.japan.love.

.graduation.

2009-06-05T22:55:00.003+09:00

today was the end of an era.. graduation. the graduation was really nice. it started with the kids singing a couple songs.. "awesome God" and "you are my all in all."
after special awards, first grade went up to be presented with their promotion certificates for passing the first grade. before giving the awards, i thanked the parents and told my kids for the hundredth time how much i'm going to miss them. :) waiting in the seats during the rest of the ceremonytaking pictures with the kids one last time!! awwww so sad to say goodbye.oh jed and leo i received lots of gorgeous flowers from my kids!!!

summer birthday party!

2009-06-02T21:33:00.005+09:00

since i NEVER got to celebrate a birthday at school when i was growing up, and the kids really wanted me to celebrate my birthday with them, i decided to have a summer birthdays party since leo's birthday is also after school is out. to mix it up, we had the birthday party at A&W. riko came to help, which was very nice.. it got a little chaotic! :)

riko brought party hats! as you can see.. jed was very excited for them.party time!the birthday cake!leo's cousin and her daughter.. right before the picture she moved the little girl's fingers to the peace sign.. so cute!! this little girl is precious beyond words.. she had tape on her back reading "i love leo" and she gave me a bouquet of flowers for my birthday :)the birthday boy and girlice cream time thank you riko!

last weekend before school's out!

2009-06-02T21:21:00.002+09:00

isn't that crazy!?!
friday was low key since i was exhausted from the school week. i joined laura and eric for sushi at a place i haven't been to yet. delicious!! i'll definitely have to go there one more time before i leave!
saturday i was HOPING for sunshine, so i met up with toshi, riko, and leo (seison also came with them) at the beach. it was windy and cloudy.. riko and i covered up with towels the whole time haha. it was still fun.. but the weather deceived me and i got really burnt. that evening we all went to seison's house (the restaurant/house) to listen to a band play 80's music. seison's dad used to be in the band, so he invites them to play.. so fun!! another parent showed up and sat with us.. great company and great music! and leo fell asleep in my lap again.. such a cutie!
saturday i met up with them again to go to toshi's company barbecue at another beach. it was fun meeting some of his co-workers. AND they brought their other son, rei.. so adorable!! probably the funniest thing that happened.. riko got some water balloons for the kids to play with and rei was holding leo's.. leo walked over to him and yelled that it was his.. rei looks at him then smashes the water balloon into the ground.. it was not expected and so hilarious! we were in shock.
now it's time for the last week of school!! i'm still in awe of how fast this school year went!!

cocok's

2009-06-02T21:13:00.002+09:00

i finally went to cocok's.. the cute day spa that is very popular here in okinawa. i went with junko (yamauchi campus secretary) and her daughter elana to get our toes done. there was a book about thirty or so pages long PLUS corkboards with fake nails on them to help you pick the design you want.. saying it was hard to decide is an understatement!! they handpaint your toenails with real paint so it lasts forever (well it feels like it), which is good since i'm leaving soon! it was a lot of fun.. very relaxing.. and drank the best lemon tea i've ever had. after the pedicures, we went to a mexican restaurant for dinner.. fun night!!

holiday weekend!

2009-05-25T18:42:00.005+09:00

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

2009-05-25T18:09:00.003+09:00

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

2009-05-25T17:57:00.003+09:00

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

2009-05-20T10:10:00.003+09:00

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

2009-05-16T22:35:00.004+09:00

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!

2009-05-16T21:39:00.002+09:00

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.

2009-05-13T20:03:00.001+09:00

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!

2009-05-11T19:11:00.014+09:00

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 bird such 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 :)

kite.day

2009-05-07T19:56:00.005+09:00

wednesday was kite day (golden week is from april 29-may 5, which is a big japanese holiday week. may 5th is children's day, and since yamauchi campus did their kite day on may 5th, my campus did it on may 6th). i loved this celebration because all the parents came to eat lunch with their kids and watch them fly their kites.
after forcing the kids to eat lunch when we got there (the playground was just screaming their name!! haha), they played until it was time for the kite flying contest.
the crazy slide!!
ayanajed and leoleo's cute little brother!for the kite flying contest, each grade had five minutes or so to fly their kites around so the teacher could pick a winner. then each winner would fly against each other and all the teachers would get together to pick the kite flying champion.
getting ready for the contest...flying their kites around to try and impress me :)moe won for first grade, but sadly her kite broke during the final round. there is always next year! :)
ayana and noa flying their kites on the sideline

best beach weekend EVER.

2009-05-05T19:43:00.003+09:00

saturday was a glorious day. noa's dad owns a marine sports area at araha beach, and after i found that out, i asked her mom if laura and i could have a reservation to do some of the activities. so on saturday we met up with noa and her mom so they could show us where the booth was to fill out the paperwork for the "discount".. it ended up being free!! they are such a nice family.. it was fun to spend the day with them :) noa did all the activities with us.. she is too funny haha. she first wanted to do the banana boat. words can't describe how fun it was. laura and i screamed the whole time while noa just laughed and laughed.. probably at us haha. one of noa's dad's co-workers drove the jet ski and the finale was amazing.. i seriously flew two feet off the seat!!!
noa then wanted to go kayaking, so the three of us went around araha beach.. so pretty!! noa relaxed while laura and i paddled.. very relaxing!
after lunch we got in the glass bottom boat to go off shore to go snorkeling!! it was my first time and i LOVED it!!
before we started...you can see the banana boat behind uswe went with noa's dad, another worker, and two tourists from mainland. it was really weird at first to get used to breathing underwater but luckily i got used to it fairly fast. we were given suasages to feed the fish and i DEFINITELY did not throw the sausage far enough away from me.. the fish swarmed me and started biting me.. i FREAKED out!!! hahaha.. imagine me floating in the middle of the ocean screaming my head off hahahaha. it was quite the experience. it was amazing to see all the coral and fish.. saw some fish from finding nemo (gil being one of them), gorgeous rainbow fish, and brightly colored fish.
after we were done snorkeling, we laid out on the beach for a while.. noa took an hour nap under her umbrella.. so cute! when i was on the dock telling noa's dad and the rest of the workers thank you, i saw a puffer fish swimming in the water!!! i didn't know they were so close to the shore!!
laura and i had reservations for transit cafe, so we had just enough time to run home and shower. transit of course was amazing.. and we made it in time for the sunset. reshinda, one of laura's friends, met up with us and we had a fun dinner. we became friends with the bartender and he had fun teaching us japanese phrases :)
being spontaneous, we then went to a local bar called oh yeah (yes.. that's the name haha). it's a japanese bar, so we were the only americans.. it was also golden week (a big japanese holiday), so there were a lot of japanese men celebrating there. it was quite the entertainment haha! here they are trying to impress us with their drinking skills :)they were hilarious.. so were the workers there.. definitely a fun evening!!!
i spent the night at laura's and on sunday, since the weather was sunny again, we decided to go to the beach again! laura loves this beach that is a little island off of okinawa (you have to go on a bridge).. gorgeous!! it usually isn't packed but because of golden week, it was very crowded. we luckily found a parking spot, and had a lot of fun talking and relaxing on the beach. there were tents set up all along the beach.. we were tempted to skip school and camp too :)
great weekend.. but very exhausting.. the sun wears me out!! but definitley worth it!! :)

spirit week!

2009-05-01T21:30:00.009+09:00

this week was spirit week at school. the kids had fun being creative.. and i had fun seeing all their ideas!! the first day was crazy day.. and boy did we look crazy!lisa, me, laura, and mekeioi think the best part about what i was wearing is that some of the students AND parents said i looked cute and normal!!! hahaha.. ONLY in japan! :)the second day was heritage day. less dramatic, which was good because the classes went over to ashibina to practice for the spring concert. most of us just dressed up with the colors of our flag.. so it was a lot of red and white... with some blue for the americans. some however, were more creative and wore special outfits from their country. very cute!
noa and karen wore their yukatas (a casual kimono)wednesday was twin day.. well more like dress alike day (there were more triplets and quadruplets than twins haha). some kids wore EXACTLY the same outfit.. i was impressed!the jackson five! aka.. kouichi, keishu, and susumu. susumu carried around a cassette player playing jackson five music as they walked down the hall together. priceless. and laura said that she had to teach them how to flip the cassette over to continue playing the music.. don't we sound old?!some of the teachersleo and jed being... leo and jed.kai, ryota, and william walked into my room wanting a picture of their matching uni-brows. kind of creepy! hahaha.. and it kind of looks real!thursday was character day! definitely the day with the most creativity!

ayana and i were minnie mouse togethernoa was a ghost from a japanese cartoon called ben10i can't remember who kai said he was, but i love his beard and gnarly hairhannah montanacinderella and her mopthe lovely princessesdaphne and minniekaren also brought a 101 dalmations outfit.. had to try it on!!the lovely jasminesand friday was sportswear day.. and a very eventful day. my first graders was in charge of chapel, so they performed their skit on the good samaritan and then sang the cute veggie tales song, love your neighbor. for lunch, we went to the park with fourth grade for a picnic. it was a beautiful day! and some goats across the street haha!the rivals.karin and karen representing ballet and gymnasticskaren.. this picture is priceless.playing some baseball...right before fourth grade was going to head back, noa got stuck on the climbing contraption. her foot slipped and she couldn't get it back up.. so miss rachel and some fourth graders came to the rescue!! and some of my first graders climbed up for moral support. :)and i thought this would have been the craziest part of my day. think again. we went back to school for the kids to finish up their writing and get ready for moe's birthday party (she brought cheese cake.. japanese style.. fyi COMPLETELY different, but still really really good!). moe's mom also brought cute little miniture cans of drinks.. favorite part of the school year by far.. we all got our mini cans and got in a circle and yelled kampai (cheers in japanese) and clinked our cans together. cutest moment ever. then the not so cute moment. i'm sitting at my desk eating cake singing avril lavigne to the kids (they know the girlfriend song so they always get a kick out of it when i sing it to them) and i look up at karin (she wasn't feeling well that day) and puke is just flying out of her mouth all over the floor. to not be too descriptive... the rest of the day consisted of me cleaning up the vomit all over the desks, chairs, and floors. i was *this close* to having my wish come true that nobody puked in my class during the year. oh well. i just hope she feels better!! and mom would have been proud of me (you too dad!!)... i didn't gag once, and i cleaned it up like a pro. :) but i'll leave it on a different note instead of puke... HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOE!

