family.fun.day

friday was family fun day (kind of like a field day) at an athletic park. we kicked off the event with the preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten classes doing dances and cheers. they were super cute.then we were split up to start our activities. there were four stations with each station having two or three activities for the two groups to compete in. alison and i had three activities. the first one was "beetle bug." one student is on all fours, while the other one sits on top of the partner and only puts his/her hands on the floor. then they all race to the finish line. it was so funny to watch!!jed and christian.. brother team!the second activity was a spoon relay. we used cotton balls and hard-boiled eggsthey thought the eggs were raw, so they were VERY careful hahathe last activity we had was a t-shirt relay. one student is wearing an oversized t-shirt, locks hands with the teammate behind him/her, then another teammate (or teammates) help pull the shirt over the head.. through the arms.. and over the other teammates head. then the process starts over again until the whole team does it. it was a fun one!after the lunch break (some of the ladies and i went to taco bell.. yum!), everyone met up together to race in a game called "caterpillar"monica resting..then it was time for tug-of-war!! definitely not as traumatizing as naha's tug-of-war! :) first up was yamauchi campus (preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten) students vs the teachersthe teachers put up a good fight.. but lostnext was yagiburu campus' (1st - 12th grade) turn! we also lost haha.. i guess it's a tradition for us to lose :)

.valentine's.day.

well, it isn't really valentine's day, but our school has "family fun day" at a nearby athletic park tomorrow, so today was our valentine's day. the kids got to say goodbye to their uniforms today and wear pink and red.. all of them were so adorable! most of them looked like they wanted to wear all of their clothes that were red or pink.. it was funny, but so cute! i had three kids absent today (and two of those have been gone ALL WEEK.. they have the flu) and one feeling bad all day, so i had a very small class.. but here is a class picture of the ones who were here.putting valentine cards in our envelopes.all the classes and teachers put their envelopes out for the whole school to have the opportunity to put valentines in other classes' envelopes. i had a couple girls with meltdowns while we were decorating our envelopes... the problem was that since two of the students have been out, when it was time to decorate the envelopes, i decorated theirs since they wouldn't have time to do it when they returned to school. well two of the girls had a fit over it.. "but their envelopes are going to be cute!! mine is not cute!!".. and on the on the whole time we were decorating. now it's a joke and the girl still says she is mad at me for decorating the envelopes when we did it "yesterday yesterday" haha.. at least she says it with a smile now! :) i thought they all turned out very nicely!!the kids all excited passing out their valentines. especially noa :)third gradesince we don't have real school tomorrow, laura and i decided to do reading buddies today. since they weren't in their uniforms, i wanted to take a group picture.. they are such a great group of kids!!!it was a gorgeous day (and it has been all week!) so we decided to have reading buddies outside. reading turned into playing :) nene's older brother, kai, is in fourth grade, and when laura and i were were talking we noticed that they were having a push up contest hahathe fourth and first graders playing dodgeball (in japan, you only play with one ball.. weird i know). love this picture of ryota jumping for the ballthen when i showed him, he wanted to take a jumping picturesoccer.. went over the wall about four times haha (you have to walk around the school and down a hill.. sometimes hop over a fence.. basically, you don't want the ball to go over the wall haha)william hurt his ankle getting the ball, so he had to crawl up the steps. i told him i'll try to get the picture in the yearbook for his dedication :)nene sitting on the steps.. this is when she starting feeling bad and it lasted the rest of they day. she was a trooper.. she wanted to stay for the party!someone left a feather fan outside, so i was showing the girls how to bat their eyelashes hahaplaying that early in the day made my kids tired.. they were zombies the rest of the day! i didn't have to yell at them ONCE for getting out of their seats, running, or anything! i was shocked and kept telling them to wake-up and be hyper! didn't think i'd ever say that haha. at least they got excited when it was time to open up our envelopes..

this table delicately took out their valentines...while the rest of the tables made a mess!noa wanted a picture with her purple tongueshe also tried to give me a piggyback ride, but i pretended so i would make her laugh.. her laugh is the BEST laugh i've ever heard.. and she thinks i'm funny, so i hear it a lot :)

a VERY eventful week!

the cherry blossoms are starting to blossom even more around the island. i had to take a picture of the one outside my balcony.. so pretty!this week ruth (music teacher) and her husband went to mainland to go to the ice festival, so i watched her dogs for her. it was fun taking a break from the little apartment and hanging out in a two-story house for the week. i'm not good with dog breeds, but i'm pretty sure they were black labs.. two girls, gorda and flaca. there is a park right across the street from the house, so they would play there, which was nice. they would get super hyper and start wrestling each other and then flaca would get so excited, she would start running at full speed around the park. reminded me of cali haha. then when the dogs were tired, they would sit on the park bench with me. but one would jealous of the other sitting next to me, and the wrestling would start all over again haha. and of course all the cute little japanese kids playing at the park would want to come over and pet them. it was cute :)
the school week was good. we all had fun talking to aunt beth, aunt ruth, and richard :) they were visiting mom and dad.. i'm glad i got to skype with them since i couldn't be home! one funny thing that happened this week was on monday when i came to school with my hair dyed.. i colored it a soft black. the kids were saying that my hair looked darker and i was playing dumb pretending like i didn't know.. i said that maybe it was something i ate haha. well, once school started, i completely forgot to tell them that i was joking and that i dyed it. during japanese class is apparently when my kids talk about me, because they can speak in japanese so it's easier for them to thoroughly explain their thoughts (they were explaining this to me at lunch one day). after japanese class, i walked in and the teacher told me that the kids were telling her that my hair magically changed overnight and i didn't know how it happened haha. that is when i realized i forgot to say i was joking, so i explained to them that i dyed it haha. one of my girls told me that now i have japanese hair :) this week a lot of students and teachers have been getting sick.. i had two absent on friday, and then another went home early because he had a 102 temperature! hopefully they relaxed and got re-energized over the weekend!
friday night laura and i went to the officer's club at kadena (the air base) to hang out. lots of laughs :) eric and his squadron came later in the evening after their little celebration. they beat another squadron in the turkey shoot. it's an annual flying competition.. the winners get their picture in the hall. saturday, i went with laura and her english students to karaoke.. so much fun!! we went to goo (don't you just love the name haha), and had unlimited food and drinks for a very reasonable price! the karaoke room was a lot nicer than the last karaoke party i went to with them. there was only five of us this time, but we made sure to keep the party crazy! :) laura and i tried to pick new songs this time.. we even tried eminem haha.. that was interesting! :) my favorite was singing barbie girl with toru (he was ken) haha.. priceless.

dried noodles.. reminded me of pretzels. SO ADDICTING!toru probably singing green day :) my favorite song he sang was air hostess by busted. look up the song and lyrics!! i laughed soo hard!!! he even did some japanese rap songs!laura is so thug ;)the "dancing queen" backup dancers!! rika and junko"womanizer, woman-womanizer, you're a womanizer.."toru with his "leg guitar"dancing to junko's japanese songand we of course ended the night with some popular okinawan songs.. good way to end the night!
i spent the night at laura's and we had a little lost marathon before i left in the afternoon. her and eric are trying to catch up so they can start watching the new season.. such an epic season!!
it was a fun weekend and i'm exhausted haha.. still need to finish cleaning and laundry.. but it was worth it :)