4th of July Fun
4th of July is just one of the favorite holidays in our family. Growing up in San Diego you get an appreciation for the beach and 4th of July is pretty much the most spectacular beach day in this city. Generally certain beaches get upwards of 250,000 visitors – so adding up all the gorgeous beaches here you can expect a few million crowded along San Diego’s coastline.
Well, yesterday didn’t meet up to the typically sensational San Diego weather. It was drizzling in the morning – a product of some pretty heavy leftover “June Gloom” marine layer that we get here in San Diego. With global warming our June gloom is starting earlier (May) and ending later (Mid July). Imagine all of the tourist that come to San Diego expecting the weather to be awesome only to find out that it is some of our worst weather of the year during the summer. If you want to come to San Diego, come in January. That is when the rest of the country is sub-zero temperatures and San Diego is experiencing sunny skies and 70 degree weather.
4th of July was a blast in spite of the weather. The whole family met at Mom’s Coronado cottage and had a blast. Nephews,nieces and lots of guest were in town so it made it an extra special occassion.
This is not an apron, this is Danny’s actual body and he is wearing a speedo with pants underneath the bottom part of his legs
Danny smoked this pork for over 12 hours, it was delishcious.
How cute is Oliver. On a scale of 1-10, and if you say 11, you are correct.
Oliver and Geno are great friends and love to pose for pictures.
Oliver just chillaxin. You know, chilling and relaxing at the same time.
Hello, I am wearing Frank’s super cool shades and I look much better in them then he does.
What the heck Geno. How do you always manage to take such awesome portraits. You are amazing little guy.
Oliver looks like some type of enforcer in this picture.
Tu is so patriotic!
Oh my goodness. What is going on here with Tu? Some explain this to me please.
Ahh, what a great day with family. We love the 4th of July here.
You can’t film while wearing a mask in a train station
The Police woman came running up to Eoin and I making the famous criss-cross symbol with her hands and saying something in Japanese while pointing to her face and then down to my camera which I was holding. The criss-cross symbol with her hands meant “no”, the pointing to her face meant “mask” and the pointing to my camera meant “video”. We quickly surmised her mime to mean “No making a video of someone wearing a mask in the train station you dumb Americans.”
In any other situation Eoin and I would have no idea what she meant but in this case we were positive she was booting us out of the train station for trying to make a video of Eoin walking through the busy train station in his new Japanese character costume. We left the station educated once again on yet another unwritten Japanese rule. There are many of them here and everyday we find out the hard way when someone comes running up to us criss crossing their arms and saying, “no, no, no”. We joke that we really are not pushing the boundaries if we don’t get it at least 3 times a day.
In any case, Eoin has a new costume that took us a whole week to find out what it was. The costume was sitting in an Anime and Toy Shop in Shibuku and we bought it a week ago and lugged it around Japan until today. Eoin was trying to work up the nerve to go out on the streets and wear it. He was not sure what would happen but take a look at this super hero and let us know what you think. I think he did a great job.
Well today was our last day in Japan and we spent it just relaxing and getting prepared for the long trip back. We didn’t do too much since it was pouring rain and every time we walked outside we got poured on. Shibuya was a river of umbrellas, in some places you could not even see the ground from above because it was umbrellas all around you.
Tomorrow we head back to the US. Back to Lolita’s, In and Out Burger and where, “people speak fluent American” as Eoin puts it. Eoin was a bit worried that Danny and Camille might make him eat Japanese for her first meal back. I am not sure he will want a Japanese meal for a long time.
Goodbye Japan. We would say Sayonara but Eoin thinks that sounds super cheesy.