holiday weekend!

this weekend was busy.. BUT the best kind of busy!
friday after the spring concert, leo's parents invited me to hang out with them at a pre-k students' parents house, which is also a restaurant. about ten sets of parents showed up from the school!! so much fun!! the students also came, which of course was very entertaining haha. it was so good to be able to interact with the parents outside of school and meeting other parents from the different grades. good company and good conversation.. perfect combination!! :) and i didn't get home til 2:30 am... they know how to have fun!the home/restaurant.. it's super cute (you can't really see it.. mona's sister.. pictured above.. took my camera out of my purse and had some fun haha). and the backyard overlooks all the love hotels, so it's all lit up at night!the kids were getting tired by eleven or so. even leo fell asleep in my lap!saturday was a lazy day hanging out at the beach and window shopping. when i got to the beach i was amazed at how low the tide was!!sunday leo's parents invited me to hang out at the beach with them. by the time i got there it was pouring... just my luck! we decided to go to a bath house instead since there are three or four different pools and a sauna.. very nice! riko (leo's mom) and i spent most of the time in the hot springs pool.. so warm and relaxing!! there was also a waterfall pool that i went to for a little bit when ayana and her family joined us and her and leo wanted to swim. my skin was definitely soft when i got out of that hot springs pool four hours later haha.. i looked like an old lady with my raisin fingers and toes!
later that night leo and the fam picked me up to head to riko's parent's house for a family gathering. the whole family meets once a month to stay in touch and each family puts in money, and whoever needs it that month gets to take it. so thoughtful! i met the grandpa and grandma when i met leo and the fam at the beach a couple weeks ago. he was very happy to see me haha. and he knows english (he worked on base before retiring) which was fun for me! and i've learned quite a few japanese phrases which was entertaining for them haha. but the grandpa really wants me to marry his first grandson, who wasn't there because he is in mainland japan. he kept going "i'm soo happy! you are here and i want you to be a part of this family!" haha.. he was too cute. i really love her family.. they are such good people and full of life. after hanging out there, a few of us went to a karaoke bar to end the night. this was more american style.. it was an actual bar and not individual rooms. one old man was there singing old okinawan songs.. he was belting them out!! oh gosh.. it was priceless. and then the bar tender wanted me to marry her son haha.. two arranged marriages in one night! VERY fun night.. and i'm so grateful to have gotten to know toshi and riko better over these past few weeks.. they are amazing people!!
today i took ayana, noa, and moe to the aquarium. they randomly told me last week at school that they really wanted to go to the aquarium, and since i have a season pass, i told them if they asked their parents, i would take them for the day. so off we went this morning to spend the day. it was a lot of fun, and i'm going to miss these kids so much when i leave next month!noa acting like a teenager with her cell phone haha!a shark egg!! i was mesmerized watching this tiny little shark wiggle around in this egg sac!!

spring concert

friday was the spring concert. they did a fantastic job!! before their play, "roaming through romans," each class played a song on the recorder.. so good!! it was karin's last night (she is leaving for florida for the summer.. kind of like an exchange program).. you might not recognize her because of her cute new haircut and perm!the always entertaining fourth grade boystwo minutes to showtime!

yakimo

thursday i found out my girls have learned how to flirt.
we had dress rehearsal at the concert hall for the spring concert. one of the moms could take seven of my kids, so four girls stayed behind with me. as were were waiting outside for the school van to pick us up, i heard the all too familiar song i hear every weekend from my apartment.. "yakimoooooo." i always thought an old man sang the song at the middle school.. i had no idea what it meant! when the girls heard it there faces lit up.. yakimo means sweet potato in japanese. this guy plays the music in his truck so people know he's coming (kind of like the ice cream truck haha) and he has a roaster in the back of his truck that has hot delicious sweet potatoes in it.
so he drives by and my girls start yelling at him (in the sweetest, flirtiest way possible) to give them some yakimo. he politely says no and keeps going.. but then he turns around. the girls start sqealing when he stops his truck in front of us. i am laughing the whole time watching all this happen.. and then he brings us four huge sweet potatoes! then ayana goes.. "miss rachel pay!" hahaha.. what?! the guy says no, they're free, and then gets back in his truck.. turns on the music.. and goes on about his day. they were so happy, every time someone came by they would yell hello and wave haha.. such flirts ;)