slumber party and hip hop competition

2009-04-28T18:53:00.007+09:00

saturday laura invited her 4th grade class to sleep over at her house. i was an honorary helper since i get to spend a lot of time with her class (my goodness, my first graders are in love with the fourth graders.. and they are great role models for them!). after they walked barkley, we started setting up the tents. some of those tents were hi-tech.. i took some notes for you dad! :) the girls had one tent, while the boys had two. the girl tent was so cute.. one girl brought a lantern to hang in their tent.. just watching them set up their sleeping bags made me miss camping so much!laura and eric had a fire pit, so we had hot dogs and smores for dinner and dessert. susumu never had a smore before, so i was excited to introduce him to this amazing treat. he gave it a thumbs up and some ooo's and aaah's. the kids also had fun breaking all the wood for the fire.. ninja style!
after dinner, the girls wanted to take a bath.. they brought their swimsuits, goggles, and water guns. so cute!

later that night came ghost stories! haha.. priceless! eric hooked up the computer to the tv, and we watched ghost videos from youtube. one is from a cliff we actually went to the tuesday of spring break (look at an older post).. you can see a ghost jumping off the cliff committing suicide. during WWII, many japanese people jumped off that cliff. here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRB-WONKYT4
the kids screamed and susumu tried to find an answer in every video.. this one.. "he's a diver!"
we watched a video where the security camera on kadena (where we were staying!) picked up a ghost floating over the fence.. creepy! the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S8pAqAWZko
susumu's answer.. "it's just a shadow!"
the last video we watched was a japanese girl brushing her hair.. and the mirror reflection goes crazy. it looks fake, but who knows! the kids freaked out haha. the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6ubFh563lo
susumu's answer: "twin!"
tari and her family came to hang out and they told some of their ghost stories (when she told me the stories earlier, i almost peed my pants. she wasn't as descriptive for the kids.. good thing!). then one of her sons told one of those funny ghost stories where you yell at the end.. the boys almost messed themselves. by this time, all the girls were upstairs watching high school musical haha.. two started crying (and laughing at the same time!).. ghosts are not something they like to think about haha.
then susumu said he had a ghost story from the resonex (where laura and i stayed during spring break). it was about how he would look over the balcony and see this lady dressed in white walking into the ocean and disappearing. one night she looked at him and said, i'm going to kill you. everyone started screaming and gasping.. then susumu said he was joking haha.. he was so serious about it.. everyone was fooled!! he is a funny boy!
after watching some movies and eating some more.. some kids started getting tired. we joked with each other during the week that we were going to play pranks on each other. i brought make-up for the girls to put on the boys when they fell asleep. since it looked like most of the boys weren't going to fall asleep soon, when william fell asleep on the couch, they boys and girls teamed up to put the make-up on william when he went to sleep in the tent. susumu and kouichi were so funny trying to get william to fall back asleep. finally he was out like a light, and we went to work haha. he is a heavy sleeper!! we put make-up on him AND took pictures, and he didn't flinch!! susumu would go into the tent by himself and we'd see flashes coming from the tent. then he would show us the pictures and laura and i almost peed our pants laughing so hard. here are only some of the pictures we took during the prank.. i still laugh thinking about it!!!laura and i wanted to get in on the fun with the pictures!this picture is a "you had to be there" moment.. just look at the card placement and if you knew susumu's love for a japanese comedian, it would all make sense haha.that night, laura and i ended up going to bed at 3:30 am.. i heard giggles all night long haha. i guess some of the boys didn't go to bed until 4 and 5.. and then some got up at 5!! crazy! the girls came in and woke me up (i slept in the guest bedroom... no tent for me haha) at 8.. too early!! we had burger king for breakfast and then the girls and i went with eric to look at where he works and see the f-15s while the boys went to the park to play baseball (they saw the planes the day before). it was cool to see eric's building and his locker room!!
by noon, it was time to take the kids back to the school campus to be picked up by their parents. i smelled like campfire smoke, so i had to go home and shower before heading off to elaina's dance competition.
her dance competition was really cool. it was a hip hop battle, so two people would battle each other.. three judges would vote.. and the most votes would take the winner to the next round. there were actually quite a few students competing from school.. i was so excited for them! they were excited to see me (and their parents), and it was fun to interact with them outside of school. junko (elaina's mom) came later and sat with me.. i'm going to miss her so much when i leave! she really wants me to come back in two years.. we'll see!! :)
kiana (a 2nd grader) ended up getting third place and elaina got first place!! she won a case of pepsi, a case of noodles, a tub of popcorn, and a bag of corn sticks.. that's quite the prize!

elaina with the winners and judges after their hip hop battle, random people not in dance crews got to battle off.. very entertaining! they did street dancing.. break dancing, popping, locking, etc. i could watch it all night.. and we almost did haha. we ended the night eating at wendy's.. me, junko, kiana's mom, kiana, and elaina. and of course all the cute little girls from elaina's dance crew who want to talk to an american girl haha. i got home at 8:30pm (i went there at 1!!).. it was a loooong day and i was exhausted. BUT so worth it!!! i'm going to miss all these people so much!!!

test week = loco

2009-04-28T18:40:00.002+09:00

last week was SATs for the school. it wasn't too bad.. some kids were not focused during the testing, so i'm curious to see what their test scores are! ;) we had two subjects each morning from monday to friday.. then the afternoon was normal class-time. all that sitting and testing made them a little crazy..
one of the days they started humming the song "i met a bear" and i started humming it too.. they were shocked that i knew the song. they only know it in japanese and i couldn't remember the lyrics, so i searched it and sang it to them in english. since the tune was stuck in my head, i started playing around with them, singing instructions to them in that tune. one of my girls then wanted me to start singing that tune to them when i got mad at them and yelled haha. let's just say it turned into a crazy afternoon hahaha.
on friday, to celebrate the ending of testing, i had them choose what movie they wanted to watch.. peter pan or pirates of the caribbean. pirates won. BUT while we were watching it, one by one, kids started getting scared and i had to turn it off haha. jed would run up next to me and say he was scared.. then a pirate would get hit over the head.. he would laugh hysterically and sit back down. i think it was the skeleton scene that scared a few of them the most. oh well.. peter pan next time!
here's a picture jed wanted me to take of his pattern block creations.. he was so proud!

karaoke night!

2009-04-19T14:32:00.004+09:00

friday night i went with some friends to dinner and karaoke. the restaurant was amazing! each table is under a hut and decorated differently. it had a jamaican feel to it (okinawans love jamaica and everything associated with it.. bob marley, hemp (they use a marijuana leaf to represent hemp haha), and the flag). it was so creative! and there is a wooden path around the huts to get around the restaurant.. and all this is inside! during dinner, someone asked me if there was a restaurant like this in the states, and i was like heck no! this would definitely break the fire code! toru wanted me to try a bunch of different stuff, so we had a korean dish (fish insides.. quite tasty!), a popular dish from osaka (reminded me of yakitori), some rice noodles, sushi, avocado salmon rolls, chicken gizzards (better than in the states!), and some yummy chicken and rice. we came during the happy hour, so the drinks were very cheap.. got to try some new stuff! one favorite of mine was jamaican mule.. it's rum, gingerale, and lime. i also tried a plum sake drink (very good!!) and acerola (they didn't know the translation in english.. it tasted like peach, but i guess it is small like a cherry.. looking on the internet, it might be acai berries?). here's us at the restaurant!
next was karaoke! toru got a hold of some shakers and tambourines.. it was VERY loud haha. we got the children's room, so we had nice round pillows to sit on haha! a very fun night with lots of singing and dancing :)

another week of school done.. time is flying!

2009-04-18T21:41:00.003+09:00

it was hard to get back into the groove of things.. i guess i relaxed too much during spring break!! one fun thing i wanted to post..
a few weeks ago, leo put on karen's headband and was walking around the classroom acting like a girl during clean-up time. when they sat down waiting to be called to line up for recess, i was laughing telling leo we should call him lena (i was trying to think of a girl's name close to leo) when he wears the headband, and he said "no.. call me selena" hahaha. on friday, he wore her headband again, and this time i had to get a picture of him being selena :)funny boy!

rest of spring break

2009-04-12T18:52:00.008+09:00

wednesday monica hung out with me for the day and then spent the night. we started by soaking our feet in the hot spring water outside a bath-house.. my feet needed it! monica loved it.. she'd never done it before.here she is at dinner.. she loved the fish toothpicks :)her movie choice was high school musical 2, so we watched that before going to bed.

thursday morning laura and i trekked up north to motobu. one of her students' grandpa owns a hotel, so we decided to stay for a night to have a mini-getaway during spring break. it was everything i hoped it would be.. AND MORE! first of all, his mom arranged for us to have a room on the end, so it was ginormous.. with TWO balconies! three beds, a sound system, a living room, dining room, kitchen area.. all for just the two of us! we were definitely on vacation :) we stayed on the eleventh floor, so the view was spectacular. we took some chairs out to the balcony and sat enjoying the view drinking beer.. it was the perfect start to the trip!

the view...the marilyn look the hotel room...view from my bed :)for dinner on thursday, we decided to be spontaneous and just drive until we found a random place to eat. we ended up at this cute little japanese restaurant.. no one was there and we kept saying "konbanwa" until finally this cute japanese man (ken haha.. not really a japanese name, but i guess his real name is kengi, but likes to be called ken) came out to fix us some sushi. up north, there aren't a lot of americans, so it's fun to see how excited they get when they see two girls haha. he told us he wanted to practice his english with us, and we stayed there for almost three hours hanging out with him and his wife (i'm assuming was his wife) talking, laughing, and trying ALL kinds of different food. he gave us a bowl of whole mini squid, shrimp tempura, sushi filled with about 30 teeny tiny whole white fish (it was creepy looking at their eyes!), other types of sushi, miso soup, seaweed grapes, and strips of beef (SO GOOD!). he even called up some of his friends to stop by and meet us haha. this cute old man came in (we found out he grows mangoes in the summer) with his wife and gave us a bag of okinawan oranges. they all love boxing, and they just left for osaka to go to a championship game. ken gave us his business card because he wants us to visit again so he can take us to karaoke :) i had so much fun hanging out with them.. one of the BEST dinner experiences i've ever had! we ended the night relaxing on the couch watching the most random japanese movie i've ever seen.. basically it was about zombies playing baseball with normal people. there were so many flashbacks and random seens (not to mention it's all in japanese!), we had no idea what was going on haha.. but we had to finish watching it just to see how it ended :)

friday after breakfast we layed on the beach for FIVE hours!! good times :) two cranes hung around the shore while we were there, and we watched one catch two fish in front of us.. so cool!! we even met some new friends! more japanese guys (probably visiting from mainland) were excited to hear we were from the states, and was even more excited to get a picture with us haha. he said it was a good memory he will always remember haha.i'll save you!on our way home we went to pizza in the sky for dinner.. perfect ending to the trip!!
sadly, laura and i got quite burnt from out little getaway. and saturday and today was gorgeous outside!! but i had to stay out of the sun :( saturday laura, eric, and i went out to lunch at this cute little burger shack (and watched a cat bite a birds head and carry the seagull sized bird away.. that bird had no idea what was coming!! and the cat just walked passed us not even paying attention to us laughing in shock haha). we then went shopping (best way to stay out of the sun!). today for easter the three of us went to the sunrise service at the marina. it was so gorgeous sitting on the beach at 6am with the water turning a pretty pink from the sunrise.. so amazing!!

now spring break is over and back to school tomorrow!! it will be good to see my kids and find out what they were up to.. it was nice to see a few of them during the break!

school and start of spring break

2009-04-08T15:52:00.007+09:00

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 manza after 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

pineapple park and the aquarium!

