customers, the scorpions are left on the skewer to squirm for a while. Hey, I'm all for fresh food, but this might go a bit too far for me. Don't fear, if you're not into the grilled scorpions, then how about a seahorse? Or perhaps a starfish? Or maybe you'd like some beatles or grasshoppers?

Needless to say, this was one of the more extreme things we came across in our culinary explorations. We generally found that if we put some thought into a choice for a restaurant, the entire family generally had some really great food for under $10. We were extremely gung ho about the Chinese food we were eating, but as is the case, after a while you start to get tired of eating only Chinese. But then the guilt factor sets in if you even think about wanting to eat, say, Italian food...because who comes to China to eat Italian? We got over that pretty quickly when we relied on McDonalds and granola bars to get us through some meals...a parents' best friend!

Click on the picture to see a small gallery of the stuff we saw on the snack street. Or the video below to see the squirming scorpions.

Ella turns one

2009-05-13T05:00:00.000+09:00

Our little Ella has turned one, and Shelley and I are left wondering where the time has gone. Ella would have come into this world a few minutes earlier than she did had the doctor not been stuck in traffic and instructed the nursing staff to keep the baby from being delivered. But what started out as a nightmare experience for Shelley has resulted in us being able to raise a really sweet little girl.

At her one year mark, Ella is on the cusp of standing and walking all on her own. She can handle a few seconds of standing on her own before she falls over. She loves her shoes and uses the stroller as her personal walker as much as we use it for her carriage. She's developing quite a loud voice and exhibits random moments of extreme volume in the most unfortunate of places: airplanes, church, inside of cars and during family prayer where her loud voice really reverberates. She has learned one word from Anthon, "Don't," which sounds more like Homer Simpson's "D'oh." She says it quite often and at times can come across emphatically. She can follow a few songs with simple hand gestures and will even supply a few words here and there to songs that she loves. She's just in a great learning phase.

We celebrated her first birthday in Beijing during our trip. We found a local bakery, bought the only small cake they had, only to find that Ella had no interested in it at all, and wanted nothing to do with the peaches or the cake. But we sang and celebrated nevertheless. A pre-birthday celebration took place with Shelley's family when they were visiting us a few weeks back. Ella devoured her chocolate cupcake - it must be a chocolate thing.

We feel blessed to have such a cute young little girl in our lives. She brings a bit more of a feminine balance to the family, which is helpful considering Anthon is 100% boy. Anthon's a great big brother and is adored by Ella who seems to have a special smile and laugh reserved only for him.

Click on the pictures to see a small gallery of shots of Ella from her first birthday. As always, I've posted a video of her "party."

Come one, come all to see the foreigners!

2009-05-02T07:45:00.001+09:00

For as much as we've come to see China - its culture, historical sites and wonderful food - there is part of me that believes one of the experiences of coming here is being seen by the Chinese.

When we're out in public, without fail, we're stared at, pointed at, talked about, and stopped by kids, parents and teenagers asking for photos. It's dangerous for us to stop too long in any one spot or else the hordes come out of the woodwork. So, we could be disciplining one of our children and we'll have 5-6 people watching us. Talk about the pressure to keep your composure! I feel like a celebrity being following around by a TMZ.com camera. And for as nice as the people have been to us, they are extremely forward. We're used to the more reserved style of the Japanese who definitely respect one's personal space! The men and women we've encountered in Beijing have no problem coming up to touch, grab, tickle or try to hold our kids. Anthon, who hates being touched by strangers, is at his wits end. He handles it by making his hand into a gun and shooting people. Ella, on the other hand, seems to really enjoy the attention, which led Shelley and me to wonder whether or not Ella gets enough attention at home!

It's an odd interaction. They don't speak English. We don't speak Chinese. We say the few words we know in each others' language and then we sort of turn our attention inward and stop truly interacting. We talk about them and they, I'm sure, talk about us. We become like two infants parallel playing but with no real interaction outside of a few smiles and gestures. For us it's all a very strange and new experience. But one we're quickly becoming used to.

