Japanese Festival & Other Randomness

These are the days, the long days of summer coming to a close, trying to soak up as much time outdoors just because we still CAN - and because we know the swift change of seasons will soon be here. I can smell it, I swear I can - fall. My. Favorite. Season. And this, the long 3 day weekend - three days of uninterrupted family time(well, almost....we did see a sprinkling of friends along the way too) was just icing on the cake. The a/c took a long overdue breather from the scorching StL summer, windows thrown open, curtains rustling, listening to the sounds of our neighborhood as we went about our day. I almost ransacked the boxes of fall decorations this weekend too, but I managed to restrain myself. Maybe next weekend! Ahh, but back to THIS weekend.

The Japanese Festival at the MO Botanical Gardens is a rare treat, and if you haven't attended the festival in the past.....DO, I highly recommend it. As if the Garden isn't spectacular enough - let's throw in an open-air Japanese market, food court dishing up anything from sushi to green tea ice cream, traditional dancers and drop in a few 400 lb. sumo wrestlers, various martial arts demonstrations, street perfomers and teenagers dressed to the hilt in their Anime' fashions...and the Garden transforms into a beautiful mixture of cultures. Entire kimono-clad families, complete with rice-paper parasol's and those wood-shoe-flip-flop-things, and I do mean ENTIRE families, walking around as if they usually go for silk-clad strolls around town.

I was in heaven. The weather could not have been more perfect (more perfect?), anyway - a gorgeous, sunny, almost-fall day. As soon as we walked through the entrance into the festival, little missy's head twisted back and forth like a spectator at the US Open trying to take it all in. And me? Think kid in a candy store with my Canon in hand...HELLO photographer's paradise! I could have spent the entire day photographing random people, flowers, anything & everything. Here are a few of my favorites:

























Watching the Kendo demonstration with Uncle Alex. "Me no like those guys."









This was a cool fountain.








More to come - I'm trying to plan a fall shoot of the kids, er....fall photo shoot. Some have asked where in the world Josh has been lately because I rarely mention or post pics of him. Let me tell you, an almost 18-year old boy is tough to pin down in one place for long, add the fact that he doesn't live with us and most pictures of him have both hands covering his face and, well, you get the picture. He's busy!

And I leave you with this collage and a quote "A good snapshot stops a moment from running away." ~Eudora Welty



xo Kathi