Abbreviated Axel Japan Recap and more Szolusha happenings!

I was hoping to have this great blog about Axel's adventures in Japan, but what I quickly learned after his return is that besides a great deal of rest, he is busy with college reach outs, essays, and cross country practice. He pushed himself so much towards the end of school and through the month of June to optimize his trip in Japan, his body is in full protest and he wants to sleep all of the time. I think he will be adjust and recovered, likely in another week. 

After speaking with Axel, he really wants to do a nice blog about his trip and write it himself, but he has other priorities, which I am glad, because they are more important. With that, I will do a little picture dump from what I was able to collect off of his phone with a very brief recap of the little I know about his trip. 

During the last blog I mentioned he went to the Nagoya Castle and liked it much better than the Osako Castle. Here he is taking a selfie from behind the castle. 

Here is another selfie of him inside the castle. 

On June 5th, Axel was able to attend the Atsuta Festival in downtown Nagoya. He wore a yukata which is like a kimono. 

He had a lovely time watching the fireworks and experiencing the traditions of the festival. 

Axel was a great big brother to little Naru. He played with him and entertained him when he was home in the evenings and over the weekends. Here is picture dump of Naru and Axel :)

Naru with Axel's glasses on!

Happy Naru!

Tired Naru!

The family went to Gifu Grand Canyon June 13th. Here is a picture dump from this adventure. 

The family also went to Nagoya College for their festival day where the students display some of their artwork that they do in the different clubs they are apart of. There is some incredible origami in this picture dump below, which I assume is apart of their "origami club. Axel said this was a very cool thing to attend and see. 

Axel took this picture in the college library for his computer science teacher, Dr. Nelson. Axel thought he would enjoy viewing the collection of computer science books that they had. 

One of the many high lights from the trip was the food, of course! Axel has lots of pictures of food that Ayako prepared and their meals out. I guess they went out to eat a couple of times per week, so Axel was able to experience many different dishes and foods. 

She prepared lunch for him every day and he wants to continues to have lunches like this with rice, some egg, some meat and some sort of salad. Below is his bento box lunch. 

Surprisingly he really enjoyed the soups that he had. I hope to email Ayako and see if she will share any of her recipes with me. 

Axel had the opportunity to take a cooking class at school and prepare lunch. 

This is the lunch that he prepared!!!!

And here he is enjoying it!!

One of his favorite foods, he says, is Natto, which is fermented soybeans. I believe this is what you see that is brown in the dish below. He also has okra, egg and kimchi. Axel also mentioned using Kinako, which is soybean flour for some dishes. it is considered one of the many Japanese super foods. He brought a little home, but we still have to make it to Nijiya Market to purchase more of the foods he enjoyed!

Japanese pancakes! He was so excited to show me this breakfast via text!

Axel had to get himself to and from school every day and on occasion when school got out early and he did not have track practice he would go to the mall to burn a few hours because he did not have a key to the house unless he pre-arranged it the day before with Ayako. One day while he was hanging out after school he ran into Keikosensei!!!!

He went shopping twice. Once with Satoshi, the host dad and once with Ayako. He was able to get a couple of new clothes and plenty of gifts to bring home for his friends and siblings. 

Axel also enjoyed running with the track team and on his own. His homestay and school was about 1K to the beautiful, new Paloma Mizhu Nagoya track stadium. It opened this April. Axel was able to run on both of the accessory tracks and he was able to watch the track team compete at "Nationals" which was held in the new stadium that opened April of this year! Sorry all of the pictures are sideways!

On June 19th, which was the Friday before finals, Axel's class took several pictures with him so he could remember his time with them. Here are just a few poses that were taken. Axel is in the middle of every picture, if you cannot find him :)

Here Axel is with his buddy, Haruna. She volunteered to help Axel on day one and Axel said she was really nice and helpful through his 4 weeks at school. 

The weekend of June 19th, Ayako to Naru and Axel to the world's biggest Planetarium!!! They spent the day at Fuji Nagoya Science Museum. 

It is difficult to see in this photo, but if you look it up, you can see the big sphere (which is the planetarium dome) in the background that matches with the picture you see on the Internet. Axel said it was pretty unbelievable and likely the best museum he has ever been too. As you can see it rained a lot. I would guess more than a third of the time. He had three typhoons while he was there. Let's just say, my 30 year old umbrella that I gave him to take, did not hold up and by the end of the trip he had an incident where he was soaked through because of micro holes through the umbrella. 

The last week of school Axel had finals every day, which meant that school ended at noon. He had the luxury of going out to lunch one day with his school friends.

Here is a picture of Zuiryo, the high school that he went to. 

And his Homeroom teacher, Mr. Narita.

Axel and the track coach.

And the Assistant head of school, Mr. Okano, who approved Axel coming to attend school. These pictures were taken on Axel's last day where Axel asked if he could come again next year. Axel had positive feedback and was told that he is more than welcome to come again next year. 

