Journey Home

My son, Sharif,  and his family made their annual visit from Japan this month.  About 18 days.  The first thing  he and his wife always do is put the mattress and the futon on the floor of the guest room and make up their beds where the four of them sleep.
Sharif and Sachiyo want their sons to be bi-cultural as well as bi-lingual so the second thing they do is to put Liam in school.  For the past two years Liam has attended the elementary school near us, but this year they said they didn't want to go through all the paperwork involved in admitting Liam, unless he was going to stay at least 3 weeks.  Since Liam was only staying 2 weeks Sharif enrolled him in Columbia Independent School (CIS). 

While Liam was there Sharif gave a talk on Japan, and with Liam's help, gave the class of second graders a lesson in origami.  They made a cicada.











Here is a photograph of  a photograph taken of the class while Sharif was there.



This photo was part of a large book given to Liam on his last day commemorating his nearly two weeks at the school.  Besides these pictures of his dad's talk, each child had his picture taken with Liam and each child wrote a paragraph of appreciation. 





Chris was also enrolled in a nearby pre-school, but the four year olds only attended afternoons, three days a week,  so Chris went three times.

Japan has one of the highest literacy rates in the world, but Sharif says that is not because Japan has better schools than other countries.  Rather, as you may have heard, students have after school tutoring sessions.  Liam goes to a math class twice a week, swimming class once and calligraphy class on Fridays.  Besides this, Liam's parents brought books ordered on line in both Japanese and English, math and language, for Liam to work on.

Here Liam works on some Lego car concoction from the first Star Wars prequel.

Chris also shows a lot of concentration.

Liam's birthday (age 8) was in January so I gave him Star Wars Lego's as a birthday present.   Really it was for both boys, along with a small Lego air ship which Chris chose.  Chris will be five at the end of this month.

 Liam couldn't wait to play with a young neighbor boy every day after school.  On a Sunday afternoon he and his sister came over for a birthday cake (and ice cream) dedicated to both Liam and Chris.   They sang happy birthday songs both the traditional and every vulgar rendition they had ever heard.

Building castles with blocks.  Mommy approves.



 Other amusements that occupied the grandsons' two weeks in Columbia:

Creating a volcano.

Feeding the birds.

Visiting the library.

By the time the family was at the airport ready to leave for Japan, Chris was fed up with his grandmother taking pictures.  He refused to open his eyes, pretending I wasn't there.

Finally they were pushing their boxes toward check in.  We will miss them for another year!

Lenten Roses

As of March 5th, we've had a very mild if rather unpleasant winter.  The hardy Lenten roses in our back garden have put out blossoms despite some low nighttime temperatures.  They regularly bloom during Lent, hence their common name, I suppose, although the botanical family is helleborus.  Their flowers are not showy, but they bloom all summer, are green into fall, and the deer don't eat them.  As you can see the blossoms droop as if in prayer - maybe another reference to Lent - but if you turn the flower up you find interesting variations.

Here is the coveted Lenten  purple, although in this photograph shows it more pink.

The creamy white blossom is just as shy as the purple.  Notice the little circle of stamens around the pistils and stigma of the flower.

Unless you tip this flower up and look into its cup,  you will never see the lovely purple freckled petals.

We have one other brave flower.  Our first daffodil bloomed yesterday.  They have withstood a number of hard freezes, too.  Is spring really on its way?