More from March

Ian recently joined the Honda rugby football club. In honor of the new season and the new players, the club held a welcome party at a restaurant, San-nen Buta-zou, in Ikebukuro on Saturday, March 24th. This restaurant specializes in pork dishes. The food seemed like it would never stop coming. I think we had 7 or 8 courses. The food was delicious, the people were extremely friendly, and we got to practice our Japanese. It was a lot of fun! Oh, and of course, everyone fell in love with Addison!!

Addison loved the giant pig lanterns that hung from the ceiling.







Our own little ham!
The next day, Sunday the 25th, after church we met with the Skiles family and the Kruse family. The Kruse family lives in Utsunomiya like the Skiles. Bill and Kim graduated from Virginia Tech (talk about small world, eh?!). They have four children, Patrick, age 9; Kevin, age 7; Gracie, age 4; and Daniel, age 2. Personally, I think Kim and Bill sound be nominated for sainthood to take on the Overseas Assignment Program with four children! That's a lot of work! As I was saying, we met up with the Skiles and Kruse families and attended a baseball game together. It was my first Japanese baseball game. We sat in the outfield. Although we were supposed to be there to cheer on the Seibu Lions, we sat in the visitors outfield. It was much less crowded and therefore, less noisy. Each player has a specific cheer that the outfield fans perform. The fans bring trumpets, drums, and assorted other noise makers. There are even designated noise makers, some for general events and some for special events, like home runs. I enjoyed the experience. After the game we all went to El Toritos for a yummy Mexican dinner. Ole!

The gang's all here!


The Skiles Family (Randy, I didn't get one good picture of you all day!)

The Kruse Family

This is a short video of one cheer the visitors were performing while their team, the Rakuten Eagles, was at bat.

And finally, a video of Addison helping herself to my salad one evening.