2009-03-29T21:17:00.007+09:00

so saturday.. BIG day! we headed up to nago which is about a two hour drive. like i mentioned in an earlier post.. the long drive doesn't bother me since you drive right along the beach the whole time. and nago is more tropical and less crowded, so there are tons of green hills (looks like a scene out of LOST or jurassic park!) and palm trees.. absolutely gorgeous!
our first stop was pineapple park. i've been wanting to go here for a while now, but decided to wait until michelle came out. we started by getting our picture taken with a pineapple character and then climbing into a pinapple golf cart to take a tour around the pineapple fields. luckily, the "tour guide" (aka the speaker in the cart) spoke in english for us, so it was interesting learning and seeing all the different types of pineapples.in the pineapple cart!i didn't know pineapples could be pink! this makes me happy! :)LOVED all the cute scenery around the park!after the ride, we went into a room with pineapple wine!! and you get unlimited taste testing of the different kinds.. so good! my favorite was the light sweet pineapple wine.. i had to get a bottle! then you go into a HUGE room full of everything imagineable made out of pineapple.. sponge cakes, cookies, jellies, dipping sauces, pies, perfume, soaps, lotion,.. the list goes on and on!
it was a fun place and i'm so excited to take my next visitors there! :)
NEXT was the aquarium. i've been once before, but we kind of raced through it, so it was nice to take my time and see everything better. the coolest part was touching the different kinds of starfish and this weird creature that was very squishy! i can't even begin to describe how it felt.. dad, philip, and melissa.. you are in for a treat! :)
i also LOVED the dolphin show! i didn't get to see it last time, so i was happy i got to see it this time. while we were waiting, a japanese man wanted to take our picture and then take a picture with us. he was funny!i took A LOT of pictures during the dolphin show.. it was just soo cool!! i'll be nice and only post a few :)michelle was excited to get a coconut.. they cut it open right in front of you.. talk about fresh coconut juice!some pictures at the aquarium...japanese spider crab!! that's a lot of crab meat!!the shark exhibit was really cool too. there was a shark skin you could touch.. i didn't realize how rough shark skin was! there were also swatches of different kinds of sharks.. some were nice and smooth, but most were scratchy. my favorite was seeing the preserved fetuses of different breeds of sharks. one was a great white that was caught off the okinawan shores! eek! there were also baby whale sharks.. they were so cute and small!!
we took a different route home, which had an even more amazing view than going there. i can't get over how gorgeous it is here!!

then on sunday i took michelle to the airport for her long journey home. i had an amazing time with her and i'm so glad she got to come visit me!! :)

fun with michelle!

2009-03-29T19:47:00.012+09:00

this past week has been very busy (and definitely the good kind!).. michelle came to visit for the week since it was her spring break. she arrived on saturday night, and we started the trip right by staying up til 2am chatting! haha.. and i don't think we felt rested ever since :)

some highlights from the week...

*showing michelle japanese beaches!!

it was VERY windy that day and we bought ice cream at the grocery store to eat on the beach.. bad idea haha! i got ice cream in my hair, sand in my ice cream, and michelle got chocolate all over her face :)*during the week, michelle was our special helper in class. the kids had fun getting to know her!*did a night of shopping at main city (a nice size shopping mall), and ended the night by eating at this yummy italian restaurant. we did dinner for two which consisted of a drink, salad, cheese fondue, pizza, and three desserts!*zakimi castle ruins. fortunately it was a gorgeous day.. i wanted michelle to see all the beautiful scenery around okinawa!michelle was just as amused as me with all the lovely dog pooping pictures :)in front of the ruins such a beautiful landscape!after the castle ruins, we went further up north to see the zanpa lighthouse. along the way we saw a gorgeous beach, so of course we had to stop to explore!having fun climbing! the waves started to crash against the rock.. didn't want to pull an uncle jim! :)THEN we made it to the lighthouse! it was already closed to go to the top, but we had fun walking around admiring the scenery.*had some more fun hanging around at another beach.. what could be better than sitting at the beach with your best friend talking about life, breeze softly blowing, sun shining, and gorgeous blue-green water?found a cute seahorse statue! it was right by a bath-house that has a wonderful hot spring area for anyone to stick their feet in.. did i mention that it is FREE?! my feet felt sooo soft afterward!*i took michelle to my favorite restaurant on the island.. sam's by the sea! it is tropical themed and all the waiters and waitresses wear sailor outfits. old school hawaiian music plays and there are also glass floats and pufferfish with lights in them hanging all around.. so cool! and it's right on the beach, so it has a fantastic view!*the japanese teacher at my school invited michelle and i to her house for dinner. it was quite the experience to just get in haha! first off, i got directions from the school secretary, but she didn't mention which house it was.. just what road to go on. so we had two houses to choose from. looking through the screen door, i decided on one of the houses because the shoes looked like hers haha. i knock on the door a few times and no one comes to the door. finally i yelled "konbanwa!" (good evening in japanese) and an elderly lady comes to the door, smiling from ear to ear. she starts rambling on and on in japanese and i have NO IDEA what she's saying.. i don't even know who she is! i take off my shoes hoping this is the right house haha.. then i see mrs takemoto's daughter and know i'm in the right house haha. in japanese culture, it is very common for the whole entire family to live together (three to sometimes four generations all living under the same roof). walking up to the top floor, we find mrs takemotos part of the house and have dinner up there. she prepared LOTS of food for sushi, which was fun to make! i had fun getting to know her better and talk with her kids. her son visited my class one day a few months ago because he had a day off from school (he goes to japanese school), and since he's good friends with jed, he hung out in my room for the day. him and her older daughter had gotten back from a style of karate using sticks, and was showing us their moves.. very cool! the littlest child (she is a pre-k student at our school) feel asleep at the kitchen table.. so adorable! :)
*we went to naha to walk kokusai street, which is a big tourist area that has a bunch of shops of souvenirs. i'll have to get some stuff there before i leave!
*saturday was a BIG day of doing stuff in nago (far north), so i'll put that in the next post!

st.patricks day.. aka green day!

2009-03-24T21:04:00.003+09:00

st patrick's day was FULL of green.. since this is a day of no uniforms, EVERYONE took advantage and wore a lot of green. didn't realize there were so many shades haha. the week was fun of st. patrick's day spelling words, and teaching them about leprechauns and st. patrick.

william had fun dressing up!and he let me borrow his hat and glasses.. like my shamrock nylons?! :)"green day" was also an opportunity to teach about the environment, so one of the activities i planned was for each student to plant their own flower seeds in a cup.. it was an exciting new project for them. lots of fun.. and they can't stop checking their cups to see if any are growing!

i'm baaaack!!

2009-03-13T21:43:00.003+09:00

today i surprised my kids by coming back a day early to school from my three week hiatus. i wanted to stop by laura's room first to give her a big hug, and since i timed it right before lunch, half my kids were in her room because of reading buddies. i held back tears of joy as i walked into the room and all the kids looked at me with wide eyes and screams of excitement.. i've missed them soo much!! they all wanted to show me their surprise for me.. even though i already saw it since my door is straight across from the main doors haha.. but i played along. they put a "welcome back" banner on my door, and everyone signed it.. it was cute!! then i peeked my head into my room to see the rest of the first and fourth graders, which resulted in more screams and hugs. and they made me MORE cards haha.. they should be pros by now! :) it was nice to also meet my substitute.. she was really sweet and i was definitely blessed to have her! and it isn't a surprise that my kids were a little on the wild side the rest of the day. it's nice to know that it didn't take long for them to warm up to me again :)Hinako (a 4th grader) brought me flowers.. so pretty!!

family.fun.day

2009-02-14T15:18:00.006+09:00

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 eggs they 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.

2009-02-12T17:38:00.006+09:00

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!

2009-02-08T17:39:00.006+09:00

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 :)

love, friends, and cherry blossoms

2009-01-31T22:39:00.008+09:00

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 stairs after 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 :)

never a dull moment :)

2009-01-26T11:34:00.005+09:00

last week was only a four day school week, which was verrry nice :) nothing too crazy happened.. one funny story though! the designated area for my apartment complex's garbage is across the parking lot. tuesday morning before heading off to work, i was walking to put my trash in the spot when i noticed out of the corner of my eye a truck driving really slow keeping pace with me. i think a) it could be the garbage man following me so he can pick up the trash after i put it down, or b) it is someone i know and they are being funny by going slow until i recognize them (which really would only happen in the states haha.. i don't know that many people here for this option to seriously happen). so i finally look and it's this old asian man staring at me haha.. i say hi, he smiles this big goofy grin, and then drives off to go about his day. probably the strangest "stare story" i've encountered so far :)

an exciting thing that happened during the week was that i got my hair permanately straightened!! i've been wanting to do this FOREVER, but it's so expensive in the states! luckily, it is affordable here, and i found the cutest salon to go to. they were all super nice and were troopers.. it took four hours!!! my poor hair stylist had to take a break half way through, so a cute girl came over and gave me a head/neck massage while i waited. and i found out she was twenty-two also.. she got so excited haha... too cute. so now i don't have an ounce of curl on my head.. it's unbelievable!! i'm still amazed getting out of the shower with my hair straight and i can actually let it air dry or blow-dry it without any hassle. and it will last six to nine months!! i'm in heaven. :)

