Morrigan has told us tons about Japan but he’s not really interested in sitting down to dictate stories for me, heh. The long and short of it goes like this: he loved the food, even the seafood, which surprised me as Morrigan is super picky about vegetables and seafood. I think he was more openminded there than here at home! He said it was pretty easy to adjust to the language and money systems. He also claims to have suffered no jet lag, though I don’t really believe that: Two days into the stay, he came down with what he thought was food poisoning, which got much better after he had a whole night of sleep. In the past, staying up all night and getting very little sleep has led him to get a fever and start throwing up, so I have a feeling he was actually suffering from jet lag. But who knows? Maybe it was food poisoning. Thankfully, though, he only missed about half a day of the group’s activities.

They did all sorts of things – a tea ceremony, calligraphy classes, some kind of weird race to see who could clean the floor fastest (??), a trip up the local mountain, meditating on the side of a cliff (!!!), hanging out in a hot spring bath, visiting local temples, dolphin-watching, going to the Studio Ghibli store, etc. He saw hilarious shirts like the Nike one that said “Just F*ck It” on the back (no asterisk, of course). He went to restaurants where they had a pot of boiling oil to dip sticks of Vienna sausages and bacon pieces into (ha!). And everywhere he went, he met up with the giant mascot of Kumamoto, Kumamon. Here are some of my favorite pictures that don’t involve the other kids on the trip, since they aren’t able to give permission to post:

In other news, Ambrose’s birthday is in a few days, and his Star-Wars-themed party was yesterday. He had a Star Wars themed party, and it was interesting to host something while half our downstairs is still ripped apart (sigh). Good thing it was mostly just family there!

And speaking of construction, we finally got approval from the insurance, and construction should start again this week (whew!). Hopefully by the time the boys go back to school in late August, all should be well and normal again!