The weekend

Yesterday Ritsy and I had a nice little get together with Ritsy's girlhood friend and her family. Manami and Ritsuko have been good friends since they were quite young and went to school together through high school .
Her husband actually went to school with them as well- though he was a couple of years older. "Tet-chan", has always been a great host to me, enjoying beers with me and chatting in English!
Their family were the first people I met in Hamamatsu on my first trip out here 4 years back and they have always graciously hosted us making tonnes of great food and, of course, drinking until late with me! Actually here is a picture from my earliest visit...
Their two kids are great too! Shogo ( center in the picture with the orange shirt) and Eiho (strapped to Manami's back in the picture), have grown a tonne and are not only really friendly and fun, but they have a great memory! They really remember me well and they always want me to stay over the night and play with them! Very cute.
Shogo is 8 years old now and he is a soccer star. He showed me his MVP trophy from his soccer team and he is just an all around good kid. Except he wants to take a bath with me for some reason...
Eiho is 6 now ( he was but a year old the first time I met him) and he is also a soccer maniac. He has some championship trophies and he was showing me pictures of him 'owning' his classmates in the Sports Day for his Kindergarten. He also is really quite funny- he was teaching me kanji when I took the above picture.

We, as usual, had a lot of great food and some great laughs together. Unfortunately this morning my head was in pain, but it was worth it! I hope that we have more opportunities to visit with them!