Spooning on trains

2009-04-27T20:00:00.001+09:00

There have been two instances in the last month where the subway I've traveled on is so crowded and so many people feel it necessary to pack themselves into this train that I've literally felt like I've spooned or been spooned by two other passengers. With one, at least I could swing my work bag to give me some space. You know, for those of you who have attended an LDS dance and had to be "Book of Mormon" distance from your dance partner. The other time, however, no such luck. And when you're packed in there like that, there's no concentrating on your book - there's hardly room to lift your hands to read it!

All I can say is that I'm glad I'm not in any other city in the world...because there would certainly be more violence on the trains. Can you imagine people in New York packed into trains like this? There would be civil unrest. I guess Japan's not all sunshine and puppy dogs when it comes to their packed trains. Japan suffers from serial gropers - people who take advantage of the tight quarters to cop feels of other unsuspecting passengers. Groping has become such a problem that most trains now set aside one train car solely for women during the morning commute. I've not seen these train cars, but I imagine there's tea, soft music and pedicures between each stop. And how are us guys treated? Well, we're in the rest of the train cars forced to spoon one another on busy days. But I guess in the grand scheme of things, I would rather be spooned than groped.

Visitors

2009-04-26T22:00:00.000+09:00

In a really odd way, living the expat life can be like living on the frontier. Certainly it's much easier now that technology and globalization has shrunk the world and made almost every product available. Regardless, living in a place so removed from US-life, like Tokyo, can lead to a frontier mentality. Case in point, we've had family come and visit us twice in the last two months. And in a way we've used our visiting family members as our own Pony Express, carrying to us needed provisions, such as sourdough bread, Chex mix and other frivolous creature comforts of home that we absolutely can't get ourselves to live without.

And gosh, since our family has come all this way to deliver us this food, why not stick around for a while. Shelley's sister Pam, and her youngest son Gary Jr. visited us in March. This last week we hosted Shelley's parents and her newly minted MD younger sister Katie.

As is often the case, our visitors seem to stay only long enough to acclimated to the time change before heading home to suffer yet another week of jetlag reacclimating to the home time. Then there's the sadness of having to say goodbye. It was appropriate that the day Shelley's family left it rained from morning till night. We were reminded that while living in Tokyo does have its advantages, one of them certainly isn't "easy access to family." Summer time seems to be when we get to gorge ourselves with family time.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the Daetwylers trip through Tokyo. Most of these photos were taken by Ed...I can't take credit for any of them. Lots of good pictures of our kids, too.

Why I run for trains

2009-04-20T08:00:00.000+09:00

They joke in Los Angeles that the one benefit of a recession is that it reduces traffic. I wish that were the case here in Tokyo as well...but it's not.

The train station nearest my house is the terminus for the Chiyoda subway line - a busy subway line that runs through most business districts in the city. It's also the transfer point for the Odakyu train line, that connects Tokyo's western suburbs to the city. During rush hour these lines, and this station in particular, serve as a major transportation artery.

Consequently, the tiny station is always packed with people. The Odakyu train will come and go at least twice, dumping off its transferring passengers, before an empty Chiyoda subway train arrives.

This subway platform is more than 200 meters long. There are 10 cars per subway. Each car has 4 doors. Standing before each door are three rows of people about 12 deep. That's 144 people per car, or 1,440 per train. Standing next to the three orderly lines in front of each subway car door is ANOTHER three lines of passengers some waiting for the next train, some waiting to make the existing 1,440 existing passengers pack in line sardines. That means at any one time on the platform, there are over close to 3,000 people waiting for a train. Let's say every 10 minutes for two hours this station turns over close to 40,000 travelers. And we're talking about a relatively small station. Can you see what I'm getting at? This place is crowded.

