Today was Zen’s birthday, he’s so happy to finally be able to celebrate his big day. His true birthday is today, but because we had a softball tournament today we held his party on Saturday afternoon.
Saturday we spend the morning tidying and preparing for the party, we also went for a lovely swim and made some new friends. At 1:00 the first guest came, and before 2:00 the second guests came, a family with two boys (one of whom is Zen’s classmate, and his younger brother) and their mum, who’s also Japanese. Then some more kids and parents came, and by 4:30 we had nine kids and seven adults, including Naoko and Zen and I. The kids played outside for a while, kicking a ball around, then came back upstairs to play here some more. At around 5:30 we did our charades game, which was good fun. Each kid got one snack and one Playmobil figure, and we had five prizes left over so the mums ‘n’ dads took part. It was fun. Zen was a very good host, looking after the kids well, making sure that everybody was having a good time, and he went to the door to say goodbye. He was also a good MC for charades. We chilled out and wound down the evening, and everyone went to sleep eventually, while I stayed up late doing stuff on the computer.
This morning I was the first to wake up, at 7:17 AM. I woke up Zen, and he realised that his big day was finally here, we gave him his presents – there were two Tintin books from Naoko and I, and a fun Playmobil submarine from Oma and Opa. Naoko and Zen took a taxi to the softball place from around 9:15, while I stayed behind doing work. I joined them at noon when the first game was about to start.
Zen’s team, the Coconuts, have had a very long losing streak, but this time they were doing well. In the first inning the other team got two points, and Zen’s team didn’t get any. But in the second inning, the other team got no points, while Zen’s team got seven points!! Zen himself was at bat, he walked to first, and then made it around the bases to score a point. After that, the other team got two more points, but it was not enough to diminish the Coconuts’ lead, so they won 7:4. Everybody was so excited, it was the first time that the team had won in tournament play, and it was a wonderful birthday present for Zen.
The second game started well – the first batter got a home run! Unfortunately, the team didn’t get any more runs after that, and the other team managed to squeeze in two runs over the course of the game, so they won. But the Coconuts had good pitching and good fielding, so no complaints at all.
After that we went home and had a lovely swim in the pool with the new Playmobil toys – Zen now has three boats/submersibles from Playmobil. There were three kids at the pool, all around Zen’s age, so he had fun playing with them, playing withe me, or playing with his toys. After that, we went home, gave Japan a call, and then had a lovely dinner – pizza and beer, my favourite! Tonight we’re still going to call Oma and Opa.
What a fun weekend!
The Lake of Sharks
Tintin and Alph-Art
Playmobil submarine, a present from Oma and Opa