Golf carts, boats, and automobiles

In the week and a half Ian has been in Minnesota, he's already had a short ride in Grandpa's MG, a ride in a golf cart, and a pontoon ride down the Mississippi.

You can't beat riding in a convertible in sunny weather.

Or, for that matter, lounging on a pontoon.


Things got a little tricky with both a life vest and a hat on...

...especially when Ian started to have lunch. He couldn't reach his hands to his mouth, so he alternated between having me feed him and leaning over to eat out of my hand like a dog.


As the ride went on we decided to take off the life vest and Ian started to really enjoy the boat.

With the assistance of Alec, Ian even got to drive the boat for a while.


Ian has now had a pontoon ride where he only wore the life vest for half of the time and a MG ride without a car seat on my parents' cul-de-sac. He's also started to enjoy eating like a dog. Not only am I getting lax on safety, but also on manners! Shhhh...don't tell Ryan.

Cousins - part 1

Ian has been having a great time with Alec and Micah. They're pretty patient with him and he's at the age where he's not too demanding or whiny yet.

So far they've spent their time chilling,



reading books,


riding a merry-go-round at Como,


and watching birds and golfers from Grandma and Grandpa's window.


Micah has even tried carrying Ian (who is almost half his body weight).


What a treat to have so much time together! Ian has just reunited with his cousin Paul, so I'll post pictures at some point in the near future. It's a little harder to get a good picture with 2 toddlers who are non-stop moving.

Playing at the sculpture park

The weekend before Ian and I flew to MN we went to Hakone, which is an area near Mt. Fuji. It was great to get up into the mountain and lakes region. During our time there we stopped at a sculpture park that is definitely one of the top 3 museums we've ever seen. The sculptures and landscaping were wonderful...but on top of that they also had some fun places for kids to play. You have to be under 12 to play on the pieces, so we had to live vicariously through Ian.

This piece was done by a Canadian artist. It was essentially a huge, colorful hammock that kids could play in. They could hang and swing on the giant balls and also climb up high into the main hammock.


Ian wasn't quite sure what to think.


He did ok when we placed him in the ring...


...but was freaked out when we placed him in the hole. Tears erupted right after I took this photo.


We also went to one other museum in the area that is also in our top 3 museums. This museum displayed the work of Itchiku Kubota, an artist who designed and created kimonos as art. His artwork is incredible and they way they designed the museum was spectacular. Unfortunately, the pictures we took don't really capture the landscaping and you can't photograph the kimonos. These museums are reasons #145 and #146 why you need to come visit us.

Iris Garden

A week ago our Japanese teacher mentioned she visited an iris garden nearby. This garden is popular in the area, but we had never heard about it. On a Friday afternoon we headed out to Shobuen. We lucked out - there weren't many people there and the flowers were blooming!

Here are some women dead-heading the irises.


I love the combo of the beautiful outfits with the matching boots! Only in Japan would you find the gardening staff dressed in such beautiful outfits.


The irises were gorgeous!



Ian loved the park...mostly because he could crawl around in it. We tried to get pictures of him with the iris in the background and he figured out how to lunge for the camera. We love this picture below:


As you can see, there are just rows and rows of irises.



Ian did take a moment to ponder the flowers...or ponder something...