Indoor Youth Soccer in Japan

Yesterday walking around here in Tokyo, we stumbled across this indoor soccer field. Well... sort of "indoor" anyway - it was covered with a solid roof, and had chain-link-fence-type walls. Saw a youth soccer team with a bunch of 8-to-10-year-olds (or there about) practicing their with their coach. I wish we had these types of practice fields in the U.S. Very cool. Check out the photos, below. As always, click on the photos below to see larger versions.

Greetings from Tokyo

Greetings from Tokyo. First off, I want to say THANK YOU to everybody who was freaking out over me making this trip, just a day-and-a-half after I got out of the emergency room (my second visit there in two weeks, with a surgery thrown in between). I really appreciate your concern. I really am doing quite well, though. Every day I am feeling better, and who knows... by the time I head home on Friday, I'll probably be back to 100%. :-)

I am staying at the New Otani Hotel (the first time I've stayed here, actually), and it's quite nice. The New York Yankees spend a couple weeks in Japan as part of their Spring Training every year, and this is the hotel where they stay. If they were here this week, I would DEFINITELY be sporting an Angels cap while walking around this place.

From the 12th floor of my hotel here, you can see this cute little Japanese garden. Fun stuff.

Idaho Sunsets

We had this really nice sunset in Boise here tonight. For all of our friends back in California, I know it's a stretch to recall, but this is what sky actually looks like! :-) I like how in these photos you can actually see the rays of sunshine coming through the clouds. These clouds looked like they could have dumped on us at any moment, but they didn't. It's definitely getting cooler here, though. Tonight's low is supposed to drop to 42.

Andrew is First Class!!!

Tonight at our Boy Scouts of America Court of Honor, Andrew was awarded his First Class rank advancement. Here he is shaking hands with Scoutmaster Crawford.

Perhaps he'll follow in the footsteps of his two older brothers, and earn the Eagle rank, as well.

Vacation 2001

Keeping good on my promise to gradually catch things up here in our blog, I'm now going to go back six-and-a-half years!!! We spent 15 glorious days in the northeast part of our great country, and we took my (now deceased) mother with us. We went from north of Boston (almost to New Hampshire) down to Philadelphia, and hit many spots in between. We took in New York City, saw Gettysburg, Plymouth Rock, the site of the Boston Tea Party, Lexington and Concorde, Valley Forge, "Battleship Cove" - a naval museum in Rhode Island, the Basketball Hall of Fame, and so on. Even stayed for a couple of days at a Bed 'N Breakfast farm in rural Pennsylvania. Really took in a lot of cool things.

We were in New York City about five months before 9-11, and these two photos have become two of my favorite family photos. One is taken from atop the south tower of the World Trade Center building, with the North Tower in the immediate background, and NYC's Central Park and midtown district in the far background. The other picture is taken from Liberty Island with the twin towers in the background. Even though Steven was with us on this trip, he was barely even a toddler, and I believe that at the time both of these photos were taken, he's actually asleep in his stroller. While in NYC on this trip, it's also the first and only time I've ever personally driven on Manhattan, and in a rented 15-passenger van, no less. If NYC taxi and limo drivers seem completely crazy, I would say that it is fully justified!!! Isn't it fun, too, to see how young our kids look in these??? :-)

To visit all 238 pictures posted from this trip, check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/12556474@N03/sets/72157602120720318.

Now THAT is a Hamburger!!!

It's hard to believe that we've lived in Boise for more than 14 months now. I guess time flies when you're having fun!!!

One of the fun things about moving to a new area is that you get to check out lots of new places and things. One of the more noteworthy places we discovered is a restaurant called "Big Jud's." It's home of the famous one-pound burger. Now... Christopher has been known to throw down a "four-by-four" from In 'N Out, but that's four quarter-pound meat patties in a regular hamburger bun. Not here... you get a single, one-pound meat patty on a GINORMOUS hamburger bun.

When we went as a family late last summer, Mark and Christopher were the only ones brave enough to try this monstrosity - neither of them were able to finish it. They probably each polished off about 70% to 80% of it, though. These cell phone pics aren't very clear, but you get the idea. Craziness!!!

Justin's High School Graduation

So I'm running a little behind here. I'll backtrack a bit here, to cover some recent and not-so-recent events. Justin graduated back on May 31st, and here you'll find some pictures from the event.

Justin with Grandma and Grandpa Cotter.

Justin with Grandma Cotter and Mom.

Justin with brother, Christopher.

Favorite Summer Picture

Pioneer Trek: This summer, four of our kids did a Pioneer Trek with the other youth in our church. Over the course of three-and-a-half days, more than 80 kids and their adult leaders hiked and pulled pioneer handcarts nearly 30 miles over rugged Idaho terrain. Justin, Christopher, Brianna, and Andrew had a GREAT time on the trek. It was physically very hard, but they had many powerful experiences which will be great, life-long memories for them.
On the last day of the trek, the non-treking members of the church met them as they came in, and we all had a big picnic lunch together. From that picnic lunch stems one of our favorite pictures from this past summer. Here are Andrew and Brianna making VERY silly faces for the camera. :-)

We'll Need Wider Door Frames

Andrew and Steven are playing soccer this season, and I always love watching the kids' soccer games. Steven is still learning the sport, but Andrew is pretty comfortable with it. We didn't sign him up in time to get on a Select League team, so he's just in regular recreational soccer. In yesterday's game, Andrew scored two goals as Left Striker in the first half, and then stopped a bunch of shots on goal as goalkeeper in the second half.

Well... we're going to have to widen our door frames, and get Andrew some neck supports to support his growing head. Actually not; he takes it all very humbly in typical quiet, unassuming Andrew fashion. But after the game yesterday, his coach told him that he was a GREAT goalie. In fact, his coach told him, he would be the best goalie in the Select League if he were in that league. Even though Andrew cannot be in any Select games, he's going to try to get permission to have Andrew work out with his other, Select team. The coach says he's never seen a kid anticipate where a shot will go like Andrew does.

I told the coach that it comes from Andrew's baseball experience, where Andrew can track a fly ball like no other. I'll have to post some pictures of the kids doing soccer, but for now, I'll post one of Andrew pitching. Never thought I'd see this die-hard Angels fan in a Dodgers uniform, but that was his team this Spring. Here he is in a windup from the pitching mound, in a game earlier this year.

2007 Summer Vacation

This summer, we had a GREAT family vacation. On July 20, 2007, we flew from Boise to L.A., where we connected to a flight to New York City. From there we drove west over a week-and-a-half, visiting many historical sites of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints . We flew home from Omaha, Nebraska on July 30th. En route home, we spent a night in Seattle, and the picture here is taken from the observation deck of the Space Needle tower. It really was an awesome vacation. To see all 295 pictures posted from our vacation, please visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/12556474@N03/sets/72157601825411627.

Justin in BSU Marching Band

Tonight was the Boise State University football game against University of Wyoming (BSU won 24-14). Andrew and I were able to score tickets and went. We had a great time! Check out the sea of blue-and-orange clad Bronco football fans!!!

Justin, of course, is in the marching band. The three pictures here include a shot of the band during pre-game show and they're lining up to bring in the team. Then two additional shots. Can you tell which one is Justin???

Christopher at Homecoming

Christopher went to homecoming tonight with Amy Tompkins.

And here is a picture of everyone in his homecoming group.