July 7th

My husband's eldest brother, R, and his wife, N, were here for the first week in July.  They were here from Seattle - their first week was spent in CT seeing N's father and siblings and their families, and then they came to stay with us for the second week.  It was a great week - I wish I hadn't had to work through most of it.

Anyway, toward the end of their stay, the older of their two sons flew up from DC to visit for a couple of days, too.  We don't get to see him too often, so that was a treat.  On their last night at our house, we went out to eat at a Japanese steak house/sushi bar near our house.  We've had sushi there multiple times, and a few months ago we brought Alex and Julia and sat at one of their grills to watch the chef perform and cook for us.  Alex ate a fortune in raw tuna...Julia was kind of scared of the fire.

So we went there, the seven of us, and I actually brought my camera.  I never used to bring my camera to restaurants - I always felt self-conscious and, well, weird, at the thought of photographing my meal.  But in the past year or so, I've decided I don't care if I am being weird, so I sometimes bring the camera. 

It was pretty dark inside, and I didn't want to use a flash, so bear with the grainy quality and the blur....

This is, of course, Alex, goofy with anticipation.

And Julia, enjoying some soup.  That thing that looks like a snakeskin dangling down in front of her bowl WAS a decorative paper orange wrapped around her straw until she destroyed it.

Ooooh, fire!  That's a little sliced onion volcano and slices of zucchini to the right.  This is Julia's least favorite part.  Never mind the show - just cook me my dinner!  Actually, before we even got to this part of the evening, she had to go to the bathroom about 4 times, just so she could hide.  She ended up sitting on Bill's lap for this part, mainly so I could take a picture.  I shouldn't have cut the flame off at the top like I did...but oh well. 

Action shot.  All the grilling vegetables (zucchini and onion) are being shoved around and chopped and cooked at high heat and blinding speed.

Alex watches the show.  He's seen it all before.  It's all very well and good, but I'd really like another side of tuna now, please.

Meanwhile Julia wields her chopsticks like a little pro.

After dinner we brought the few leftovers home and Bill and his brother and the kids (big and small) played whiffle ball in the back yard.

Gotta go cook breakfast for my kids now.  Back later with more of July....