on friday, monica stayed the night with me. after skyping with philip and melissa (monica enjoyed that!), we went to jusco to eat mcdonalds and play at the arcade. it was my first time actually playing at the arcade and boy is it addicting!!! you play with tokens and the games are either slot machine style or those games where you try to get the pile of coins knocked over the edge. but in the states you never actually get the coins.. it's a rip-off. NOT HERE! there are little mini games in addition to knocking the coins off the edge. one coin game was a dinosaur theme. we got the coins in a bonus slot, and the t-rex came over to our window and roared at us while thirty coins came out of his mouth.. we got a lot of tokens with this game! then we went to a mario one that had a huge castle with all the mario characters in it. during the game, there is a screen with mario hitting different squares.. if you get three in a row of the same object, you play a mini-game to get more coins. we were sooo close to hitting the jackpot, but then we ran out of money haha. oh well. next time! :) after jusco, we went home and watched alvin and the chipmunks until she fell asleep. we woke up early on saturday (it's like bella spending the night haha) and i made pancakes for breakfast while we watched japanese cartoons.. very interesting!! one was about a dog who found a cow freezing in the snow, so he saved her and they became best friends. then the cow had to go back home and got on a plane. the dog pretended he wasn't going to miss her, but then when the plane started taking off, he started crying and yelling her name. the cow was crying in the plane and they looked at each other and waved before the plane left the runway. at the end, the dog got a picture in the mail of the cow and dog making a snowman haha.. very cute, but VERY random!! then there was a cartoon about a baseball team haha.. they really love their baseball here! after breakfast and showers, we went to the hundred-yen store, and i found some cute pink lights to put in my apartment. adds a little light in the evening when i don't want it too bright in here. on the way home, monica was saying how sad she was we didn't take pictures at jusco the night before, so i stopped at the lookout park and we took some pictures.i love their dog pooping pictures!! :) click on the picture to enlarge so you can get a better look!peace and love! :)after painting nails, more skyping, lunch, and watching some old school alvin and the chipmunks cartoons, i took her home. had a nice visit with her mom... she is such a fun lady :) i'm glad i've gotten the chance to get to know her! and i ended the night watching LOST!!! it's going to be such an amazing season.. and of course mind blowing! it's weird not having lost parties.. i miss my losties!! :)

sunday was skyping, grocery shopping, and then church. lina wanted me to try her church, and i'm glad i did. it's more like a bible study.. three families joined us (each with ADORABLE toddlers), so it's not very big. both secretaries from new life go to this church also, but they weren't there last night. it's a very laid-back atmosphere... after singing, we ask the pastor any questions we have about the bible, and then the pastor goes off that for what the lesson will be about that day. then we have prayer requests and eat snacks and visit for the remainder of the evening. one of the pastor's kids is such cutie.. and the biggest flirt! :) he is about three or four and he would not stop laughing.. cutest laugh i've ever heard! sometimes he got really excited and would speak in japanese to me.. no idea what he was saying haha! i just smiled at him and then he would laugh and laugh.

this weekend will be a busy one. on friday is night cafe (kind of like a talent show that the school puts on), and i'm helping with that.. should be fun! then on saturday is the cherry blossom festival.. VERY excited for that!! so there will definitely be LOTS of pictures coming soon!! :)

circus and slumber parties

2009-01-19T09:39:00.009+09:00

friday was a half day so teacher's could work on grades. luckily, i finished my grades earlier in the week, so i took off early to head for the beach to do some reading (it was finally a nice day in the low 70s.. perfect here!).
saturday was a gorgeous day too, but not enough time to relax at the beach, so i went to a local bakery.. picked up some lunch.. and did the relaxing on my balcony :) there is a circus in okinawa called pop circus, and it only comes every two years or so. i was telling my class i really wanted to go, and i've become close with monica's (girl in my class) mom, so we made plans that i would stay at her house saturday night, and then go to the circus together. we invited lina to come too, so i picked her up and then met up with yumi (i don't know how to spell her name, but you pronounce it "youme") who had monica, lillian (monica's little sister), and hunter (goes to yumi's school she owns) in her car. yumi has been telling me that they just moved to a new place and that it was gorgeous, but i was not expecting what i saw!! it was unbeliveable. we parked under the building that looked like an apartment complex, but there were no other cars in the parking lot. the whole building was hers!! the first floor is parking, second floor is her school (called santa monica), third floor is empty for parties and meetings for the school, and the top floor is her house!! and she designed it all herself.. a very creative lady! after the tour (with lots of ooos and aaaaahs of course! the biggest oooo moment was when i saw that in the bathrooms, the toilet lid automatically lifts up when you first walk in and the toilet seat is heated.. talk about feeling pampered!) we relaxed on the huge couch and watched a movie while the kids were SUPER hyper. dinner was some delicious okinawan food.. and after dinner was the best part.. a bubble bath! first of all.. the separate room for the shower and tub looks like something out of a day spa. the whole room is the size of my living room haha. the tub was the size of a hot tub, and when you turn on the jets, colored lights come on at the bottom of the tub.. so cute! the water was steaming hot.. not used to that in my apartment! felt sooo good :)
the rest of the night was lots of laughing, talking with yumi about hot celebrities, and playing hello kitty grocery store with the kids.. and of course hide and seek!after a loooong night sleeping in monica's room (she snores.. so i didn't get much sleep haha) and having a yummy breakfast, we headed off to the circus! the circus is in itoman (southern okinawa), which is about a forty-five minute drive. it was a beautiful drive, so i didn't mind it at all. we got there early, so we did some waiting in line.. we kept ourselves occupied :)monica, lily, and hunter patiently waiting in long.. that didn't last long ;)lily and hunter in front of one of the signs after anxiously waiting for an hour, we finally went in. they were really strict about no cameras and cell phones, so i just took one picture before it started, so you could see what it looked like.while waiting for the circus to start, music was playing that sounded like the clown part in disneyland's electrical parade. such a funny coincidence :) the circus was amazing. two clowns were the entertainment between the acts and sometimes mingled with the acts. some of the acts included:
*a bicycle routine, which ended with twelve people (six guys and six ladies) balancing on ONE bicycle.. that takes talent!
*an adorable dog act, which had about seven dogs doing different tricks. the craziest was when one little dog was lying on a lever, and the guy catapulted the little dog in the air and he landed on the guy's hand doing a handstand!! unbelievable.
*lots of aerial acts, like trapeze and silk (one of my favorites. a guy and lady used long silk fabric to float around the stage. one would wrap the silk around his/her arms while the other would only hang on to the partner. it was a beauiful act that showed a lot of strength!!).
*trampoline.. crazy stunts!
*guys dressed as power rangers (well that is what it looked to me haha) doing tricks through little circles in the middle of the stage, and the cicles would get progressively higher. that must take a lot of practice to find ways to fit through those circles and do it right every time!
*the CUTEST act ever was a clown driving a two-car train with stuffed animals in the back. he stops and gets out a giraffe, puts it on the ground, pretends to wind it up, and waits for it to start walking. well it doesn't, so he puts in away and gets out a zebra and does the same thing. this time it starts walking around and then falls "dead" until the clown winds it up again. it was sooo adorable! and then at the end, the clown rips off the costume and a cute little dog runs around the stage and then hops back in the train. the costume made the dog look like a real miniature zebra.. so cute!!the group! the line was a little long to get out of the parking lot, so lina had fun taking pictures trying to get the tent in the background :)the circus was about a 2 1/2 hour show with an intermission. during intermission ayana (one of my students) came up and said hi, so i went over to where she was sitting to say hi to her family. we saw them again during the chaos of trying to get out of the parking lot (didn't recognize them at first because they were using a different car i'm used to seeing, but luckily when they were trying to leave, i motioned that they could come out in front of me.. that is why you have to be nice to everyone! you never know who could be in the car haha!), and then at the food court at the mall. ayana had her heelys (the shoes that are also skates) on and was going up and down the halls haha.
if you look closely at the background, you can see the bridge we had to go on to get to itoman. and of course there is gorgeous turquoise water surrounding it!
across from that mall was ashibina mall, which was a huge outlet mall. super cute outdoor mall, but it's all name brand expensive stores, so i couldn't really buy anything haha. but it was fun to walk around and watch performances.we were all super tired from the day and decided to go back home. monica slept the whole way home, which was good because she was getting a little cranky haha. went home and watched a movie before heading to bed. glad there isn't any school today so i can re-energize before a week of school! :)

it's been a funny week...

2009-01-13T16:26:00.002+09:00

it's only tuesday and my week has already been very entertaining! yesterday when i was coming home from my staff meeting, i noticed a police car in my apartment building's parking lot. i was hoping there wouldn't be a crime scene or something (i'm just paranoid haha.. and have an active imagination :) i've still yet to see a hint of bad behavior on this island). about five minutes after i got into my place and settled in, there was a knock at my door. looking through the peep hole, i saw the police man! i opened the door, and of course he started rambling off in japanese.. can't help him there! he started laughing and said thank you and left.. thought that was the end of him. five minutes goes by and there is a knock at the door again.. guess who?? :) i open the door and there he is with his cell phone for me to take haha. a guy was on the other end of the line translating for the police officer.. he was just checking on the apartment complex and wanted to know who lived there, and wanted to see my id. that made things easier because my alien card has ALL my information on it for him.. where i work, live, birthday... all that jazz. so the guy hung up and the cop starts writing down my information.. says "teacher?" to me in english and gets excited when i say yes haha. then he doesn't understand what new life academy is, so he looks all through his uniform to find his phone again (that was an adventure haha) and i have to talk to the guy again to explain what new life academy is and where it is in okinawa. then the cop talked to the guy and he got very excited (he must have easily understood where it was haha).. wrote a few more things down.. bowed to me about seven times saying thank you.. and that was the end of the cop.. and the 1/2 hour conversation! haha.. it was a very funny moment :)

funny moment of today... at lunch the girls wanted me to sit with them. so while we're eating, i pull out my apple (whole apple, not sliced), bite into it, and all the girls look at me with wide eyes and start screaming!! they start saying that i'm going to die!! and why?? because i'm eating the peeling!! haha.. i became VERY curious because i did realize that when my kids bring apples for lunch, they are sliced and peeled. i told them that the peeling is good for you and it won't kill you.. then i asked why they think i'm going to die from eating the whole apple. and this is the reason ALL the girls told me... drum roll please.. from SNOW WHITE! :) no joke. since snow white was poisoned by a whole red apple, they NEVER eat the peel.. that is why they want it sliced and peeled haha. they were serious when they were telling me!!! i laughed and told them not to worry.. my apple wasn't poisoned by the evil queen :) then one of the girls goes around the table whispering to the other girls and they start giggling. i finally got it out of them haha.. ayana was telling the girls that now someone has to kiss me since i ate the apple.. just like in snow white! haha.. these kids certainly do have personality.. and i LOVE it! :)

for dad...

