Vacation Day 0: Irrigation and Family

SUMMARY: Taking a couple of weeks off!

Friday was not technically vacation, since I worked. But it did feel a bit like vacation in some ways.

Spent a bunch of time fixing irrigation problems. (Maybe I'll post more about that sometime. Not today.)

But as soon as my last work obligation was finished, I jumped into the car and drove to the family's favorite restaurant to use for birthdays and other celebrations--House of Genji in downtown San Jose--for my oldest niece's 20th birthday. How is it *possible* that I could have a niece older than about, say, 3? Anyway, the chef cooks right at the table. There were enough of us that we needed two tables.

This was my attempt to get an artsy photo of my niece's mother (my sister) surrounded by virgin strawberry daquiris. She's in the middle of the frame, but the camera focused on the drinks. I should just be really artsy fartsy and claim that I did that deliberately and title it "The Ambiguous Angst of the Soul" or  something along those lines.

The Ambiguous Angst of the Soul, with Daquiris

Another one of my beautiful sisters (I'm sure I got all the brains and the rest of them got all the beauty. Except how come they're all smart, too?) plus a nephew's hair and two fun, smart, beautiful nieces.

 This is apparently how my 20-year-old niece wants to be remembered by posterity. I can hardly wait until she brings a boyfriend home. I sure have a lot of educational photos to show him.

Instead of taking my DSLR, I took my pocket camera and tried very hard to get decent photos without using the flash. It failed. That camera does not do well if anything is moving even the slightest bit unless the flash is on, and the flash makes everything close look like it's at the edge of an atomic blast and everything far too dark.

As a result, almost every photo was too blurry to even pretend it was OK and I deleted most of them. I should know better; I think I've tried this before. Next time I should just ignore everyone complaining about the flash and use it anyway.

I took several photos of my sister and this is the only one that came out not blurry, of course. I wonder whether I'm blurry in her photo?

Of all the photos I took, this is the only one that came out crystal clear: The Japanese broth. Because it wasn't moving while I was trying to take its photo.

And here we all are at the end of the meal. My parents, four of us sisters, three spouses, and four nieces and nephews.

And that was a great way to get me feeling in a vacation mood!  Thanks to my blurry sister for taking us all to dinner.