DK Designs

Aidan's First Obon Festival

Amidst working long hours, today my husband had the day off and we decided to do a family outing to the Mountain View Obon Festival. I haven't been to one in years and I thought it would be fun for Aidan - eat good food and play games. I remember every summer we'd go to the one in San Jose and do the same things. Love the corn on the cob, chicken teriyaki and strawberry shortcake. Mmm.....

Anyway, he did the duck pond and grab bag and then we ate some food and went to check out the taiko drummers. Aidan was entertained until he saw another kid eating shaved ice! He told Michael - " Daddy, I want that!" So of course, we told him he could have it after he ate something that more resembles dinner. So he reluctantly did. He finally got the shaved ice and ate about 8 spoonfuls, had a brain freeze and then said "I don't want anymore." At least it was only $2.00 and my dad was there to finish it off. Believe it or not, even though we lived on Oahu since 2005 and since we've had Aidan, we have never given him shaved ice... So this was his first time!

While we were waiting for my dad (ojiichan) to eat the rest of it, we told Aidan to go and stand next to ojiichan and do the "ojiichan face". It's a face my dad makes to Aidan all the time and Aidan mimics him so it was the perfect opportunity to catch them together with the face... Can you tell they are related.

The last exciting part of the Obon is the goldfish game. Aidan saw all the other kids with a goldfish and had to have one. So my friend who I haven't seen in years told me to come at 6:00 because they were working the booth. We bought probably $5.00 in ping-pong balls and she gave us probably $10.00 worth of balls. She was trying to help Aidan win without actually just handing him a fish. He tried and tried and I thought, he's never going to get one. After maybe a third of the way into the last tray of balls, he finally got one in. He was so proud. So we came home and realized we really didn't have a big enough glass fish bowl for him so we had to put him in a glass pyrex measuring bowl.... The 2 quart size! Boy, I hope this fish lasts a while because I don't want to explain the whole idea of death to my child.... He named his fish, "Mister"...