2009-01-10T16:38:00.002+09:00

dad wanted me to update.. so this is for you!! :) this week was tiring because i wasn't use to getting up that early haha. it was nice to see my kids again.. i've missed them! they weren't used to being back in school either, because they sure were crazy this week! my class was in charge of chapel this week, so we had four days to practice a skit.. they did really well. it didn't seem like they were as nervous as the first time, which was good haha. we performed the story of joseph the dreamer. i taught them the story earlier in the school year, so this was a nice review for them.
thursday i taught the conversation english class.. always interesting conversations! :) it was fun to hear about their traditions for new years.. i found out that one popular dish in mainland japan is eggs with SUGAR on top... never heard of that before!! don't really want to try it either haha.

some things i'm looking forward to...
*there is a circus in town for about a month.. and it is a legit circus.. tent and all! it only comes every two years or so, so i'm glad it came when i am here! :) hopefully i'll see it in the next couple weeks.
*the 47th annual nago cherry blossom festival is the last weekend in january. i'm excited to see them in bloom.. definitely a picture moment! :) but then again.. what isn't a picture moment here?

happy new year!!

2009-01-01T14:47:00.009+09:00

to start off, i had a wonderful time at home. i already can't wait to see you again! :) and a few are starting to make plans to come visit.. you better be good and save your money! :)
i arrived back in okinawa on the 30th. i wanted to do something fun for new year's eve (and japanese style), so i looked up some events happening around the area and called lina (a high-schooler at new life) to come with me. we ended up going to american village.. they had "countdown street live" which had live performances from 4pm-12:15am. there are shops all around american village and jusco (giant target), so we had fun browsing while we waited for the countdown to get a little closer. i had a wonderful new year's eve dinner that consisted of mcdonald's :) a little different than my traditional seafood dinner with the family haha. after we watched a couple bands perform, lina and i decided to go on the ferris wheel! i've driven passed and seen that ferris wheel so many times.. it was about time i rode in it! it looks like the thing hardly moves, but it only takes about ten minutes to go completely around.the wind started blowing really hard at the top.. a few screams came from lina :) she also freaked out when i stood up and was walking around hahaa decoration for the new year i finally did it! :) it was an exciting momentin front of one of the shopping centers at american villagewhen we got back to the concert, i was soo excited that breakdancers were going to perform! the japanese are really talented in music and dancing.. and breakdancing is no exception!! (and for the anonymous friend.. this is a video) :)

throughout the night there were many famous bands from okinawa. this band has one of their songs on tv for a hotel.. i'm thinking that i've actually seen it before because the song sounded really familiar! i'll have to listen closer now when i watch japanese tv!aria asia was amazing!!! there was guitar, bass, drums, and she played the violin.. so beautiful!! and the guy also had an electric guitar.. such a great sound!here's a video of them performing...

the countdown is at zero!!! happy new year!the lights on the ferris wheel counted down to zero and then started flashingthen fireworks exploded over the ocean some of the other bands joined aria asia on stage and together they performed a traditional okinawan folk song called shima-uta. the video is too large to upload it here, which makes me sad because i wanted you to listen to it!!people from the audience got onstage and started dancing to celebrate.. so fun!i had to get her cd!we had a little adventure trying to get out of the parkade (mine was the only car left and all the exits were closed but one.. that was fun trying to figure out which one haha!). it was an unforgettable new year's eve celebration.. hello 2009!!

.christmas all over the world.

2008-12-20T07:15:00.008+09:00

i’m sitting in the airport waiting for my flight to tokyo, so i thought now would be the perfect time to talk about the christmas concert last night.. they did so well!! the kids and teachers had to get there about an hour early to organize ourselves backstage while the preschool through kindergarten performed their program. the kids were excited and very cute all dressed up!

the third graders got to wear their gorgeous kimonos since they were singing about japan

how adorable.

the fourth graders..

half of each class comes in on each side of the stage.. i stayed with my group one kids since i stayed with my group two kids backstage.. i’m making sure to spread the love :) my group one kids were monica, jed, karen, noa, momoco, and sam. they were soooo hilarious right before the music started and they had to walk on stage.. they started grabbing me saying how nervous they were. dad.. think of when we coached softball and there was that thunderstorm.. they were JUST like that :) once they went on stage, though, they were fine. luckily i was with the group one kids because while they were singing the first song, sam started coughing weird and then he ran off stage because he felt sick.. he ended up puking in the bathroom but he was *this close* to puking on stage.. praise the lord he didn’t!! the videos i took are too long to upload (but trust me.. they were adorable!), but i have some pictures!

the beginning song

jed with his water hands

speaking parts after their song

finale

the concert went really well and i’m very proud of our music teacher!! it was nice to see most of the parents after the concert.. even though i can’t communicate with most of them, i can at least smile and say hello! i’m going to miss my kids over the break!! but it will definitely be nice to go home and spend the holidays with my family and friends.. i miss them too!!

jingle bells, jingle bells

2008-12-19T12:58:00.010+09:00

it's been a crazy last two weeks with christmas movies, activities, and practice for the christmas program. it's okay though.. i can never get tired of the holiday spirit :)
some highlights...
alison and adrienne had a christmas party at their house for the ladies who work at new life. they were very cute hostesses :) in the picture is.. from the left after me.. adrienne, alison, lori (kindergarten teacher.. her daughter, carolyn, is in my class), ruth (music teacher), yukari (secretary at my campus), and mei-lee (high school teacher).the fourth graders are reading buddies with my kids. they surprised my class with invitations to come visit their class during their christmas party. my kids were so excited! it was adorable to watch them open their invitations and scream with delight. we stopped by to eat some snacks and watch elf with them.. one of my favorite christmas movies! lots of laughs and bonding time for the kiddies. they were a little squished.. but they loved it!the whole school has been practicing very hard on the christmas program. we went to the concert hall for them to have a dress rehearsal. they are so cute up there! each class if from a different place in the world.. my class is from the caribbean. it's going to take me all christmas break to get all these songs out of my head :)yesterday we spent the afternoon making gingerbread houses. i had fun going down the candy aisle at the grocery store finding all sorts of japanese candy. the kids had a lot of fun! the icing got EVERYWHERE. usually i mop on fridays, but yesterday was definitely a mopping day haha. they were really creative with their houses.leo working hard!santa making his house at the north pole :)can you find jed's marshmallow horse?ayana and her housenoa proudly showing her houseayana had the most extravagent house haha today was our christmas party and last day of school before the break. i got some very cute gifts from some of my kids.. bubble bath, a santa pen, a candle, two angel figurines, a japanese doll (sam said it looked like me haha), and some homemade christmas cards.. it was very sweet!! for the christmas party.. the parents brought a lot of snacks to share! the kids ended up taking ziplock bags FULL of candy.. it felt like halloween haha. we also did a gift exchange. they were supposed to bring gender-neutral gifts, but one girl brought a package of little girl underwear for her gift haha.. so i had to make sure a girl ended up with that one. i wrapped up little gifts for them too.. bracelets for the girls and airplanes for the boys. they were very excited when they opened them and said thank you.. such nice manners and such great kids!!
after they tore through the wrapping paperthey LOVE when i take out my camera hahai bought a christmas tree and snowman to decorate my desk. they CANNOT stop touching them.. it stresses me out haha!

other highlights...
*jed almost peeing his pants when dad put on a mask while we were talking on skype and jumped in front of the camera. epic.
*nene sitting with me at lunch and being extra talkative.. she is a character! :)
*teaching the conversation class.. soo many memories each time!!! hahaha.. they are hilarious.
*christmas shopping for three straight hours... and then two the next night.

tonight is the christmas concert.. soo excited!!

update!

2008-12-11T21:41:00.003+09:00

sorry i haven't updated since the tokyo trip... time is just flying by!!! it took me a while to get back into the routine of things.. probably because i just needed a good day of rest to re-energize myself :) one highlight from last week was going to elaina's (a third grader at new life) dance competition at the music district in okinawa. i went with her mom (junko) who is the secretary at the other campus. i just adore junko.. she is such a fun lady! lots of laughs and bonding time :) elaina did amazing.. i was so impressed with her dance crew! some of the groups have little first graders and they are performing these difficult hip-hop routines.. definitely in awe of all the performances.
this week has been good. tonight i taught laura's english class, and i'll be doing it again next week. i've missed them!! they are hilarious and i love talking with them during those couple hours. i might have some new years plans with some of them which will be fun!
this week (and last week! haha) the kids have been wild.. probably because christmas break is right around the corner and maybe the christmas activities excite them even more haha. at lunch, my girls are starting to put all their snacks in the middle of the table and share. the pile is getting bigger and bigger each day!other random happenings this week...
here are the seaweed balls i've become addicted to... now you can finally see what i've been talking about!!when i was going grocery shopping, i realized that the ocean was a lot greener, so of course i had to stop and take a picture at the look-out spot! the ocean is absolutely gorgeous!!! i'm counting down the days until christmas break.. i'm so excited to be in the states for nine days!! it will be nice to turn on my cell phone.. it's been sleeping for four months!! :) hopefully i don't have too many voicemails and texts haha.

tokyo disneyland and disneyland sea!!!

2008-12-03T18:53:00.013+09:00

when i first found out i was going to japan for a year, i was very excited for the chance to visit tokyo disneyland, so of course that was what i was most excited for during this trip! and even though it was quite different than california's (aka.. my home away from home), i was not disappointed.
we went in the evening both days (6pm the first day and 3pm the second) because the tickets were cheaper. they don't have park hopper tickets, and we wanted to experience both parks, so we got the starlight passport which lets you go later in the day for a discounted price. we took the subway to get there, which had its own little stop.. that made it easy!
this way!!walking to the entrance!

mickey's passport for japan.. just like us! :)
tokyo disneyland is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year
it was interesting to see that mainstreet was covered! i don't even want to imagine how packed it gets in there when it rains.

i was excited to see the walt and mickey statue :)

there wasn't a little moat around the small world ride for the boats! alison and i were *this close* to going on the ride just to see how the set-up was and what was up with the boats.. luckily adrienne talked us out of it :) sorry mom! EVERY ride had a short line! the longest ride was thunder mountain, and it was only 25 minutes or so! i had to take a picture for space mountain because this would NEVER happen in california! we went on thunder mountain (better than california's! the ride was longer and had more fun stuff), pirates (about the same... but i did enjoy the skull at the beginning speaking in japanese! and there is even a blue bayou!), haunted mansion (it was the nightmare before christmas theme and different in most parts when compared to california's.. the building itself was very different), autopia, and space mountain (different.. but i liked how the beginning didn't make me dizzy! and no picture, but still a flash!). alison and i wanted to go on peter pan, but they cut the line off early! that would NEVER happen in california! when we were in line for thunder mountain, some high schoolers that were in front of us kept staring and whispering. i think they were trying to muster the courage to talk to us, because they finally turned to us and started asking us questions in english. they were cute :) all the rides were entertaining because they were all in japanese... i loved it!

