boys day cross stitch

Well, I finished this cross stitch over two weeks, mostly sitting outside with my new friends, in a lawn chair. It has special Koi flags which the Japanese fly in early May to celebrate Boy's Day. If you have two boys, you would hang two bright, beautiful expensive koi outside your home. I got this pattern in Kamakura, the Japanese store. Fortunately, although the directions were in Japanese, the threads were regular DMC thread labelled by number. So I stitched by number. I put all of my mojo into it, you might say.
Tonight the boys and I are going on our 4 day weekend to Hiroshima and Himeji Castle, staying in two different hotels. Its our first adventure in Japan without Dad. Wish us luck!!