On Saturday, June 27th, Axel met with the friends he made from Class 203; Mitsuki, Haruma, and Kota (from left to right.) Apparently, they call Kota, Standard. He is the one with the glasses next to Axel. He takes his nickname with stride. Axel told me, even the teacher calls him Standard. The boys went to karaoke at 9 in the morning after breakfast and had fun singing both American and Japanese songs. Axel did much better with the Japanese pop songs than he did with the American pop songs!

After Karaoke he went home to pack, as he had his class party that night and was leaving for Tokyo the next morning. Here he is taking a picture on his walk back to the house. He would cross this river, Yamasaki River, every day on the way to and from school.  

After packing, he headed to dinner at Yakuniku, which is a place where you grill your own meat. This is the subway he took to get to school and of course to dinner to meet his classmates. 

 His class was class 205 and here he is with many of his classmates. The difference between 203 and 205, is that class 203 chose Biology and 205 chose Physics as their second science class. All of their other classes, I believe were the same. Axel wished he would have decided on Biology because he felt he meshed better with class 203, but you can see here, he still had fun! After dinner they went to a park to hang out. Axel did not get home until 10:40pm, which made waking the next day a little difficult, as he woke at 6 am to write his thank you cards before heading to the train station at 8 am.  

Here is Axel about to depart Nagoya. 

And here he is with his host family and Keiko! He will be greatly missed!

Goodbye Naru!

On the Shinkansen he was able to capture many pictures of the country side on his way to Tokyo. 

When he arrived at Tokyo, Takuto was there to greet him. They spent a couple of hours having lunch and catching up. Takuto came with his parents who were very happy to meet Axel. 

While Axel was away, we were busy with play dates, orthodontic care, swim and summer courses. I took the kids to the dentist and the orthodontist the first week of June. We discovered that Rubix had a tooth that was rotting, just like Axel did! We were lucky to get him in for a tooth extraction 6 days after he was told the tooth was rotten through and needed to be removed. The downfall with getting the tooth removed quickly was the fact that his expanders would not be ready for some time, so he had to get a retainer to maintain the space of the tooth to prevent his teeth from becoming more crooked because apparently he has quite a lot of tooth crowding like Phoenix. Rubix will be getting a cemented upper expander and a removal lower expander on August 11th!

Here is the premolar that was taken out. He did great and did not even really notice. Keith and Dr. were impressed. 

To celebrate his maturity Keith stopped by Noah's bagels the following morning and purchased a half a dozen donuts for Rubix and Phoenix to enjoy. 

The weekend before, on June 13th, Santa Clara Swim Club hosted a distance meet. Rubix swam the 400 free in the morning and then went to Tatsu house to play. Keith was officiating and I went up to San Francisco to say goodbye to a high school friend, Kasia, who was moving to Colorado. I actually drove to Tiffany's house, my high school best friend, so we could do the drive together to Presidio. I managed to return home by 3 pm, where Keith and Rubix, did not get home until 7pm! Rubix had the most amazing day playing in the water and playing in the game room at Tatsu's apartments. 

Here is a picture of the view. Unfortunately, it was too overcast to see the Golden Gate bridge. It was about a 30 degree difference between the weather in SF and the weather in the South Bay. 

Phoenix started her Geometry Honors course on June 15th and just finished her midterm on July 2nd. She has 3 more weeks and so far is pulling off an A. She is working really hard and doing about 6-7 hours of math a day during the week. They have a 2 tests a week and a quiz on the days they do not have a test. I don't think she plans on signing up for anymore summer courses in the future because she feels it takes away from her swim.

During the week off she did a lot of drawing and paintings for friends birthdays. I will sometimes catch her drawing while she is studying. 

This painting is for her friend Melissa who loves cats and is an amazing pianist. 

This painting she did for her best friend Mili's who is really into chest and does competitions all over the country. Mili was actually at "Nationals" while Phoenix was painting this. 

This painting is an abstract painting that she found and wanted to try to do. She wasn't quite happy with the final product. 

Phoenix also continues to do her nails, as another art outlet. She even kept this pattern for almost all of June, which is rare for her. Just actually just redid them yesterday (the 4th of July).

For Juneteeth, Keith and I ran up Mission Peak again. We were able to drop Phoenix off at morning practice at 6:25 am and start are trek up the climb just before 7 am. I have been dealing with a hamstring injury off and on for months which has kept my running down to a minimum. I think I completed about 4 runs the previous 6-8 weeks. Keith, on the other hand, has started to speed up his running and he patiently waited for me. It was actually my hip flexors that started talking to me and not my hamstring. I had to fast walk up the really steep stuff. 