tokyo disneyland is full of crazy hats.. and i thought the ones in california were crazy! these even come with tails to wear haha. so many people were wearing these too! i didn't see anyone wearing regular mickey ears.. i guess i should have brought mine to wear! there are even clip on ears.. i couldn't resist and got a pair :)
what i was disappointed in was the amount of snackage.. haha, i'm so american! i was craving a caramel apple, but no such luck. there were churros.. but there was only one cart, and i forgot where it was. i did find popcorn, so i decided to get some in honor of dad getting it every time he goes to california's disneyland. well, i was in for a surprise! there was not one popcorn cart that had original, buttered popcorn. there was soda (i had to try it.. addicting!! haha), cappuccino, curry (smelled like my classroom on curry bento days haha), coconut, chocolate, strawberry, caramel, pepper (ick!), and honey. it started to become a game.. every time i saw a popcorn cart, i would try and smell what flavor it was before i looked at the sign haha. it was fun that there were so many flavors of popcorn, but there could have at least been other snacks as well! what about the pretzel mickeys and giant pickles?!
i was also disappointed in the fireworks show. california has spoiled us!! we were around main street, so we decided to catch the fireworks. it was probably two or three minutes long.. nothing spectacular. i did like the mickey ears fireworks though. i miss the fire, music, lazers, and tinkerbell from california's fireworks show! we had a good laugh about it :)

saturday was disney sea!! on our way to the monorail...
to get to disney sea, you have to take the monorail.. and pay! but it was okay.. look how cute their monorail is!!!
the entrance to disney sea

the different lands were called ports and were water themed.. this is mediterranean harbor. tower of terror is on the left!
very pretty!so as we're walking, all of a sudden we see all these people staring at this wall pointing and taking pictures... they were so excited! and since they are all speaking in japanese, we have no idea what's going on haha. so i'm staring (at the wall and the people's hand gestures haha) and realize that there is a hidden mickey! can you find it? hint.. you might need to click on the picture to enlarge it.

mysterious island themed port
the volcano is where the ride, journey to the center of the earth, was. we decided since the ride isn't in the california, we should ride it. it was a two hour wait!!! it was fun people watching though :) even though we couldn't eavesdrop on conversations haha. the ride was fun.. the beginning reminded me of the previews i saw for the movie.. you see giant mushrooms, crystals, weird creatures. then lightning struck (almost peed my pants haha), a giant monster tried to attack us, and then we blasted off (like the beginning of screamin') in the dark.. flew out of the volcano to see the park (like splash mountain), and then the ride stopped. i wanted to go fast some more! but i enjoyed the ride. i better have since i waited two hours for it! :) we then found out that EVERY ride had around a two hour wait.. so we ended up only riding two rides. the other ride was storm rider, which is like star tours, but you are flying into a storm instead. and you get wet. luckily i had my hood :)

american waterfront part of disney sea.. it was new york themed.. so cute!a cute store in the american waterfront themed port. i had to take a picture because it was scrooge mcduck's store.. i miss duck tales!!

tower of terror! it looks more creepy in tokyo! i think because the one in california looks more cartoonish. sadly, it was also almost a two hour wait and we still had shopping to do!donald duck.. i took the picture for you meema! :)in mediterranean harbor on the water, they had a show called candlelight reflections. we didn't get there early enough, so i couldn't really see the show.. i had to hold my camera up to take pictures haha. what i did see was really cute! christmas music played while boats filled with candles and characters dancing floated around in the water. then at the end mickey and minnie talked.. it was funny to hear them talk in japanese with the normal mickey and minnie sound.
disney sea was fun.. i wish we had more time to ride the rides! the only familiar ones were tower of terror and indiana jones. the submarine ride was still 20,000 leagues under the sea.
found out that shopping is completely different here! it fits with the japanese culture though.. the shops were full of sweat rags (i'm not meaning to make it sound gross, but it gets so hot here, so people carry around little towels to wipe their faces), bento boxes, cell phone accessories, key chains, stuffed animals, candy tins, and random accessories. i couldn't find any clothes! it was sad. and the pushing.. oh my.. too much pushing for my liking. if only i knew some other words in japanese haha.. just kidding ;)
we heard stories about the subway being packed like sardines.. but we never experienced that EXCEPT for when we had to get back on the subway from disneyland! haha.. it was quite a sight to see everyone crammed in with disneyland hats and carrying shopping bags. we were lucky though and got seats :)
it was a wonderful two days at both disneyland parks full of fun and laughter. it made me homesick for my true love.. california's disneyland :)
well.. i'm now officially done with my tokyo adventures! it was nice to have a break, but it's also exciting to be back because now it's time for christmas activities and watching christmas movies! i love the christmas season :)

hanging around tokyo

2008-12-02T17:44:00.012+09:00

let’s be honest.. i loved tokyo. it wasn’t exactly what i thought tokyo would be.. probably better than what i expected, which is always a nice surprise! tokyo is HUGE and comprised of many districts.. reminded me A LOT of new york, which was fine by me! :) the first couple nights we stayed at the marriott in ginza, which is a popular shopping district. it is compared to new york’s fifth avenue, which basically means window shopping :) i did buy some clothes at H&M though! it had just opened in october.. good timing for us! i was sad there weren’t a lot of accessories like in the states, but the clothes made up for it.. a lot of cute stuff to try on! while walking around, we realized that almost everyone was in dark suits (for the men) and dresses with boots/heels (for the women). i felt a tad underdressed!finding dinner in ginza was an adventure within itself. every restaurant we found only had japanese writing on the menus.. we weren’t used to that! after looking and looking, we finally ended up at quizno’s haha.
friday morning before we switched hotels, we went to this adorable little coffee shop called tully’s.. yummy breakfast bagels! AND cute holiday cups.. they always put me in the christmas spirit :) we then did a little more shopping by going to gap.. in the dressing rooms they give you these face masks so you don’t get makeup on the clothes.. good idea! i found out what is was AFTER i tried on my clothes though haha. as we were walking around the district killing time before we needed to get on the subway to our next hotel, we noticed this ginormous line outside a department store.. there was a sign that said christmas fair and it was the day after thanksgiving, so we assumed it was for that (the long line looked like the ones in the states). NOPE. we of course had to go peek and see what all the fuss was about and found out it was for a little window next to the department store. turns out it was for the lotto!!! it was crazy.. i seriously should have taken a picture of it.
after laughing from shock (i’m still in awe thinking about it now!), we picked up our luggage from the marriott and made our way to.. drum roll please.. the ritz-carlton. it was my first time staying at a ritz hotel and now i’m spoiled :) adrienne got a really good deal because her brother works for the hotel in the states, so we got to live in luxury for a couple days without spending all our money haha. the subway was literally right next to the hotel and there was a starbucks between the two.. good location :)the hotel is in the biggest building in tokyo the lobbywhen we first walked in the building, we realized we had to go all the way up to the 45th floor (my ears popped every time!!!) to get to the lobby to check-in! it definitely makes sense because the view was gorgeous!! we were enthusiastically greeted by two ladies after we checked in.. one was even wearing a kimono! we went up to the 50th floor to our room, and after they asked if our room temperature was okay and left, one of the managers (i think for rooms) came in to personally greet adrienne and her guest (alison had to wait so they didn’t know three people were staying in the room, and she was on her own little adventure trying to find our room haha). adrienne thinks that they thought she was an employee for the ritz in the states since she did get the employee discount.. it was funny to see all the attention she was getting from the staff! our room was lovely. the bathroom was HUGE (with a tv!), the view was breathtaking, the bed was heavenly, and the slippers and robe were delightful :) we had fun trying to get the three of us in a picture with the view in the background.. didn’t work out too well haha, so we ended up having to take individual pictures too. the background looks fake doesn’t it?!the bathroom! there was another little room (like the shower) for the toilet (oh japanese toilets.. so many buttons!), and even space for a huge tub, and a little flat screen tvbetween the two beds was a little control panel to control all the lights and shade on the window.. think of the movie, the holiday.. the shades were just like that!after having some fun seeing all the goodies in our hotel room, we explored the district to find some food for lunch. i was excited when we found out there was a hard rock café that was walking distance!! food was good.. we were more fascinated with the music videos though haha.. music on tv that is in english?? it’s been a while!! :) we even had the pleasure of watching aerosmith’s video for “janie’s got a gun” while we were eating.. watching the blood splatter was a perfect addition to our meal :)we browsed some shops on the way back to our hotel.. there are some random stores! i kind of already knew that though haha. one store i did love was the pet shop.. all the adorable little puppies looking out the window at you! i of course fell in love with one of the puppies (well i fell in love with all of them, but this one more than the others haha) and if i had $1600 i would have taken her home with me!! she was sleeping the first time i saw her, but the second time (and third haha.. i’m not obsessed! the restaurants we went to for lunch each day passed the pet shop) she was playing around and loved getting her picture taken! isn’t she a cutie!! i need to find out what kind of dog she is so i can get one when i come back to the states!after lunch on friday and saturday we went to tokyo disneyland and disneysea. that will be in another blog because i won’t have enough room for that too!
saturday for lunch we went to outback! yay for american restaurants! i had scrumptious lamp chops.. soo good! we saved room for dessert at… GOLDEN SPOON! yes.. we found a golden spoon in tokyo!! we were sooo excited!!! they probably thought we were crazy for taking our picture in front of the sign haha. they even have these cute little to-go bags to keep your frozen yogurt cold!when we came back to the hotel, we found out our room was still being cleaned.. let's just say we had some fun in the hallway while we waited :)sunday we were planning on getting up around 8 am to get ready, repack our suitcases (they were a mess!), and hang out at starbucks before we had to leave on the subway for the airport. alison was our little alarm clock because she never sleeps in, so adrienne thought we wouldn’t need an alarm clock. well, with the shades down and NO LIGHT coming in, it always felt like it was still super early when i would first wake up. it wasn’t! haha.. it was almost 10am! alison got up at 7:30 am and went back to sleep, but because of those shades, she slept longer than 8 haha. it wasn’t a problem though.. still got everything packed and went to starbucks to enjoy christmas music and debrief on our trip. realized all the christmas stuff and familiarity (like disneyland.. even though it wasn’t exactly like california’s) made me homesick. glad it’s almost christmas! :)
after a little confusion on the subway (we would finally have a problem on the subway when it is time to get to the airport haha) we made it to the airport (by the by.. japan doesn’t check IDs!! and you don’t have to take your shoes off through security!! it’s crazy) and had a relaxing flight home. i was excited to see mt fuji from the airplane because it was too far/cloudy to see it from the hotel and tokyo tower.goodbye mainland japan!tokyo was amazing and full of memories and laughs. a trip i will always remember :) okay.. one more post left about tokyo.. disneyland and disneysea!!

