お誕生日おめでとう 太一!!!

Netta, Taichi, and Renee out for dinner and laughs in Japan

Happy Birthday Taichi...Today is June's cousin's 18th birthday! Eighteen years old! I can't even believe it! When I first met Taichi he was five or six years old, and the most intelligent and funny little kid. I remember that he was super creative and wildly giggly. He visited Canada from his home in Japan with his Mom, Kumi, and I remember him coming to summer camp to play and hang out. He was a good, good kid and has turned into a good, good young man. Eighteen years old...I'm absolutely astonished!

We're excited to get to Japan and see Taichi someday soon. It won't be this year but we're hoping for 2011. He'll look a whole lot different than that little kid at camp did. Taichi's a grown man. I bet he has to shave more than his cousin Ian! Wait...everyone on the planet has to shave more than Ian, so that's a decieving statement. Regardless, that fella isn't a little kid anymore!

Taichi also has his university entrance exams in Hokkaido on Friday, which is a big, big deal in Japan. Heck, it's a big deal anywhere. We're wishing him the best of luck and hoping that he does well. The exam is for one of the best public universities in Japan and Taichi is hoping to study engineering if he gets in. He'll be attending one of the more prestigious schools in the country if all goes well. I saw it coming waaaay back in summer camp. He was a wizard with Lego and you should have seen what he could do with popsicle sticks and glue! He was an engineer even then... you know, just on a much smaller scale, and of course, our testing regimen at camp was much less rigorous than it will be in Hokkaido.

June tells story after story about Taichi. Both June and Anette lived with their cousin in Japan for a short time , and both have some pretty funny Taichi stories. My favorite might be from Taichi's first ever visit to Canada. How was he to know that 500 millilitres of Coca-Cola could turn a little Japanese kid's poop green! He couldn't have known, so he had a good excuse to freak out, and freak out he did!

"Okasan, Okasan!!! Mite, mite!!! (Mom, Mom...Look, look!!!) "

Sure enough, the evidence was right there in the toilet for Kumi to see. You can't blame the kid for freaking out. Green poop would freak me out too!

Happy Birthday Taichi !!! Good luck on your exams and sorry for that poop story. I couldn't help myself. It still makes me laugh every time I hear it.

"Okasan, Okasan!!! Mite, mite!!!" Oh man...that's still funny. You're never living that one down, no matter how old you get or what school you go too.