Year end update: part 1

We were delighted to get a big cardboard tube delivered to us. Inside were copies of the posters for 'Akachanhanpo' featuring our favourite little baby boy. I think the pictures turned out great. We also received 3 copies so each set of grandparents will get one too.

Here's the full poster.

Here's a close up of Jo.

For Halloween we decided to throw a little party and invite our Japanese friends who have kids. On October 30th I headed off to Costco for some Halloween decorations. 2 weeks earlier they had had a lot of them. I was hoping to get a pumpkin or two as well. On this day however they had nothing. Not that they had sold out and the aisles were empty, the Halloween stuff had been completely replaced by Christmas decorations. On October 30th they had no Halloween stuff but tons of Christmas stuff. A full two months early!! Pretty lame. So we ended up getting different little things from here and there. It was a lot harder finding a cheap pumpkin though. A flower shop near to us had medium sized ones for about 3000 yen each. Ouch. Luckily Hiroko found a place selling large ones for under 1000 yen and she picked one up for us. Thanks to Keiko and Yuka for showing up a little early to help us decorate. All in all there were 11 of us, ourselves and Keiko & Yuka, Hiroko & Miku, Emi & Kazu & Hiro, and Emi's sister.



The table of goodies. The main attractions were a pumpkin pie made by Yukiko, a 1 year birthday cake for Miku, and a jack-o-lantern by yours truly.

Here's my jack-o-lantern in spooky mode.

Here's Jo in his Lil' Devil costume. He's also wearing his new Halloween shirt from my mum.

Jo playing with Hiro.

Jo playing with Hiro and Miku.

The party in full swing.

Here's Jo playing with his soft car set.


Jo playing with his mum.


Jo playing in his baby bungee bouncer.

Yukiko and Jo went to visit our friends Shige, Chika and Ririka-chan. What a load of hair on her head!

Ririka!

Ririka and Jo.

Here's some recent fun pics of Jo:

Here's Jo going 'King Kong' on the camera.

Jo and Miku.

Jo and Yuka.

Here's Jo getting some of his daily nutritional requirements.

Finally, Owen and I caught some of the women's matches at the Volleyball World Championship in Osaka. This was Brazil vs Uzbekistan.