dynamic tokyo tour

2008-12-01T18:14:00.009+09:00

we found our hotel without any trouble (even using the subway.. with our luggage!) and didn’t stay up too late because we were tired and had to get up early for the tour on thanksgiving day. a bus picked us up at 8 am to take us to a bus depot to meet up with the real tour. only thirteen of us on the tour.. it was easy to fit in the monster bus! there was a family from texas, a lady from australia, another lady from canada, a couple on their honeymoon from england.. a very diverse bunch! the tour guide was hilarious.. he repeated himself every time we got back on the bus it seemed haha.. he was cute though. i could tell you all about his family and how old his mom is (96!) haha :)

our first stop was tokyo tower. it is about 40 ft taller than the eiffel tower. it used to be the tallest in tokyo, but now the tallest is the building we stayed at for our second hotel (trust me.. you’ll see pictures in the next blog). we went up to the observatory to see a 360 view of tokyo.. the elevator ride reminded me of something out of a sci-fi movie haha.. space music was playing and the colors changed while we were going up. the view was breathtaking.. it wasn’t the clearest day (it rained most of the day), but luckily we could still see far!

we can finally be tourists! we don't even try and blend in here :)

we loved the christmas decorations everywhere! this was outside the tower.

the next stop was a traditional japanese tea ceremony. we walked through the happo-en japanese gardens to get there and it was gorgeous! the tea ceremony was interesting.. the tea master prepared the tea for us very delicately and then served us all. our tour guide gave us directions of what to say in japanese to her, when to bow, how to drink the green tea.. it was fun!

outside the tea house.. isn't is gorgeous?!

i enjoyed seeing all the koi.. reminds me of home :)

after we left the tea house, we walked through the gardens some more and looked at the bonsai trees. they were so cute and small.. reminded me of the storybook ride at disneyland haha. i took my picture with the five hundred year old tree.. it doesn’t look that old!

lunch was amazing! we went to a cute little bbq restaurant where they cook in front of you. but FIRST the lady went around and put apron style bibs around each of us! haha.. i felt like a little kid. even though i did splatter some soy sauce on me so luckily i had it on! the lady cooked chicken, beef, vegetables, and potatoes on the little grill around our table for us. EVERYTHING was dipped in soy sauce.. i’m not complaining.. it was good!

walking back from lunch to the hotel we were parked by

next stop was a photo spot in front of the imperial palace. you can’t actually go on the grounds but once a year i think.. you can’t even see the palace from outside the gates no matter where you are (the tall buildings around the grounds don’t have windows on the top floors!!). we took a picture in front of the bridge to the entrance.. the tour guide told us it was a very popular picture spot, so we had to do it!

then came a river cruise. when we saw the boat coming, it was crammed with people.. probably packed with a hundred or so. then they all get off and we look around and realize it is only our little tour group getting on! so we had the whole boat for thirteen people. sadly, it was the boring part of the tour haha.. adrienne even took a little nap :)

yes.. a japanese beer company constructed their building to look like a glass of beer. i'm still trying to figure out what the building next to it is haha.

the final stop was visiting the oldest and most popular buddhist temple in tokyo. there were lots of shops between the entrance and actual temple, which were fun to browse.

you are supposed to move the smoke to where your health ailments are to help cure them.

they drink the water out of their hand and then spit it out.. gross. there are a lot of different things to do for good fortune and health... it was interesting!

the girls went to get hot chocolate (out of a vending machine!) and i had to take a picture (it's in okinawa too).. tommy lee jones for boss drinks haha. i love random celebrity endorsements :)

the tour guide talked the bus driver into dropping us off close to our hotel, which was nice! we were exhausted and crashed early haha. the tour day was fun and it was nice to see a lot of the popular tourist spots all in one day!

early thanksgiving

2008-11-30T20:33:00.005+09:00

since i was rushing after school on wednesday to do my last minute packing before leaving for the airport (by the by.. amazing trip.. i'll write all about it tomorrow on the blog) i didn't get to update everyone on my classroom thanksgiving. the kids had the option of dressing up instead of wearing their uniforms. they were so cute!the families came to have thanksgiving lunch with us. i had 27 people in my class!! it was a tight squeeze, but we all managed to fit around the tables! all the parents brought something to share for the potluck.. turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, vegetable salad, doughnuts (LOTS haha), potato salad, and other yummy food.

when we were finished eating, the kids presented drawings they made of what they were thankful for.after the parents left (and some students), we ended the day watching finding nemo and making origami. i picked up some books earlier, so they had fun making pianos, airplanes, and boxes. i made an elephant.. they were very proud of me :)
now it's time for the thanksgiving activities to come down and christmas ones to go up! i'm excited to start playing christmas music :)

.thankful.

2008-11-23T19:17:00.002+09:00

with thanksgiving in a few days, i thought it would be the perfect time to reflect on the blessings i've been fortunate to experience while on the island.. it would be pages upon pages long if i did the whole three and a half months i've been here, so i'll just reflect on this past week. i know i won't be able to think of them all, but here a few.. enjoy!

* new friends
* skype dates
* melty kiss
* thanksgiving activities in the classroom (hand turkeys, charlie brown thanksgiving movie, touring the "mayflower", reading the magic tree house thanksgiving, the kids fascinated by the culture of the pilgrims and wampanoag indians and excited to learn about it,...)
* finding christmas presents
* my kids singing a song about the ten commandments in chapel
* watching kung fu panda for the first time.. epic movie.
* collecting shells and coral at the beach
* every moment i spend with my first graders.. i don't know how i'm going to say goodbye to them in june
* being the honorary member of laura's conversation english class
* ayana wanting to sit with me at lunch so we could talk about tokyo disney the whole time
* surprise emails
* weather that feels amazing
* sam using the term, "phat", and the hilarious moment afterward when i explained what that word actually meant.. priceless.
* the excitement of going to tokyo in a few days
* jed stopped including me in his "i don't like girls" phase
* my kids all getting 100% on their spelling test and having an ice cream party
* listening to the disneyland sountrack while i looked at the map of tokyo disney.. yes, i'm obsessed... but we already knew that :)
* trying new food
* chocolate covered pretzel sticks
* love.

the humidity is going away!

2008-11-16T16:01:00.003+09:00

praise the lord.. there have actually been some cool days and nights.. VERY refreshing :) this week went by fast.. probably because there wasn't school on tuesday. the girls and i went to get our re-entry stamps on our day off so now we can officially leave the country AND come back. that was also the day it POURED allll day. it was nice to watch a movie and drink hot tea :) my kiddies were well behaved this week. they are going through a phase where they LOVE it when i eat lunch with them at their table.. all the girls try and cram around two tables to sit and talk with me haha.. so cute.
thursday laura asked if i could teach her english class again. i always love teaching that class.. they are such fun people. rika invited me to go to naha with her on saturday to dinner and dancing, so i was excited for that.. i love naha. it is the closest to the city-life i will get here on this island!
saturday morning after skype calls, i went to the beach.. it was finally sunny on a weekend and my tan was going away! :) the beach i normally go to is now closed for swimming.. too many dangerous jellyfish. but i still enjoyed catching some rays and walking up and down the beach looking at sea shells and coral. i can never get tired of these beaches :) and i found huge holes in the sand that crabs live in! i tried to take a picture, but i got too close every time and they would scurry back into their holes.then that night, rika picked me up and we went to naha to meet up with her friends. after dinner, we walked down the main street looking at shops before we went to the club. there must have been some new americans here because i heard them say, "look, an american!" when i walked by. brought back memories of when i first came here :) i was surprised at how much the clubs are here.. 2200 yen ($22)!!! i'm used to getting in for free haha! but you got unlimited drinks, so i guess it can pay for itself. however, when you are a girl, you normally get free drinks at clubs, so it was still expensive :) it was a lot of fun.. the djs were really good. met a lot of interesting people haha. there were mostly american guys there and japanese women. however, there was one japanese old man who was visiting from mainland. he sat at our table and just STARED at me. i would look and smile and he would give me a thumbs up haha. he only knew a few words in english. one being dance haha. so after saying no a few hundred times, i finally gave in and danced with him. hilarious! everyone was laughing on the dance floor. he also knew beatiful, and at the end of night, told me that he loved me haha. then he tried to kiss me!! full on grabbed my face and tried to kiss me on the lips!! oh goodness.. did he really think i would want to make-out with him?! it was also funny that all the guys i talked to assumed i was in the military. seriously?! they were surprised that i'm here teaching off base.. no connection to the military.. just randomly here teaching first grade. but the ladies and i had fun dancing all night.. we didn't get home to almost five in the morning! all that to say.. i've been very lazy today :) did some grocery shopping, laundry, and some skype calls. i'm going to bed early tonight! :)

busy (BUT FUN!) weekend...

2008-11-09T21:28:00.007+09:00

friday was my first parent/teacher conference experience.. not too bad! :) i enjoyed getting to meet all the parents and talk to the ones i normally see after school every day. there weren't too many concerns with some of my students, so it was a pretty upbeat conference day. and i'm happy to say the my students aren't scared of me haha. they tell their parents they have fun and they think i'm cute.. haha.. it makes my heart melt.

on saturday eight of us went up to northern okinawa to hike hiji falls. it was a long car ride full of crazy kids, beautiful scenery, a rain cloud following us (i swear it was!), and a lovely stop at a bento mart. once we finally arrived at hiji falls, we found out that it was closed due to construction. haha.. we traveled too far (2 hours!!!) to not do anything! there was another waterfall down the street that rocky knew about, so we decided to go there instead.. hiji falls will have to be another day! we parked.. ate our lunches in the van (made a little picnic bench out of the middle seat.. quite the lunch spot) and then got ready for the "hike." to get to this particular waterfall, you have to walk in the water the whole time.
we were prepared for a normal hike, so we didn't bring shoes for a water hike. let me tell you, my feet were so sore! some of those rocks were very sharp! and some were also very slippery.. quite a few people fell into the water ;) we didn't get to the main waterfall (you need shoes for that), but we did make it to a little one.

me and my hiking buddy at the waterfall spot
it was very beautiful walk.. looked like something out of jurassic park haha. AND while we were walking to the waterfall we could hear bursts of thunder in the distance.. we could just imagine trekking through the water and being caught in a downpour. luckily, that didn't happen :)

super snail!
and the dry award goes to... rocky, alison, and me! :)

today the girls and i met up with the gang again (minus rocky, add dennis' mom and some sophomore boys that are staying with lori for a couple days during a cultural exchange program) to go bowling on base. i haven't been bowling in a long time (besides playing on the wii haha).. i've missed it! i didn't do that bad either.. 144! the girls were hilarious with their bumper bowling :) we then went to the hundren yen store for the guys to buy some stuff.. they bought matching red hats that i guess japanese kids wear during pe. they were hilarious.
we ended the night at chili's.. YUM. i haven't been this stuffed in a long time haha.
dennis and izzie having fun with their lemons :)the "birthday boy"
tuesday there isn't school again, so i'm hoping this week will be an easy one. pray that it is! :)

it's already november!

