Bon Odori Olympia 2010

At the beginning is grandpa Stokes in the baseball hat, very American of him, then Logan,
and grandma Stokes who lovingly provided the kids outfits, little Natalie with her daddy Jared.
We were manning the cameras!

We love a chance to see any of our grand children. Saturday evening was one of those lucky chances. We drove 2 hours south and they drove 2 hours north and we all joined together for the Olympia Bon Odori dance celebration. The dances welcome our lost love ones and gives us an evening for thinking of them. The candle light boats we put in the Puget sound lights the way home for our ancestors to leave us and return.

Enjoy the photos of this warm summer evening, filled with the scent of cooking meat and warm noodles, the sound of foreign song, drum, fans, the hugs and kisses of dear children and conversation with people you love!

first we get dressed for dancing

We dance some......


Natalie is half asleep, she's happy to walk with her dad

Then we eat noodles...............

Logan is convincing Papa he can go to get the noodles too.......

Logan points toward the food booth.

Yummy noodles, Natalie smarty eats some of mine, some of her mom's and some of her own. You can do anything if you're cute!

some taiko drumming to get us in the mood for some more dancing

Ooh time for shaved ice...we can count on some tasty flavors at all the Japanese festivals! yummy

The sun is sinking in the western sky. It's time for the fan dance and one more favorite, the dance of the fisherman, and then it's off to put our boats in the sound.

Natalie passes on the dancing and goes for some snuggle time with papa

Soon we have our chairs put away and we load into the buses that will take us to the other side of the water to put our lanterns in the Puget sound.

We write the names of our departed who joined us for the evening and will now go home. My parents, Papa's parents, some aunts and uncles and a dear friend's names go on our lantern.

The sun is nearly set as we step down to the water to put our lantern boats into the water. Logan is shocked as his floats away.
Not what he had in mind for the candle lite boat.

See the Washington state capital building in the background.

Olympia is our capital.

What a sad face, Logan really didn't understand putting such cool boats
in the water to send them off!

Logan's grandma Stokes didn't know what his head band said but a lady at the water told Logan it said he was Ninja kid and he suddenly became one! Natalie not to be out done tried to do the same Ninja face.

Can we tell her that her face will stay that way
if we don't get a nice family photo?

Oh well we tried,

Shall I tell Lyndy it gets harder the larger the family gets?

Na let's wait.

It's nearly 10:00 pm and Lyndy is pregnant and it gets very hard to feel good in the evening so she will put a lollipop in her mouth to keep her tummy settled. She carry's enough to share and Natalie cashes in on the deal! Can you believe I'm still not shooting with a flash....
Love the bright evenings in the Northwest summers.

As we return from our bus trip and enter the street where we had just been dancing we are overcome with the beauty the lanterns have left us.
So we play under them for a time.

The Street will soon open to traffic and......

At last the hour beckons us to get in the cars and go back our two hours each way home. Good bye cute family. We love you!