Mother's Day

Mother's Day was definitely a little different this year- being so far away from home- but still, most enjoyable.

On Saturday, we went to Sakata to make some visits and to teach the first discussion to a man we are teaching there.  We went a little early to visit the photo gallery of one of our eikaiwa students.  He takes beautiful photos of nature and had them displayed in a gallery there. We loved viewing his work, and made friends, I think with he and his wife. 

 We happened to go when two women were rehearsing to put on a concert the next day at that gallery.  I enjoyed it so much.  This lady is playing a ocarina- an Italian flute.  It had a mellow, recorder-like sound.  She was very good.  (You can see some of the photos behind her.)

She was accompanied by this lady.  They also sang a Mozart duet- Ave Verum Corpus.  They both had beautiful, trained voices.  I was in heaven!  It was I all I could do not to join in!

Every week, we drive by this cute little flower shop on our way to Sakata Eikaiwa.  I kept telling Ken that for Mother's Day, I would like a potted flower from that shop.  So, we headed there next and I picked out a beautiful pink (my favorite color) geranium.

The shop was owned by this cute lady, who was delighted to have us come.

I asked if I could take her picture with the flower.  She immediately got out her brush and brushed her hair.  Some things are universal, ladies!

That evening, after teaching the lesson, we went out to dinner at my new favorite Japanese restaurant- Hana.  It was delicious and they are SO happy we come there.  They all greet us and when we leave, they all come out to say goodbye and the owner walks us out.  We've been there twice and they put silverware on the tray for me along with the chopsticks and they remembered to bring ice water instead of tea.  I ordered the shrimp and TonKatsu.

Ken ordered Tonkatsu.

This is a little blurry, but it's a cold salad, with spaghetti, mushroom, and 1 shrimp in a kind of sweet, salty sauce.

Most restaurants serve Miso shiru soup.  If you've eaten at a Japanese restaurant, you've had it.  They put different things in it.  Here it has mushrooms and onion.  It often has tofu and seaweed in it.

Sundays are very busy, but after church we made Chicken Fajitas for our Mother's Day dinner.  I love this dish.  If you want the recipe, check here

Michelle and Brian sent us pudding mixes (thank you!) so we celebrated by making The Next Best Thing to Robert Redford .  For the recipe, go here

The next morning, on your Sunday, we skyped with family. 

It was a very happy Mother's Day!