2008-11-02T19:47:00.002+09:00

the months seem to be flying by!! the last week of october was a good one. class went well.. my kids led chapel on friday so they were very excited and we have been practicing for the last couple weeks. we did noah's ark and had animal masks, a cardboard ark, rain cloud and sun, a dove on a ruler, and some costumes to help tell the story. after the skit they recited a bible verse and then sang "rise and shine".. so cute :) i could tell they were nervous haha.. they were talking VERY fast haha. but heck.. they are in first grade.. i give them mad props for their performance. i'm very proud of them! :) friday was also a half day so teachers could finish grades. we had a yummy potluck (found a dish i'm going to make when i come home.. get ready!) and great fellowship. that night i went to the halloween carnival at the church i've been attending. it was nice to see some of my students there dressed in their adorable costumes. and it was nice eating some halloween candy and a snow cone.. kind of crazy at 8 o'clock at night (for the snow cone NOT the candy haha) but the temperature feels like it is still early afternoon, so it's okay :) got home and decided to watch a scary movie since it was halloween.. decided on ringu (the japanese original version of the ring). it was funny to actually understand things they did that are part of their culture. but it definitely wasn't a funny movie! scary just like the american version (but a little creepier) and on top of that.. there was a thunderstorm while watching it!!
saturday i hung out at one of the shopping malls browsing clothes and shoes. i ended up buying make-up instead haha. that night i hung out with laura and two of her friends that are also military wives. went to the amazing transit cafe and had great food and fun conversation.
sunday was church and tried a bakery for lunch.. YUMMY. bought some pitas too.. excited to have those for dinner soon! low-key evening.. watched a movie and cleaned the apartment.
i miss you all and hope you had a fun and safe halloween!!!

relaxing and fun weekend.. just what i needed

2008-10-26T19:31:00.005+09:00

school can be tiring.. i have hyper first graders every week!!! love them to death though.. but it's good to have a break to re-energize :) on saturday i talked to the fam on skype and then went to the beach to relax for a couple hours. in the late afternoon i went to laura's to get ready for the squadron party. we had pizza and cheese sticks (YUM) and watched some big love.. dad.. check it out.. you would get addicted like entourage addicted :) since laura and eric's place is on-base i got to use my hair straightener from home!!! oh how i've missed it. seriously.. i'm not even exaggerating haha. even though with this humidity, my hair doesn't stay super straight for long. oh well.. at least i got to see it staight for a little bit.. brought back some good memories haha :) we had fun getting ready for our model look.. we were deal or no deal girls and eric was howie. the bald caps were too expensive so laura used some panty hose.. hilarious!! the party was fun. it was at the single guys' two story apartment and it was an amazing place. their balcony alone is probably the size of my apartment times two or three haha. and it overlooked the ocean and city.. absolutely gorgeous.
haha.. his panty hose ripped during the party.. just pretend you can't see his hair :) i stayed at laura and eric's house and got to sleep in a soft bed like mine at home! i've missed my bed. we watched college football in the morning and stayed in our pjs until i went home at 4 haha.. i don't care.. it felt good to be lazy! :) they have a phone plan set up where they can call the states, so i surprised mom and dad by calling them.. it was funny to actually use a phone instead of my computer haha.
so yes.. it has been a very fun and relaxing weekend. did some laundry when i got home and caught up on some tv shows. i'm going to bed early tonight :)

this week in class...

2008-10-22T18:26:00.005+09:00

yesterday it rained in the morning and a beautiful rainbow was outside our classroom.. i let my kids go on the balcony to see it and they had fun talking to the fourth graders through their window and waving to the rest of our class being dropped off for school.. the little things amuse them :)

nene is VIP (she gets to be line leader and my helper for the week. she also makes a little poster to hang on the chalkboard for the week and the kids get to ask her questions one of the days) and she brought in a scrapbook that her and her mom made about the abcs. it is so adorable.. each letter has a theme and her mom wrote questions for her to answer or draw.. cutest idea EVER. but anyway.. i was touched that for the letter m, she had it for miss rachel! so i took a picture of it to show you all! :)

today i was getting things together for our chapel skit next week (we are doing noah's ark), and the kids got SO excited when i showed them the masks they'll be wearing! aren't they adorable?!

at lunch, jed took out a crunch bar and him and leo started singing the "chocolate song." apparently this song is played on the television when chocolate is advertised. it made me smile thinking about all the commercials i know the songs to at home.. no matter where you are in the world, tv jingles can still get stuck in your head :)

.karaoke.

2008-10-21T21:18:00.008+09:00

so i thought it was about time i told everyone about my first japanese karaoke experience! :) the group (part of laura's english class, laura, eric, eric's sister nancy, and me) started off at dinner.. authentic okinawan food that was amazing! they were nice enough to explain to us what every dish was.. plates just kept coming and coming! my favorite dishes were the sashimi (thin slices of raw fish), fresh tofu, pig kabobs, umibudo! (seaweed that looks like a cluster of mini grapes.. umi means something from the sea and budo means grapes). there were so many other foods that were good, but it is hard to describe them all and remember everything i ate.. but it was all good! :) we sat outside under a tin roof and it was so relaxing! and great company.. they are all so hilarious! we laughed over english slang and phrases and some japanese as well.

then we walked over to the karaoke room (it is part of the restaurant). in japan, groups have individual party rooms so you are just singing with the people you know, which is good haha. it was so much fun! toru really gets into karaoke! we sang some japanese songs, whitney houston, spice girls, sir mix-a-lot, maroon 5, elvis, beyonce, grease, green day, and so many more! we were literally singing for two and a half hours!! great memories and hilarious moments!!!

fall fest!

2008-10-18T15:20:00.004+09:00

today was the fall fest.. praise the lord it didn't rain! the kids paid for tickets to use at booths with games for prizes (bean bag toss, balloon darts, pull a sucker, cake walk, unwrap a gift musical chairs, and look for a lifesaver in a plate of whip cream), booths with activities (tattoos.. my booth!, stoning wall.. one kid sticks their head through a piece of plywood while other kids throw wet sponges at them haha, bouncy house, and "universal studios".. kids dress up, get their hair done and face painted for pictures), and to use for the food area (barbecued hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken on a stick called yakitori, tons of drinks and snacks, and snow cones).
i enjoyed seeing my kids and being able to talk to the kids from other classes as well. i got to talk to a few parents too which was nice.. they are all so sweet!
i also talked to the parent who wants me to help her with conversation english, so now i finally have a date and time that i'm going to be meeting with her... i'm excited!!!

the balloon darts was a favorite

the bouncy house!

ayana and nene stopped by my booth for some tattoos and hugs

english fun

2008-10-17T20:17:00.002+09:00

laura teaches a conversation english class every thursday night for a couple hours and i had the wonderful opportunity to teach it for her last night (her sister-in-law is visiting). i had so much fun! there were four women and two guys (one is a cute old man!). laura informed me beforehand that aigi (the older man) loves to joke around and all of us were laughing the whole entire night! he is hilarious. when we first sat down and i introduced myself, aigi said that he was nervous to talk now because i was so beautiful haha. all of us were joking with him keeping tabs of everytime he said beautiful to me.. "rachel.. you have such a beatiful voice" "rachel.. your little hands are so beautiful" hahaha.. we could not stop laughing at how fascinated he was! when toru, the other guy, was talking about his weekend, aigi told him, "enough about your weekend.. who has another question for rachel??" toru nicknamed me supermodel haha (i had to inform him that supermodels are a lot taller than me haha) and even introduced me like that to his wife after class when we were saying our goodbyes haha... they make me smile :)
during the whole two hours, i didn't even get to the book work that laura left me with. after everyone was introduced, the rest of the time was spent asking me questions. it was funny because i would say something "shocking" to them, and two people came in late, so they would ask the same questions and it was hilarious to see them have the same reaction. their mouths dropped when i told them that i recently turned twenty two. one lady was funny.. her voice got quiet and she goes, "my youngest daughter is older than you." i informed her that her daughter was my brother's age, and it made her feel better haha. they literally gasped when i told them that it took me fifteen hours to drive from oregon to california haha. it makes sense because laura was telling me that when she went on a class fieldtrip that took a forty minute car ride to get there, that is seen as a LONG distance and they actually stopped to get out and stretch, get food, etc.. their forty minute car ride is equivalent to me going to seattle or something.
they were very interested in hearing all about oregon and california. a couple of them have actually traveled to both states, so that was fun to reminisce. they LOVED when i told them all the celebrities i've seen in california. their favorite was meg ryan.. a lot of gasps and hollers. aigi let us know that he named his cat after meg ryan :) we of course also talked about disneyland and tokyo-disney :) we all had a lot of things in common!
they were also very amused that i don't live on the base and shop at japanese grocery stores. they were laughing when i told them i just buy stuff that looks and smells good.. sometimes i have no idea what it is haha.
i also found it very interesting that when they were asking questions, a couple of them asked me about my ancestry.. when i told them that my mom's side is swedish they were all like, "yes yes.. i knew it! i knew you had european in you!"
it was fun getting to know them and they were all so sweet and such great company. the group is going to dinner and a karaoke bar tomorrow with laura, eric, and eric's sister, and they really wanted me to come so i'm excited to hang out with them again! especially at a karaoke bar!!! i'll take pictures and probably some videos too :)

paper airplanes

2008-10-14T19:28:00.004+09:00

so today was the paper airplane contest. the kids had a blast!! before we began, the students had to share with the class what their airplane name and who the pilot was... entertaining fo sho. jed had the winning airplane out of the kids. he actually even beat me a few times! he would get so excited when his plane flew longer than miss rachel's! and then he would get a funny grumpy face when i beat him haha. after the competition, i had the kids write about their plane and how it did in the contest.. so cute to read! sometimes they say the funniest things.. i'll have to post some later :)

the first graders standing next to their planes after they threw them