weekend fun

this weekend was FULL of sunshine.. praise the lord! so on saturday i spent the morning and early afternoon at sunset beach. this beach is fun because there are speakers playing music all day every day.. and the music is old school which is fun.
around six-ish i went to karen's gymnastics practice.. so much fun! i wanted to go to her competition, but after her mom informed me it was at 7am on a saturday, i had to pass haha. BUT her mom told me just to come to a practice, and that was something i could do :) all the girls were so cute.. three are from the second grade class, so there were quite a few girls i knew. the coach is a second grader's mom, so that was nice. during the practice all the girls showed me their routines from the competition. all of them did so well!! :)
after practice, all of the girls were going to a teammate's house for a slumber party, so karen's mom invited me to go out to dinner with her. we ended up at a yummy sushi restaurant. AND i found out that the slimey sushi i had up in nago (with the cute old man chef ken) was sea urchin.. ick. but anyway.. dinner was fun. i love karen's mom.. she is fun to hang out with. i'm going to miss all these wonderful parents i've been able to get to know!
sunday was another beach morning/early afternoon. there was a wedding at the beach i went to.. so pretty!! and they were playing old school love songs.. who remembers 98 degrees "i do cherish you" hahaha.. brings back memories!! :)
in the evening i met up with monica and noa and their moms to attend karin's ballet recital. she was so cute in her ballet outfit!! and there were also three and four year olds.. so adorable!! all the ages were very talented. we ended the night with dinner at an italian restaurant, and then i went home and went to bed!! it was an exhausting weekend!

week highlights

this week was crazy.. my kids are getting more and more hyper as the end of the year comes closer.. oh well! here are some highlights...

remember the flowers they planted on green day (st patrick's day)?? we just finished out plant unit, so they got to take them home. some students had flowers that bloomed!!it was teacher appreciation week and chikako brought the teachers ice cream animals.. so cute! mine was a cotton candy kitty.. SO GOOD!momoco was fascinated by the kitty and wanted a picture with it (and wanted to eat it haha)monica's birthday was celebrated this week.. her mom brought in pizza, chocolate cake, a PINATA!, and goodie bags.. i was looking through the goodie bags of candy and there was a piece of candy shaped like poop! i was like.. no way is this poop candy, and sure enough, it says unchi on it which is poop in japanese. i of course had to try it!! it was coca-cola flavored :)one of laura and eric's neighbors, tari, mike, and their three sons, were leaving this week for north carolina. they are a fun family and i was sad to see them go!! we went to a restaurant shaped like a giant keg for their going away party. good food!!

catch up!

i'm a weekend behind.. time to catch up!
last week at school, leo informed me that he saw me at the beach when i was with laura doing water sports with noa BUT he was too shy to say hello!! so after school one of the days, i told leo's mom that they should go to the beach again and i would hang out with them. leo got excited about this and kept talking about it the rest of the week haha. so on saturday, i got to the beach early and laid out waiting for them, and laura and eric was going to join too. i spotted leo's family in the distance, and after laura and eric found me, laura and i walked down the beach to make sure it was leo and his family. i went up to his mom and she yelled at leo who was in the ocean (playing with his dad and a friend from the pre-k class). he looked up and he froze with his mouth hanging open hahaha.. it was SO funny!! he kept asking his mom if i was coming, but once i got there, he was shy :) but he wasn't for long haha. then at one o'clock, ayana and her family came! and THEN noa stopped by to play (she was hanging out at her dad's marine sports area).. it was basically a first grade beach party! :) it was a lot of fun hanging out with the parents and first graders outside of school BUT the sun definitely wore me out.. i was there for 5 1/2 hours!!!
that night was dinner and karaoke with laura, eric, and the adult english class students. i could hardly keep my eyes open once midnight hit. it was a lot of fun though. there was one karaoke room that was vip.. it was HUGE. and on our way out about 30 or so japanese people were in it! i went up to the door and danced in front of it (there was a big window) and the guys opened the door for me to come in and dance. laura and i had fun dancing with them to a japanese song.. they got so into it!! if only i was more awake haha.. i would have stayed longer!
sunday laura and i decided to have another beach day after we slept in (i spent the night at her house) at hamahiga island, which is connected to okinawa by a bridge. this is probably one of my favorite beaches here.. it is beautiful and not a lot of americans (aka military) know about it, so it makes you feel like you are actually in japan. on our way there, the van in front of us was turning (had the signal on!) and a guy on a moped ran right into the van!! it was CRAZY. luckily the dude had a helmet on. i almost peed myself.. it was so unexpected! besides that crazy incident, it was a very relaxing sunday.
so basically my weekend was the beach haha.. i'm definitely not complaining!! :)

