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89ers

The boys and I put away the Christmas tree this morning while mama was out at the hair salon. 


Kenzo and Osamu loved wearing work gloves like papa.


Kenzo was especially helpful. He was in charge of putting lights and tinsel in the proper bags. It wasn't an easy job, and he got pretty annoyed at Osamu a few times, but he persevered and we got everything cleaned up and back in the upstairs closet before lunch.


The boys each got 50 yen for their hard work. I was planning on paying them the usual 10 yen, but I didn't have any 10 yen coins and I rationalized that they worked especially hard and deserved a Christmas bonus.

At 5:20 p.m. we caught the bus to Izumi Chuo, hopped on the subway all the way to Nagamachi, and checked out the 89ers game. Kenzo was especially excited to ride the subway past Sendai Station. He'd never been that far before.


Osamu likes standing on the subway and feeling the inertia when the train speeds up and slows down. At some point he's going to fall down and I will take pictures of that.


It's not Staples Center, and that's a compliment. The boys didn't know what to expect. Their only live sports event experience has been a few soccer games at Yurtec Stadium. Xebio Arena is a different experience. It's a cozy, yet frenetic, basketball arena.


The game started at 7:05 p.m. The third quarter ended around 9 and the boys were losing steam and Eri looked super tired too so we hightailed it early. Plus our Sendai team was losing pretty badly to Hokkaido.




The last bus back to our house from Izumi Chuo is at 9:30 p.m. and we just missed it, so we got a taxi. It was starting to rain. I sat in the front seat and Eri and the boys sat in the back. Osamu kept poking his head into the front seat area and going "Ooooohhh" and "Woooowwwww."

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