school and start of spring break

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

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

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

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

pineapple park and the aquarium!

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!

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 ruinssuch 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!