Bake, Roast, Shave & Dance

Saturday was the Parlier Buddhist Church obon, which meant a very busy (and fun) couple of days.

Medaka no Gakko had a bake sale in conjunction with the obon, so the kids helped make sour cream apple pies along with carmel popcorn, arare and butter mochi.

The bake sale was a huge success!  Towards the end, Kara and her friends were wearing their yukata, walking through the tables of people asking if anyone still needed some dessert... and we sold out!  Who can say no to those little smiling faces? 

The kids all participated in dancing. I still remember carrying Jason in a baby bjorn and dancing with him our first year back in the valley.  How fast time flies!

Sho was a busy guy... He was the lead in taking care of the pulled pork for the bentos, which meant cutting, seasoning and getting 400 pounds of pork roasted and pulled apart for all of the dinners that were sold.  

And it's not obon without shave ice, so he switched gears and made (I'm guessing) about 170 people very happy. 

Our lazy summer days...

With Gakko behind us, I feel like summer vacation is really here!  We've been staying up later and the kids have finally taken to sleeping past 6:30am!  Life is good.

We made a quick trip to meet the Ishimatsu family at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  It had been a few years since we had visited and everyone loved the aquarium!

The kids were excited to see everything...

And the weather was a welcome change from our 100 degree heat!

The kids had a great time playing together and just hanging out.  Sho and I reminisced about how even before we had kids, we talked about taking them to Pajaro and how we'd just sit and watch them enjoy the sand and the ocean...

So it's wonderful to watch them enjoy simple things like building sand castles...

And drawing in the sand...

And  having fun with their shadows.

We are grateful for all the wonderful memories that Parajo provides us!  We will pack them in and savor them all, for soon, I know they'll want to go without us!