school and start of spring break

had another short week of school (i think all weeks should be 4 days of school haha).. friday was parent-teacher conferences. pretty easy week of school.. i do remember them getting crazy by the end.. probably because spring break was right around the corner. their flowers are starting to grow pretty tall.. they are VERY excited about that!! jed and leo found mystery seeds at recess one of the days, so we planted them with their other flower seeds.. hopefully those will grow too! parent-teacher conferences were good. i always enjoy them because it gives me a chance to visit with the parents.. they are so nice! had some nice compliments from some of the parents and many thought that since next year will be a 1/2 combo class, that i would be the teacher again. i had to sadly inform them that i'm going back to the states next year to finish getting my teaching credentials. i'm going to miss them so much!

spring break started with going to laura and eric's bat passing. it was their turn to have the squadron party, which was very fun!! they did a really good job :) since laura is irish, their party theme was an irish pub atmosphere. we stayed up til almost 3am.. good times!! :)

i spent the night at monica's house on sunday night because yumi (her mom) wanted me to help substitute her kindergarten class on monday morning. it was nice just walking downstairs to the school haha. it was fun for the day, but i couldn't do it every day.. kindergarten is hard!! definitely not enough patience haha.. i'll stick with first grade :) lily (monica's little sister) is in the kindergarten class, so it was fun teaching her. i was just the helper for the day, but since monday is their language day, the teacher (she is from the philippines) wanted me to teach it since it's english concepts. so i had fun teaching them about compound words.. they are very smart kindergarteners!

tuesday a group of co-workers met up to hang out around nago for the day. SOO much fun!! yukari's mom and friend was visiting for a few days, so she wanted to show them around. our first stop was at a gorgeous lookout called cape manza. there are also cute souvenir shops. ruth knows the good tourist stops!!
goya!me, ruth, and lauracape manzaafter lunch at A&W, we went to another island (kohri island.. it's connected to okinawa by a bridge) to hang out at the beach. oh my gosh.. the water was unbelievable!! pictures don't even come close to showing the actual color.. absolutely breathtaking!nathaniel (jed's little brother.. he's in pre-k) being goofyjed and nathaniel.. those boys would climb up to the top of the rocks by the bridge and scream at the top of their lungs in japanese.. and then the occasional "miss rachel".. no idea what they were saying haha.he looks so much like jed!dominic had a mouth full!! so cute!went to the aquarium next.. ended up getting an annual pass since i knew i would be going a few more times before i leave in june.. should have gotten a passport the FIRST time i went haha. we stuck together with tomomi and her boys (christian, jed, nathaniel, and dominic).. they were having fun looking at all the creatures. dominic got scared looking at some of them haha.. he's such a cutie!! and of course jed and nathaniel's favorite part was the shark exhibit.nathaniel wanted me to take a picture of him dancing in front of the whale sharksi want one for a pet! :)we ended the night at this yummy meat restaurant.. english translation "meat station" haha. you order raw meat, and then cook it on the barbecuer in the middle of the table. i, of course, sat at the rowdy table haha. sitting by nathaniel and dominic was quite the experience. boy do i have stories to tell!! to put it simply, both those boys are learning how to be inappropriate from jed haha. and then i have jed and christian sitting across from me who kept burning their meat and vegetables... laura and i just laughed and laughed. i have even more respect for tomomi having to put up with all those boys! :) the steak was SO GOOD.. especially with the dipping sauces!
jed being.. jed.i want to take dominic home and keep him! :)oh nathaniel haha