yoshi had the day off on friday. i guess that was in return for flying off last sunday. i thought we should visit his sister-in-law who had given birth on wednesday, because we were planning on going to a festival on saturday and his parents were planning on going on sunday (and when we visited kuri, who gave birth in the same clinic, i thought the room might be a bit too small for all of us.) we drove up there in the morning, stopping off at the big aeon shopping center. i wanted to get something for kumiko (we already had a present for the baby.) we got chocolate croissants, very yummy.

then we drove on to the clinic. when we got there, though, kumiko wasn't in her room. i guess she was feeding the baby. so we waited. and waited. finally she came back, with the baby and her mom (i guess she's staying at their apartment). what a cute little baby! yoshi and i 'fought' over holding her. then hiro wanted in on the action.



after visiting, we went to lunch. sasha fell asleep in the car, so we took her into the restaurant in her car seat. hiro was pretty tired, too, and didn't want to wait for lunch! it was pretty crowded there, there wasn't even a child's chair that hiro could use. then, my obnoxious husband started messing with sasha, combing her hair back with is fingers (she was a bit sweaty but SHE WAS ASLEEP! and the restaurant's air conditioning was working just fine.) and she woke up. ugh! ha, but he had to hold her the whole time and feed her lunch. serves him right.

when we left, yoshi wanted to go to a museum. i was getting tired (i had on new shoes, which were a bit tight) but he insisted. so, we went to the kitakyushu municipal art museum, where i sat and yoshi took the kids around. after a while, though, hiro was calling for me, so yoshi brought the kids back to me. i let sasha crawl around on the floor, and hiro insisted on getting in the stroller (he is good at insisting.) ok then...

when we left the museum, we noticed a sign board with local sight-seeing places. there's a cable car in kita-q. that looked interesting, so we decided to try it out. it took a while to drive there (lots of small and twisting roads) and then found out it was 400 yen--each way. ah well, we went up anyway. it was pretty. we even 'hiked' up to the very top where you can see a lot of the city. it was pretty windy up there!

then it was time to go home. the kids finally fell asleep on the way home! we were all pretty exhausted.

ok, i'm gonna end here, and the next post will be about our day in omuta.