The Portland Japanese School had its Sports Festival last weekend.

Naoto's required volunteer hours were spent helping out.

So I had to kid wrangle and cheer all by myself. Of course, like a doofus, I totally forgot my camera.

Luckily, the mother of one of girl1's friends had already invited me to sit with her (thus saving me the trouble of navigating the treacherous and twisted paths of where to sit and next to whom) so she said she'd take photos.

I was so nervous the night before that I had house-moving stress dreams, you know, the ones where you are packing because the moving van is waiting out front honking it's horn and you keep finding important stuff at the bottom of closets and YOU KNOW it won't all fit.

Anyway, despite my insecurities over (and wow, was that Japan flashback for me) whether girl1 would be jealous of other people's bentos or whether I would misunderstand the directions and girl1 wouldn't be someplace on time, or whether I'd be sitting there like a wall flower (I didn't, I forgot that I know some of the moms from other places like parks and recreation centers), and whether the whole thing would be just one, boring, annoying Japanese ceremony, it all turned out well.

Naoto had a blast interacting with the kids during all the events, and I had fun talking to other moms and dads, and girl2 was in heaven because her special boy friend was there and I let her basically run wild around the fields.

All in all a good day. Except white, girl2's team, lost to red.

(But in the parent tug of war, I helped white to at least one victory)