Gary's Boring Blog

Moving House can be FUN!!!

More Twins Modelling

Winter clothes in the middle of August! Thus is the life of artistes...

Angelie Before and After

Megumi butchered Angelie's hair for her birthday!!!

BEFORE

AFTER

(apologies for the quality of the photography - why do little kids love phones and cameras so much???)

House Picture

This is actually before we purchased the place. Megumi has decorated with a few plants since then.

As you can see, this being the Tokyo suburbs, we are surrounded by other houses. That's par for the course here. It's a small cul-de-sac, so Megumi is hoping to make friends with others on the street. Bit like Brookside...

3 Years Since We Lost Our Angel

Megumi and I went to Tokushima last weekend to visit Rosie's grave. We took all 3 girls for the first time. It was, as ever, very emotional to be there, thinking about Rosie and her brave fight 3 years ago. We talk to the girls about their big sister, and as they get older, we will teach them about what happened and about how they all got their names.
(Angelie is easy to understand, but the 'AN' sound in the Japanese pronumciation of Lilian and Vivien also represents angel.)

Life Sentence or what did I do to deserve this???

Some of you may know this, others may not, but Megumi and I made a fairly large decision recently. We decided to purchase property here in Japan (Saitama, to be more specific).

By association, we are basically commiting our future to Japan (we have a mortgage for a few years now!). The decision was made more out of a necessity for more living space than any 'grand plan'. 2007 has turned out to be a big year of changes for us, with my change of job in April followed by a move to our own place just last week. Personally, I blame the twins!

Getting a loan from a Japanese bank without permanent residence is quite a challenge, as is preparing to move with three small children. Anyway, we are in the new place now, and may even get rid of all the boxes in the next few weeks. Megumi is holding out, insisting that we won't be able to clear up properly without going to IKEA and doing large amounts of damage with the credit card. So, an unappealing visit to an overrated furniture shop with huge queues just to get in the car-park awaits! Joy oh joy.

If you are nearby, come and say hello, if not, wait for some pictures some time soon...

The freedom a car gives...

A picture of our hot and sticky family at a barbecue.

We could never have gone by public transport; the car is coming in handy!

Dolls

We often get told that Lili and Vivi look like dolls. Here is the former surrounded by Angelie's babies. Resemblance?

Twins Debut

Megumi got a call from a magazine asking her to take the twins to model. Couple of pictures from the shoot:

Must have been warm in those suits!

Buggy/Rickshaw?

To conclude this uncharacteristic burst of blogging (!), here are our 3 girls at a nearby park. One of the things I am looking forward to now we have a car is spending time outside with the girls. This park is very difficult to get to by train, but a fairly easy 20-minute drive away.

We are going to a couple of barbecues in the next few weeks. Let's hope the weather is good...

Car Seats

The twins, however, are generally quite happy to sit down in their buggy or car seats. This is a practice run in ther car seats, before they were installed in the car.

Spot the difference time again...

Angelie Supergirl

Angelie wearing some of the clothes she got from England for Christmas (thanks folks!)

She loves walking, and often has a little turn if you try and put her into a buggy when she wants to walk! Steps are also a lot of fun, making it difficult to get from A to B when walking with her, as we constantly stop to climb every set of stairs in the neighbourhood!

All Change

So, yes, we have been busy. No excuse, just the way it is. Megumi gets very little sleep, because she is still breast-feeding Lili and Vivi during the night. They go to bed very early now (6PM or so), but wake up at ridiculous o'clock.

Angelie is going to nursery 3 days a week, so I take her on the way to work. There are no theatrics; she seems to be having fun there, and actually gets upset on the days when she doesn't have to go. I leave for work on my own, and she often stands waiting, shoes in hand, at the door, insisting 'Annie, buggy!! (she can't say her own name properly yet)

The big news is that I left my job at the end of March. I had been there for 5 years in total (through 3 different company names), the longest stint at the same place in my career. I was obviously sad to leave, but the company I left was far removed from the one I joined in 2002. Anyway, I now work for an American multi-national company, and it seems to be going well so far. The people are very friendly and helpful, and the working culture appears to be quite collaborative (a refreshing change!)

The other piece of news is that we have decided to buy a car. Travelling by train with 3 small kids and 2 buggies is getting impractical, so we have been looking for a second-hand vehicle. Again, with 3 child seats and the buggies, we need a bit of a bus! Getting to parks etc on the weekends will be a bit easier once we have a car. Will post pictures in a few weeks when it is all sorted out...

Giraffe

Angelie seemed to enjoy seeing the animals, but as you can see in this picture, trying to scratch Mummy's face was even more interesting!

Ueno Park

I had a few days off, so we decided to go to Ueno to show Angelie the zoo. I wasn't over the moon about going to such a small, cramped zoo, but Angelie is getting interested in animals, so we went. Our visit coincided with cherry blossom season, so the park was packed.

We stopped to take a picture and at one point got surrounded by strangers wanting to take pictures of the twins. Mmmm...