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Yesterday, we went to Lake Biwa in Shiga prefecture to hang out for the day with friends from church: the Underwoods, the Brooks and the Castros.

The Underwoods friends’ parents have a little house on the lake they use for vacationing on weekends and holidays. They are big water sports fans, have a boat and many other boating accessories. I would love to spend a weekend or longer with them at this place to do some fishing, skiing and wakeboarding. Their son just won some contest in Japan and is doing competitions around the country. He wakeboards every weekend.

The father took everyone out in the boat for a ride and then blew up a big three-man SkiDoo float and pulled us around the lake for a while. He pulled the kids very slowly. But with Gwyn, Ponga and I inside the thing, he cranked up the engine and tried to throw us off. Surprisingly, we stayed on and never tipped over although we did come close a few times and got airborne a few times as well as sideways. We held on like it was an 8-second bull ride! Afterwards, we were all sore and Ponga and I had sore necks.

Back on the beach, we ate tons of barbecued chicken, fish and steak. Ribs would have been good too come to think of it. Maybe next bbq event!

For the birthday boy, Noah celebrated his birthday with a huge brownie cake Kayoko made lit with 8 tall candles. Then we made S’mores that Denise brought. Later on when it was dark, we shot off our fireworks we have had for two years. Fortunately, we had some very nice policemen tell us they were illegal to shoot off in front of our house.

That night, we ate spaghetti and sat around inside the house chatting and snacking on leftovers from lunch. Thanks, for the spaghetti Ponga! It was delicious! Kayoko and Gwyn, thanks for inviting us. I hope we can go again sometime.

Today, Mia and Noah played hooky because we had such a long day yesterday and were all very tired. Too bad Denise and I couldn’t do the same and stay home from work. I am drained and need a nap. And if that is true about me, Denise has got to be dead tired since I usually have lots more energy than her.

Mia and Noah playing Wii Music

Instead of going to school today, Mia and Noah have been making Wii music pretty much the whole day after watching the Mariners games with me.

Our highlight for the morning was watching Ichiro hit his 199th and 200th hits to become the only player in baseball history to ever hit 200 hits in 9 consecutive seasons.

Now, if Ichiro hits another 200 next year, not only will he beat his own record, but he will also tie Pete Rose’s record of hitting 200 hits in 10 seasons. Pete, however, did not do it consecutively. So if Ichiro hits another 200 next season, which I find hard to believe he won’t do, it would be an even greater milestone because then he would have tied Pete Rose but become the first player in MLB history to have done it consecutively.

Gambatte, Ichiro!

The Olympics are going on in China right now and we’re following it as much as we possibly can, even to the point we get dressed up for the occasion. Can you tell which sport we are watching right now?

Man, that guy swims fast! I wonder who we just watched race…

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