Much Needed Paint Job

It was a beautiful weekend. Usually we just ignore chores around the house, like needing to paint the exterior of the house ever since we bought it (as anybody who's been to our house knows). In the past years, anytime we wanted to paint the house, the weather was too wet and cold. We still went fishing first thing in the morning (priority), but we also knew all these nice summer-like days won't last long. So we picked up paint brushes and went to work in the afternoon. Joe up high on the ladder with a bucket of white paint; and I close to the ground to give our red shed a face lift.   

After working through the entire afternoon, our white house and red shed showed remarkable improvements. Especially from a distance!
For dinner we tried something new: Asian BBQ beef tacos. It was unexpectedly tasty (partly because we both were hungry from all the painting, too). We would definitely serve this to our guests. So it was a very productive Sunday.

P.S. Kayo caught a nice 11" brown that she kept, cooked and ate for breakfast!

Reunion with the Koto

On this trip my brother did all the leg work to bring my Japanese musical instrument, koto, that my parents bought me when I was about five. I had played and practiced on this very instrument all the way till my departure for the U.S. at age 18. Quite a longtime relationship, especially for a young person. But then, it had been many, many years since I left it behind. It was definitely a wonderful reunion with my own koto.
Last Sunday I attempted to tune the koto and tried my uncertain hand at it. The musical scores that I first practiced at an early age even looked somewhat foreign. I definitely need a lot more practice! The good thing about the koto is that its strings produce wonderful sound even if I'm not playing any particular notes.

Brother Yoshi's Visit

Summer is passing by... but we've been blessed with a series of beautiful summer days. Last week we had Yoshi visiting from Japan and got to enjoy many fun activities around our home, majorly involving food and drinks. The whole week was fairly relaxing. A couple of nights Joe made us a fire, and we watched some meteor showers in the sky. We also went to a sandy beach in our swimsuits (thinking it was almost like being in Hawaii). We covered all our local favorite eateries and breweries, including the blue taco truck.
We did some hike and sightseeing, of course.


Took a cruise along the Pictured Rocks National Park Lakeshore.
And we enjoyed some fine dining at home, including waffle for breakfast and grilled chicken fajita.


The last night Yoshi was here, he and Joe had a pool match. Clearly Joe needs to practice more before Yoshi's next visit.