the wonderful 中村 family!

yeah, i know i need a better picture of mama && papa LOL 

my host family is awesome!  mama is so incredibly nice and cooks extremely yummy food ^_^ ! papa works for horiba and lectures part-time at doshisha's tanabe campus. he's also an engineer and has spent a great amount of time with his students building a racecar from scratch. i was lucky enough to watch them practice on saturday before the nationwide competition next week.

 

formula project ~ http://www.jsae.or.jp/formula/index.html

mama and i went to the library to read while papa had his meeting. afterwards, they took me out to dinner. soba noodles. とてもおいしかった ^_^！that same day, i met more of the family. they have three children ~ two daughters, emi and mari, and a son named keita. emi has a 12-year old daughter named hana and a 9-year old son named shinpei. they live about a 5-minute walk away. keita, on the other hand, lives right next door with his three sons ~ 7-year old naoki, 5-year old kento, and 3-year kazuma. they are absolutely adorable! it's like having a ton of little brothers ^_^ ! i have yet to see mari's side of the family. she lives farther away with her 4-year old daughter haru.

kazuma :)

and i can't forget lulu ^_^ !  she's a cute little chubby welsh corgi. she begs for attention--and i give it to her lol :) i have short video clips of her online ~ ask me for the links if you want to see them.

lulu-chan with the bone i brought her from home ^_^ !