My birthday

My birthday came and went. By far the quickest year of my life! It seemed as though it was just yesterday I had a little one in cupcake pants :)

We met our neighbors downstairs for some takoyaki and they were by far the best we've ever had! One of our neighbors even made me a Japanese cheesecake (crustless), and we had ice cream too! :) Yum!

After lunch, we went to the Hokkaido University botanical garden...but it had closed for the day! Bummer! 

So instead we went to the end of Odori park hoping to get some good rose appreciation. In the past, my birthday has followed the same formula: rain, cake, good food, roses, photography. It's funny to me that some things just never change. ;)

Cool slides in Odori park.

Look at the blooms! :)

Kevin and I agreed that this rose was the most intense red we'd ever seen.

These towers were just gorgeous. This rose was Butterscotch if I remember correctly.

The roses were beautiful, but pansies will always catch my eye ;)

After the rose garden, we went to Kevin's school so he could check on his project and after that, we looked for Picante, a soup curry restaurant, which is by Hokudai. We found it tucked away and had an amazing soup curry dinner that has me salivating just remembering it! :) 

Great birthday indeed!

Snippets

In between the rain:

an afternoon at Nakajima koen

 

An example of how they "prune" trees here... they just lop off the top?

 

Enjoying the times I get to spend with Elisabeth and her chunky thighs and crazy antics.

 

A quick walk before the rain to seishin park on Elisabeth's FIRST birthday. 

 

What becomes of the cherry trees. No cherries!

 

Always making me laugh with her silly expressions. :) 

Gotta love those teeth!

I'd share photos of Elisabeth's little birthday party downstairs (what a debacle baking cakes were! Ack!), but they're on Kevin's phone... yeah, too busy to take "real" photos. Either way, it was a lovely little party with some of our neighbors and we had pizza, chips and cake. :)

So nice that they wanted to celebrate with us. :)

Seishin and Tenjin

After my dad left for Finland, we spent time doing the things I've mentioned in the last two posts of Yurigahara koen (work and plan). 

We had a heat wave pass through, which was amazing and horrible at the same time (lol). 

The lilacs and wisteria began to fade, the dandelions were puffballs and everywhere was covered in willow.

Beautiful to watch it fall from the trees like snow. Hard to capture though!

Seishin riverside park has really grown in and become so lush!

 

After Seishin, we decided to eat lunch at Tenjin-yama koen. Another favorite park. 

The red maple and the orange and red rhododendrons are so intense it's hard to even describe. Or take photos of!

Elisabeth entertained us as we ate. :)

 

...and then she fell asleep and we meandered around the park looking for quiet spots to shit and chat and give her a chance to snooze in peace... harder said than done!

We went and explored a quiet shrine tucked away in a corner of Tenjin-yama. 

The road was lined with blooming lily of valley. 

 

Also, this little variety of iris. 

 

I love how she was sleeping...

The little prayers at the shrine.

 

We sure ended up missing that weather! (it was followed by about 10days of rain!) ick.