After spending the first day of our weekend family trip in Rehoboth, we leisurely spent the next day at Cape Henlopen State Park. It was our first time going to Cape Henlopen, and we liked that it was a little quieter and had calmer waters than Rehoboth, which was perfect for younger children.
It’s DC’s most beautiful time of the year… sakura season! †On Saturday, we went out to DC with my parents, my brother and my sister-in-law to go see the cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin in DC. I’ve gone every year since returning to DC, but last year we went a little late and missed the peak bloom. We had better luck this year, though, and were able to catch the blossoms in full bloom, just in time for the main Sakura Matsuri weekend event during the National Cherry Blossom Festival! Mio was so excited to go from the moment we told her we were going the night before, and she kept exclaiming, “We’re going to see the cherry blossoms! My name means ‘beautiful cherry blossom!’ We’re going to go see them!!!'” I love that she loves the meaning of her name, and can get so excited about the flower that is her namesake.
Mio giggling her way through the cherry blossoms:
After seeing the cherry blossoms, we had lunch in DC together (we wanted to eat at Daikaya, but we ended up going to Full Kee instead because the wait was two hours!), and then took the Metro back home in the afternoon. DC was so crowded and we got a lot of walking in, so we were exhausted! All of us took a nap when we got home. We’re so glad we could see the cherry blossoms together with almost the whole family this year!
Sending love to all the wonderful mamas out there, including my own wonderful mother and mother-in-law. ♥ I still have a lot to learn as I’ve only been a mom for just over two years, but I have such amazing women to look to as examples. Happy Mother’s Day!
Afterwards, Dan and Mio surprised me with an adorable card and gift — Cupcake Diaries, which features many of the delicious recipes from Georgetown Cupcakes of DC Cupcakes fame. I can’t wait to try making them!
With that, I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes about motherhood…
On Tuesday, the girls in the family went on an outing to Meadow Lane Park in Vienna! Mio loves this park because there are so many fun things to ride and play with. It was extra fun for her that day because her Auntie Miwa and Obaachan (grandmother) came along!
Mio was having so much fun at the park that we knew it was going to be an ordeal to wrench her away when it was eventually time for her to go home. Sure enough…
Thank you Obaachan and Auntie Miwa for coming along with us to the park! 😀
While we were on vacation, my sister Miwa sent me an email with a series of random photos of her and my mother posing with a scarecrow. No explanation, just the attachments. Along with a subject line that read, “Noriko the Scarecrow,” with the email CC-ed to the whole family. So when we returned yesterday, I sent back an email expressing my confusion, and my mother responds back with this email:
Misono-chan,Welcome back! I made a flower garden in the place where we used to have a tree-tunnel but deers kept coming and eat my flowers like roses,strawberrys,geranium. Since I put so much love and care into my garden I was so upset about deers and decided to make a scarecraw to chase them away and assigned to Miwa to make it.Did you like it? Now they don’t come any more.Try to rest and start to work tomorrow!
My mom only started actively using email about a year ago, and she is not exactly the savviest lady in the world when it comes to technology. I can sense the awkwardness of the email, from the subtle misspellings, slightly-off grammar and sentence structures, to the funny nuances that give away some of her fobbiness. (I don’t think she has figured out how to type in Japanese just yet.)Â I can also tell that it probably took her about an hour to type the email.
Here are a couple of the photos of said scarecrow:
Reading the email and seeing the photos, I couldn’t help but chuckle.
(Still trying to figure out why the scarecrow is named Noriko though…)