love, friends, and cherry blossoms

this week has definitely been a roller coaster ride. wednesday i was having a rough day, and my students saw that i was crying when i was on my break (they were in japanese class). they were so upset by it that they made letters for me, and on friday, mrs takemoto (the japanese teacher) and them gave me flowers and all the notes. they made my heart smile :) i have such wonderful kids, and their notes were adorable:
"miss rachel, don't cry because if you cry i am sad."
"i love you miss rachel"
"don't cry. you are so cute."
they've been praying for you mom! now when i ask for prayer requests during bible, they beat me to it! they raise their hands and say to pray for "miss rachel's mom" :)
since wednesday was rough on me, i went to laura's house to spend the night. we had fun drinking wine and watching mcleod's daughters (an australian version of the oc or one tree hill.. well, the drama part haha). it is a very addicting show and we stayed up way too late watching "just one more" haha. soo tired in the morning.. but totally worth it!! :)

i think the highlight of the week was teaching the kids "the b-i-b-l-e" in sign language.. they LOVED it. they wanted to do it over and over and over again haha.. and faster each time! they take their sign language seriously!! :) you should have seen their faces trying to concentrate fingerspelling bible as fast as they could.. so cute!

friday was night cafe. the high schoolers put together the fundraiser to help raise money for their class trip next year. everyone did such a great job! i helped with tickets, then went in to watch. there is a lot of talent at our school.. singing, hula, instruments, dancing.. the talent definitely shined!! when i was watching, i noticed that some of the fourth grade boys were in the corner playing ds together. i saw that it was mario kart, so i asked if i could play. it was funny because they thought i'd never played before, so the boy who was in first place (ryota) didn't want me to ruin his score so he had the other boy (william) let me use his. william was nice telling me which buttons to push and how to get a boost at the beginning, and i went along with it haha. right when i passed ryota, he started saying "william, stop telling miss rachel how to play" hahaha. after i won, i told them i've played before and i have the game at home, so he shouldn't feel to bad that i whooped him haha :) after night cafe was over and i helped clean up, i got to hold jed's little brother who is one.. so adorable!!! i told his mom that if jed is ever sick, dominic can come and take his place for the day. there were many laughs and great memories throughout the night.. i just love these people so much!

lina spent the night friday night, so we could get up and go to nago for the cherry blossom festival today. it was about an hour and a half drive, but sooo gorgeous on the way there. you drive along the coastline.. and with that gorgeous turquoise water, i won't complain about the long drive! :) nago is up north, and this part of the island is more tropical (more hills without tons of buildings.. very green!). this is the 47th annual cherry blossom festival... full of games, food, and performances. when we first arrived, i had to buy some yakitori (chicken on a stick). while i was waiting in line, i noticed an old man wearing a very familiar hat.. a SALEM/KEIZER VOLCANOES HAT!! i asked him if it was in fact a volcanoes hat, and he said that he got it when he was visiting his sister one year and she took him to a game. such a small world!!!the festival took place at the nago central park, which has some trails to walk with cherry blossoms all over.. so pretty. the stairs sucked.. i got my work out for the week! :)the top of the stairsafter we got to the top of the stairs, there were trails everywhere to walk. we went all over on top of the hill looking for cherry blossoms.. and ooo'd and aahhh'd every time :)when we went back down to the booths, i played darts to win a soccer ball for my students. if i got five bullseyes, i would have won a wii! all the food looked yummy.. if only i had tons of money to try everything!! the one weird thing was a chocolate covered corndog.. who knows.. maybe it tastes good haha. some of the games were very interesting. there were lots of shooting games (with cork guns and air soft guns), fishing games (color at the bottom of the object to win a prize), and darts.we found the performance tent and stayed there for a while. so many cute performances!! there were two kids per shisa (pronounced shishi.. it's a lion/dog) and they would bite at each other and roll across the stage.. very talented! one time they were rolling, and the kid who was the butt almost rolled out of the costume.. too cute.
the cutest kids got on stage to perform (make sure your sound is up.. they are sooo adorable shouting the words!!). one boy is a character.. see if you can find him ;)

there were also a group of kids performing eisa (dancing and drumming)



there is an upcoming ice festival somewhere in mainland japan, and a group of students are going there, so snow was brought to this festival. they had fun having a snowball fight.. some have never seen snow before! i saw enough of it at christmas ;)it was such a nice day today.. sunshine with a nice breeze. i've been looking forward to this festival since i first found out about it in september!! and i was not disappointed :)