Fruit Tart

This time of year is very pleasant after muggy hot summer.  I feel like doing something and starting something new.  It would be great to make cakes like a banana pound cake, a pumpkin pudding for Halloween and a tart cake.  I and my family love tart cakes but I don't feel like making the dough as it takes long procedure.  So I got mini base tarts from a supermarket and made custard cream by microwave that was really easier and quicker than I thought.  And final process which put custard and fruits on was Kana's role and she enjoyed it. This dessert was perfect to cook with a child.
Next week, I will make a pumpkin pudding for my sister putting up my home.

Test at swimming school

The last week in every month is the examination day of swimming school called Itoman to move up to the next grade.  Kana failed grade 21 again which she has tried same test last month.  To pass it, her body must be kept straight floating on the water, but she can't.  Her legs goes down. The comment on her report card was written that she needs to relax her legs. So how can I tell her how to do it?  That's not easy, I think...  Floating is the first step for swimming as you know.  It would take time for her and I must wait until then.
I hope she will success the third test next month.

Long summer school holiday

Kana is in a long summer school holiday over 1 month.  This is the first long vacation for her because I had job last year and then she was in a nursery that has no holiday except for weekends.
How can she spend such a long time at home?
I planed she goes to the kids club which is placed at school, to play with friends every morning as long as we don't have any plan to go. They provide various programs such as playing with water, craft and visiting elder people.
Besides, I arranged 1 dollar concert for pipe organ at Minatomirai hall, musical of "Lion King"  produced by Shiki theatre company and a film to go out with her. 

In a middle of August,  our family will travel to Hokkaido where it is the northernmost of island in Japan.  I hope it will be cooler than here.  We love travel a lot, so when we would like to go, we could go anywhere anytime at lower price until last year.  This year is not.  Ken's holiday affected by the great east japan earthquake has been fixed by his company.  School holiday is fixed.  There is no choice to have a travel during a peak season.

Travel to Nasu

Breakfast

We can not go to my home town Fukushima where my parents live in, and the nuclear power plants have exploded and been not quite safe yet, taking Kana on this long summer vacation .
If my parents don't visit us in Yokohama, they can't see their grandchild for time being.  So we arranged to be able to see each other in Nasu.  My parents were looking forward to seeing her and also Kana. 
It was great time that we visited Numappara-shitugen and Nasu garden outlet.  Nasu is famous for summer resort but it was very hot like Yokohama at the time.  Unluckily, a air condition at hotel Matsuya we stayed was out of service for 4 hours, and even after repairing it was weak.  All other rooms were full in that day and we got the price of hotel refunded.
A cheese cake bought at the cheese garden was full of rich taste and a cafe there called Shirasagi-tei which is modern interior and has nice view of verdant garden, was great to pop in on the way.

Lily in my garden

Lilies have blossomed in my garden this year too.  I got only 2 huge bulbs from somebody 2 years ago and they were planted without any expecting such tremendous wide opened flowers.
There are over 10 flowers on the stems. I picked up one of them to display it in my house before dieing.  The scent lasted all over for a few days.

Gathering of clams

Clamming season has come since spring, but we didn't have chance to get there for any reasons for recent few months.  Last weekend that was low tide around 11 A.M. was the best day to dig clams at Hakkeijima Marine park. It was not much sun lays at least before starting digging them, and then I didn't wear sunscreen well.  An hour later, Ken was enjoying windsurfing in the same beach where he comes every weekends for it, and I was digging clams with Kana who couldn't be there alone and feeling getting sunburned.
There were a lot of clams you can find them easily there, but most of all were tiny size and we had difficulty for long time in search of big clams that we can see at fish shops.
Hence, today's dinner soup was the clam miso soup!!  That was really delicious and we paid off in the end.

Hot summer without air conditioner

We can not use air conditioners this summer as much as we used it as ever for energy saving.  We are facing at shortage of electricity this summer, probably not only this summer though, because there are no nuclear power plants in Fukushima and the alternative energy to cover our life in this hot summer has not been ready yet and it would take long time.
I decided not to use my air conditioners as much as possible, then we went ahead to a shop to buy awnings that block sun's rays.  Most of all sold out already and we couldn't prepare some mounting hardware.  People think same things.  Anyway, only one awning was fixed up at East side of our house.  I hope we could spend cooler summer by this effect.