So this was the first time since Jake was born, that we were able to take an entire evening out together. I guess that means special thanks to Mark and Lindsay who took care of Jake while Heidi and I relaxed and spent our anniversary wandering the many Ottawa park paths that comprised our courtship. Thank you. News on the Jakester front is that his teeth are busting to get through and he continues to drool non-stop. My prediction is that he will be crawling THIS week … we’ll see how close I am next Monday. While Jake may not always think so, we believe it’s a reason to smile.

Heidi says I need to apologize for not doing an update on a Monday. My excuse (note the excuse part) was that Monday was a holiday and I got to take a vacation – the second one (note the pictures from San Francisco) in a little over a week.

Little happening here except that Jake is sitting up like a trooper and soooo close to beginning to crawl. His language consists of incessant “dadadada” all day long and not entirely happy face as the first teeth are pushing their way through.

Oh yes, in other news, Heidi and I have “completed” the second room in the house – our bedroom. Finally! 🙂 It is filled with so many gifts from … Mats, my family, my mother, Grandma and Grandpa Rule, Jen, Coralie, Heather and a million others. Thank you to all. You certainly have given us another reason to smile.

So I uploaded a few pictures from the trip to Tokyo. Nothing too much of consequence, but I didn’t leave the city so it’s mostly shots of the Imperial Palace and in and around Tokyo. By the end of the week, I could do the subways like the back of my hand. They’re so incredibly efficient that it really doesn’t make sense to travel any other way. Last week I mentioned that the subways were crowded, so allow me to illustrate this through an annecdote that my colleague in Japan mentioned. He said that periodically, there will be so many people on a subway car that the windows pop out under the pressure. You really have to see it to believe it!

Lastly, it was a interesting to work all day in Tokyo on Friday, and then leave from the airport Friday evening. Flying all night, I landed in Toronto on Friday slightly before I took off from Japan. Smile.