We made it up the 3.5 miles in just about 45 minutes. It took us just about the same time to make it down the mountain. We were making excellent time until my quads started cramping and almost giving out with 1 mile to the finish. It was a bit comical and I struggled to bend, squat, sit for a few days, but it was worth it. Keith had an amazing time, as did I and we hope to try to be a little more regular about these fun running adventures. 

The next day the kids had an evening one day swim meet. It was a low key swim meet, which meant that the number of swimmers participating was much less than usual. This also equates to the warm up pool being much less crowded than normal. Before the last event I was able to capture a few photos of the kids because the warm up pool was nearly empty. 

The lighting was perfect and I just love their smiles and pure joy. 

The kids tried hard, but they were tired and didn't race their fastest times. Phoenix actually was so tired she skipped the 50 free at the end of the race. Rubix did have a drop in the 200 free, by about .6 seconds. Good news is it was a great day for building character and enjoying the process and learning how to be okay with swimming despite their times.  

The following weekend, last weekend, was the last chance meet also known as Race to Age Group Champs. Saturday Phoenix had a tough day, as did Rubix, only dropping in the 100 back. Sunday was better for both kids. Phoenix swam close to her best times and got out of the water saying she wasn't even tired, which means that she is getting close to her old healthy self. Rubix had an incredible day on Sunday, dropping in all three of his events (the 100 fly, the 50 back and his first attempt at the 800 free).  I think he was really excited to see me arrive with Axel!!! Both kids absolutely lit up to see their big brother in person again!

I unfortunately, did not get a picture of Rubix and Axel together, but I did manage to capture a family photo at dinner as we celebrated year 47 for me. We enjoyed a lovely sushi dinner and some nice quality family time. 

After dinner Axel showed us all of the gifts he brought for his friends and Rubix and Phoenix. While we were cleaning up, Axel and Phoenix were laughing hysterically. These photos are the reason for their laughter. 

Apparently, Rubix joined in and all three of them were having a blast. 

On Friday, after swim practice, Phoenix went to the mall with her swim lane! From left to right is Cielo, Phoenix, Anna, Ava and Leor. When they are swimming Phoenix leads the lane, then Cielo, Leor, Ava and Anna. I love how they have become such great friends and want to hang out, outside of the pool. 

Phoenix said, "Mom, they still have mules in the mall!" They captured this picture so I can see this exhibit is still there from last summer, when Phoenix and I first saw it. 

They went to lunch at California Kitchen and shared three pizzas. Leeor jointed Santa Clara Swim Club at the end of February. She moved from Israel. Phoenix and her exchanged numbers the first day and have become better and better friends since. 

After the mall the girls headed to Leeor's house. All of the families joined for a huge BBQ. 

While the parents were visiting the girls took pictures, played games and talked! Phoenix always wears her hair up, so Leeor convinced her to put it down and take a few pictures. This is Phoenix's favorite picture of herself. 

Rubix found the foosball table and immediately started playing. Noaam, Leeor's brother, along with some of the other swimmer's older brothers (who also swim) and the dad's played with Rubix at different times throughout the night. 

They had an amazing spread of food that we all enjoyed. 

The girls almost ready for dinner, deciding what photos were the best that they took. 

Axel joined us, as well, but had to leave at 8 am to get back for her Japanese lesson with Shizue. We were home by 9:30pm and the kids were in bed by 10 pm. The younger two voted to not stay out late to watch fireworks on the 4th, so we stayed in and ate dinner while watching Zootopia 2. We had a lovely evening. Axel decided to head to Morgan Hill and spend the evening with his friends. I guess the fireworks were spectacular. He had a great time with his friends!

Today, Axel organized the first summer cross country practice. Rubix and Phoenix wanted to start training too, so we all went together as a family. We ran with his teammates for the first mile, and then turned around while they continued on their run. 

Phoenix also had her friend Ellie come over. She was sweet enough to let Rubix hang out with them too. I was lucky enough to cook a few meals and get Costco shopping done. This week is busy as Rubix starts his pre-algebra class, along with his language arts class and tutoring from little Grammy. He also wants to go to all 8 of his practices. Phoenix, is also planning on attending all 8 of her practices for the first time, which means all of our days are long. We are at the pool for 32 hours if you combined their swim and dryland. They also happen to have opposite schedules, which means they are always swimming at different pools, at different times each day. We are glad to have Axel home to help with some of the driving. Axel is also hoping to get started on his college applications and essays, so it will be a fun week of work and training. Axel is training with his running club 3 times per week and running the school summer training 3x/week. 

We have Age Group Champs in 2 weeks, so I hope to do a short blog on the highlights of that meet and updates on how the summer is going the week of July 20th. After that is Far Westerns, Western Zones and Axel's cross country camp at Princeton. I will likely get to that blog before I leave for Chicago on August 12th, but I will definitely complete that before school starts so I can do another one on the start of school. Let's pray we can all enjoy each day because the days seem to be flying by more quickly every day!