.mother's.day.

for mother's day, i had the students glue tissue paper on little glass cups to make candle holders. they had a lot of fun and i was impressed with how crafty they were!! happy mother's day to all the moms!! :)

neo park!

i planned a field trip to neo park for my first graders for thursday. made it an easy week with kite day the day before :)
i had two moms and a dad help chaperone.. the kids were so excited in the morning! we headed up to nago right after school started so we could get there right after it opened.
on our way...neo park is kind of a mix between a zoo and wildlife safari. right when you walk in there are birds EVERYWHERE hanging out and walking up to you hoping for food (you can buy bags of food to feed them).. of course my girls start screaming at the top of their lungs and they didn't want to go any further haha. i had to teach them to swat their hands at them and yell shoo.. calmed them down a little bit :)the open bird area was a fairly long trail.. lots of screaming AND grabbing my arms haha.. next was the flamingo area.. LOVE the pretty pink!! the girls ran through this area too.. i think they were getting impatient that i was taking so many pictures in an area they didn't want to be in! at least no one got snapped at!!group picture by the pondon our way to the next area i saw monkeys hanging out OUTSIDE the net.. glad they didn't throw poo at us!! :) i heard the monkeys like to do that at the other zoo closer to home.. and it goes through the cage.. ick.the kids' favorite part by far was the little petting zoo that had puppies, guinea pigs, turtles, and rabbits. two of the puppies were humping the whole time and my kids kept saying, "look they're fighting!" hahaha.you have to click on this picture to enlarge it.. the guinea pig's face is priceless!!the piggy wanted some attention from the guy in charge of the petting zoo
before the lunch break, there was a cage with nothing it.. karen's mom and i were laughing at how serious they were to find something :)lunch break!from one place to the next, we could always see peacocks.. they were everywhere!!next stop were the pigs.. the guy said they actually weren't pigs, but they look enough like pigs for me to call them pigs haha. the kids found out that the "pigs" liked flowers, so they kept picking weeds and plants to feed themprobably their second favorite area of the park was the "research center for international species conservation." you walk through a little building and you can buy fish food to feed these HUMONGOUS fish.. i have no idea what kind they were! but the kids really wanted to feed them, so i paid for them to get some fish food. those fish went crazy and the kids LOVED it!the monkeys in the middle of the pond of giant fishlooking through all the cages..

porcupinesa VERY loud birdsuch a cute owl! the kids said he was shy because he wouldn't look at the camera for me :)i think he wants outloungingthe kids called him grandpa.. he does kind of look like he has papa's hair :)giant hamsters!!walking along the traili assigned each student a partner and ayana was mine since there is an odd number of students. they were all tired by this point (lots of walking in the sunshine!) and ayana told me i should give her a piggy back ride because "we are partners and partners are supposed to help each other out." she was so cute, i couldn't say no :)we went back to the petting zoo area to sit on the giant turtle.. he was so cute!karen's mom with monica and moeleo feeding the goatthe two dogs were still lovin' on each otherour last stop was a train ride around the park. on the way there...
ready to leave the station!during the train ride we went to "llama hill" to see all the llamas.. the tour was in japanese so noa and ayana would periodically tell me things that were being said. during the llama visit all the kids start going "awwwww" in a very sad tone.. apparantely the recording said that during the winter when the cold breeze comes, all the llamas die!! poor llamas!! at the pony part during the speaking leo looked at me with his mouth hanging open in astonishment.. the pony was named leo too haha. the train ride was a lot of fun and the kids REALLY liked it :)
last group picture before leaving neo park!on the way home i rode in karen's mom's van. she put up all the seats in the back for the girls to play. they had WAAAY too much fun!!it was a really fun field trip and the kids enjoyed it a lot. on friday i had the students write about their experience at neo park.. VERY entertaining stories :)