Business meeting

Gingerbread House

We made a gingerbread house for Christmas. Yurie did most of the decorating.

Christmas Party

Last Sunday we attended a Christmas party hosted at the Clearwater Bay country club by a local Japanese family. The jumping castle was a big hit as it was two stories high with an internal slide.








Here Fumie and Yurie join in a hula dance demonstration.

Shimajiro Town

We are in Japan now and today Yurie and I made a visit to Shimajiro Town. The orange guy is Shimajiro, a little boy tiger that Yurie likes.

Suzuki Concert

Yurie has started taking violin lessons using the Suzuki Method. Part of this means that she has to take part in school concerts to help build her confidence and performance skills.

Her teacher felt that even though she had only been playing for a very short time, it would be a good idea to have her join the concert. Here she is playing her first solo. Even though she was very nervous and made a small mistake near the end, she finsihed and felt quite proud of her accomplishment.



For the group portion of the concert she had lost her nervousness, but also seems to have lost some concentration. All in all, she had fun.

China Doll

Yurie just had a show at school. She, and several classmates, dressed in Chinese dresses and sang & danced to a song called "Hello China Doll".

Mulan & Marie at disneyland

We took Yurie to Disneyland (again) as her choice of something to do for her birthday. We managed to bump into 2 of her favourite characters.

Christmas 2007

A visit to Santa's house.






Christmas day.



Fumie's sister Harue joined us for Christmas.


Fumie trying (in vain) to become a Guitar Hero.


We had Christmas dinner at Dan Ryan's.



Yurie decided to dress like a fairy princess for Christmas dinner.



How many think that this last picture looks a lot like Graeme?

Cartoon Yurie

I was just playing around with some of the features on my new phone. Yurie liked this one the best.

In the next few days I will add all of our Christmas photos. Things have been a bit busy with Fumie's sister visiting us this last week.

Pacific Place

This is beside the Christmas tree in Pacific Place mall.

Yurie's picture of Fumie

Yurie wanted to take a picture so I gave her the camera. This is what she took.

Yurie watching TV

I have a cool feature on my new phone that will send a photo directly to my blog. Hopefully this means I will be able to update it more frequently.

Shichi-Go-San

Shichi-Go-San means seven-five-three is a traditional rite of passage and festival day in Japan for three and seven year-old girls and three and five year-old boys, held annually on November 15. We did it a bit earlier while Fumie was in Japan on business.



Shichi-Go-San celebrates the passage of their children into middle childhood and girls who are aged three or seven are dressed in kimono - many for the first time - for visits to shrines.

The bag contains traditional shichi-go-san candy called chitose-ame which means "thousand-year candy" and represents long life.

This is Yurie with her grandmother and auntie.

Of course, being a little girl, she also likes her usual stuff best.

Sports Day

Yurie's sports day at school was held last Saturday. She participated in a race as well as a dance routine in which she played a raindrop.

She's the one on the left and she managed to come in third!

in Toronto

Some Pictures from Ocean Park (and stuff)

Here is a picture of myself and Yurie with a horrible, scary sea monster . . . and a guy in a dolphin suit.

One of the rides in the children's area. One of her favourites.

An added bonus, here is some random clips I have tossed together.

Hong Kong Park