At the beginning of June, Mark had to travel to Seattle unexpectedly on business, and he was on the road for his birthday, June 2nd. When he opened his suitcase at his hotel, though, he discovered that Cheryl and Lura had slipped a wonderful present in after he finished packing: an alarm clock with a picture from last Christmas, and a recording of the two of them wishing him a happy birthday. Here's the recording, in AIF format (for Macs) and in WAV format (for PCs or Macs), about 236 kB each. Boy, did that put a smile on his face after a long day!
When Mark returned, we joined Ivy and her parents, Greg and Erica, downtown for a stage show on June 5th, featuring Elmo and his friends from Sesame Street. You don't necessarily expect kids to sit still for a full two-act musical play, but Lura and Ivy were mesmerized.
That evening Cheryl stayed up late putting together the final preparations for Mark's Yakudoshi celebration the next day; here she is folding and filling origami boxes for party favors. "Yakudoshi" literally means "calamity year" in Japanese; the tradition, by way of Hawaii, is that certain ages are unlucky (different ones for men and women), so a person's friends can help him or her dissipate the bad luck by joining in a big birthday celebration and each carrying off a piece of it.
We had a Yakudoshi party for Cheryl's birthday a few months after we were married, which doubled as an in-town wedding reception (we showed excerpts from the wedding video) for our friends who weren't able to make it to Hawaii. Many of the same friends are here; we took over most of the tables in one of our very favorite Hawaiian restaurants, Back Home in Lahaina, and invited people Mark knows from the church choir, from work, and from the Aerospace Players.
Mark is grateful to his friends for helping him get rid of whatever bad luck might have been impending; right now he feels like the luckiest guy in the world, with friends and family like these!
On June 14th Lura had her hair trimmed at Jungle Salon 4 Kids, where she always has a great time. She has developed the charming habit of giggling and covering her mouth with her hand; we aren't sure where she picked it up it, but it sure is cute!
Here she is a couple of days later, giving her friend Gracie a ride in a car at Under the Sea, a kids' adventure place that they've visited several times.
A couple of days after that Gracie came over to play; we're not sure what Lura is pointing out, but she's certainly making sure of her aim!
Here are Mark and Lura on Fathers' Day, June 19th, on the driveway down to the church. Here we do know what Lura's pointing at, namely Mommy behind the camera. We've learned not to try to get her to look at the camera by asking "where's Mommy?" (or whoever's shooting), because she'll just point her out and then go about her business. "Hey, you asked and I answered, right?"
Mark went with the church choir on their tour of Spain and France from June 25th through July 12th; Cheryl and Lura didn't sit at home, either, while he was away. Here is a fairly characteristic pose at Disneyland, with Lura, Lucy, and Hana (right to left) sitting in one of the 'Toontown cars. Lura likes to be in the driver's seat!
Here's another very characteristic Disneyland pose, with the three girls sound asleep in their strollers. To quote Mr. Pleakley, "it takes it outta you!"
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