That's why I run. I used to make fun of those businessmen who would burst into a full sprint as they got closer to the train. Oh, how I mocked what I didn't understand! They weren't running to catch a train, they were running to beat another trains' passengers in line! That's exactly what I'm doing. As soon as I hit the train station, I'm using my long legs to propel myself up two flights of stairs, briskly walking through the turnstiles and up another flight of stairs to the platform. If I hear an Odakyu train coming with thousands of other passengers that want my place in line, then I'm running hard and I'm not afraid to push people out of the way. The result is that I'm WAY out of breath and sound like a panting dog by the time I finally get in line. If I can beat the other train's passengers, then I usually can either find a seat or at least stand in a place where I'm protected from the crowds. But if I can't, then it's like being packed in a can of sardines. But more on that in another post.

Ella loves the washing machine

2009-04-18T08:00:00.000+09:00

I've not actually seen this in person - I had to steal this video off of Shelley's camera - but evidently Ella really loves the washing machine. When it's on and she's awake, she loves to stand up and look inside at the clothes, water and bubbles sloshing around.

Kill the Wabbit

2009-04-16T10:30:00.002+09:00

Shelley has brought many things into our marriage, and I think one of the funniest things is the traditional Easter bunny cake that she makes. It's a carrot cake with a cream cheese frosting and coconut shavings that shaped into a bunny. Chocolate chips for the eyes and a red gummy bear for the nose. She also dyes coconut shavings green to make the grass and to top it all off, even lays out raisins to represent the bunny poop.

Anthon helped Shelley make the traditional Easter bunny cake and evidently developed a close bond with the bunny because when it came time to eat the cake, Anthon got very protective of his friend. He wouldn't even eat the Peeps, no doubt part of the bunny-cake's entourage. Being the loving,sensitive and caring parents that we are, we broke out into Elmer Fudd's "Kill the Wabbit," which only got Anthon more riled up...of course we thought it was funny.

This was a nice Easter. Anthon has caught the vision of the Easter egg hunt and cleaned house. Ella, sensing the presence of food and candy seemed to have a knack for crawling after the occasional forgotten egg. Though I think she was more interested in eating the plastic egg than she was with finding the goodies inside. Click on any of the pictures to see a small gallery of Easter-season shots.

Ella and her walker

2009-04-14T10:00:00.001+09:00

Anthon likes to climb up on the counter in the kitchen to help Shelley with the cooking. He's quite a good mixer. He uses one of our kitchen table chairs to climb up. Ella, who freely crawls around and pulls herself up on things, especially the kitchen chairs, realized one day when Anthon was on the counter, that the chair is light enough to push it around while standing, yet strong enough to support her.

She can't quite steer the chair, so she'll walk until she runs it into something. Then she does these little leg squats to complete the work out. She is quite pleased with herself, as you can see in the video below.

Ella and the donut

2009-04-12T08:00:00.003+09:00

I haven't posted anything new on the family for a while. I captured this little video of Ella showing off the other morning during breakfast.

Ella is 11 months old now and becoming this total character. she seems less and less like our tiny baby and more and more like our little girl. She can clap her hands to "Patty Cakes" and will 'throw it in the oven' by raising her arms up high. She's waving hello and goodbye. She's really good at feeding herself with her hands and is showing interest in using spoons and forks. She loves food and can't get enough. If she's sitting on your lap and you're eating food, she will reach for the arm holding the utensil, grab the arm with both hands, pull it towards her and forcefully guide the utensil with the food into her mouth. She's very determined. Ella is pulling herself up on almost anything and enjoys standing. She's crawling everywhere and just has a lot of confidence in herself.

Pet parents strike again

2009-04-10T08:00:00.002+09:00

Tokyo is the land of pet parents - people who treat their pets less like animals and more like their own offspring. Meet Leon the dog. We saw Leon this weekend being held by his pet parent. Leon was sporting pretty cool goggles to shade his eyes, because we all know dogs hate the sunlight.

Leon's owner told me somewhat defensively that the glasses were from the States - as if to tell me 'back off American, these are from YOUR country.' I was then informed that Leon has some allergies. Yeah, poor Leon, surrounded all day by pet dander. If true, where is the doggie surgical face mask?

Look it might be entirely plausible that Leon has allergies, but come on, what's with the Lilo & Stitch hoodie? Leon is sooo EMO. This screams raving pet parent trying to make a fashion statement.