Sad Summer

Summer has become kind of a sad time for our family over the past three years. In the military, May through September is known as PCS season. Permanent Change of Station--that's what it stands for. That means that every summer, a lot of friends move away or we move away. When we moved from Minnesota, we were very sad to leave our great friends there. But we were excited to go to FL as well. A year after that, we moved again from FL to Japan. Again, had to say good bye to so many friends, although this time it was easier since most of us were moving to different places at the same time.

Now, we are the watchers--the ones that stay behind in Misawa and see people come and go. Our great friends, the Frenches, are leaving in two weeks. We are excited for their new adventure and know that they are very ready to go to a new place as well. But we are still very sad to see them leave. And we wish them luck moving into the "real world".

Julie (left), Elaine (with the baby) and Ginger (top right) are moving shortly.

We are very lucky to have a huge group of friends here. All in the same boat as us--far away from home. Here are some pictures of just a few of our friends here.

We have at least another year with most of them. So no sad thoughts just yet.

Alex Graduates From Preschool

What? Alex is still in preschool? But he looks like he is six years old!

Yes, the kid is very tall and big...but believe me, in his head and heart, he is still four. Well, almost five. And that means he is starting kindergarten this fall!!! September 7th, to be exact.

We had really fun and educational last four months of preschool. Ms. Yuri and Ms. Noriko, both Japanese natives, did a fantastic job with a class of 10 or so boys!

I still don't know their secret, but somehow they managed to discipline without yelling and make it so all the boys loved to come to school. They also somehow encouraged Alex to do crafts--his very not favorite thing:) Every time Alex brought home a picture or project, he always said, "Mom, this is specially for YOU". Every time. It was very cute.

Oh, I have to share this. For a while, Alex would start saying different bathroom words combined with the word "head", you know, how kids do that? Well, he told me that certain boys at school say that all the time and they all think it's funny. I had to tell Ms.Yuri about that and ask her to monitor boys' language. She was very surprised to hear that some of those words were bad. Then she had me dictate some more words that she should watch out for when the boys talk, such as "stupid". Ms. Yuri's English is great, by the way. It's just that these dang slang words get you sometime (speaking from experience(s)).

Ms. Yuri and Alex.

And you know what we gave them as end of school year gifts? Two boxes of cake mixes of different flavors and peanut butter cookies:) We have told you before, Japanese, love those cakes. We get them for super cheap--around $1 a box. They have to pay over $7 off base! Alex thought it was a great idea.

Silly faces with Ms. Noriko

Good bye preschool!!!

You might wonder why Alex is wearing a patch over his glasses. He is doing it for four hours a day to strengthen the muscles in his weaker eye, making it work harder by covering the stronger eye. He has to do lots of exercises such as stringing beads and differents charts to train his eye to focus from looking far away and close up.

I Am Allowed To Brag

June 17th was the last day of school for Cummings Elementary, as well as other Dept. of Defense Pacific schools. This school year has gone by very quickly for me. Katya finished first grade. I must say that she is a very low maintenance student so far. I only had to go to her parent-teacher conference once and only heard great things about her. I realized that I need to be more involved in her learning process when one day she came home and told me all about this special reading theater they are doing with "Make Way for Ducklings" book and about how she is making a diorama. I guess, Katya was taking part in the Enrichment program for 1st graders in their school, which is equivalent to the Talented and Gifted program in older classes. I didn't even remember when her teacher recommended her for that.

I also didn't realize how great of a reader Katya was compared to most of her classmates until Ms. Smith emailed me and invited me to come to the awards ceremony where Katya was getting a Remarkable Reader Award:) I was so proud of my little girl! The best part is that she is being very humble about all of her achievements. And that makes me want to praise her even more.

On the last Tuesday of the school year, her Enrichment teacher, Ms. Winstead arranged for all her Talented and Gifted Program students show what they've been working on all year. Some kids wrote books, others created complicated devices or wrote research papers. Katya's group presented theatrical reading, kites that they built from plastic bags and dioramas.

Molodets', Katya. I hope 2nd Grade will be as much fun as this year, especially because Katya gets to keep her teacher and most of her classmates!!!

This is Katya and Ms.Smith (can you tell that Ms.Smith is over 50 years old?!)

But that will be next year....For now we are enjoying "not so planned" days of summer. Two more months to go:)

The Many Faces of Morioka

We went to Morioka on Saturday (I went with the two older kids because Lyana stayed home with a sick and very cranky Mark).   We met a lot of funny and crazy faces there.  Here are few for your enjoyment.

First stop, the zoo.  We spent most of our time there, and of course that’s where most of the fun faces were.

Just inside the entrance we met a couple crazy monkeys. 

   

Not Yellowstone, but it will do just fine.

Watch out for the martens.

 

Mother and baby, I think. 

  

Should have seen this guy’s purple tongue.  Yikes!

Found another monkey in a cage.

Smiling as always.

Ugliest face of the day.  (Remember, the captions are above the pictures to which they refer.)

Couldn’t wait for ice cream.  (I mean it, they couldn’t wait.)

Mmmmm.

   

I wasn’t sure what the ostrich was trying to do. He kept snapping at the giraffe.

Prairie Dog.

Rock.

 

After the zoo, visited the festival at a local shrine where horses were decorated and paraded through town to commemorate the end of the rice planting season.

I don’t know what the guy in black is thinking.  And I don’t know what the costumes represent (if you know, please tell me).

After the horses, we went to the castle ruins park where we met this guy.

Couldn’t wait to get wet.  Again, they really couldn’t wait.  Thank goodness for packing extra clothes.

A very wet and happy boy.

At the end of the day, two very satisfied children.

Funny Japanese

I love Japan. This is what I have encountered trying to research a route for our upcoming day trips to the very Northern tip of the Honshu Island.


The sulfur smell which gathers at one of the Japanese 3 oversoul mountains to stand next to Koyama, Hieizan NULL and the scenery to have made desolateness are difference space surely.The Uso profit lake which did an emerald green is creating the more mysterious view in addition to the view around.Each four spas which are in the Osore-zan precincts has effect and the call person can be freely bathed.The direct voice of flagrant "ITAKO" is done every year on July 20-24th.There is a lodging in temple, it eats a meal of the purifying oneself and can stay.


Wow...What was that again? "Desolateness"....."flagrant"...I don't think I know those words. But after all, "it eats a meal of the purifying oneself"...
Information is great. But translation? We just have to chuckle. I know they try but English is so hard for them, just like Japanese for us.

My new phrase in Japanese that I memorized (besides the other five I already know) is "Wakari mashta"--"I understand".
Happy Sunday!

E is for Earthquake

When Alex got home from preschool the other day I asked him what he learned and he said, “E is for earthquake.” When I was a kid, E was for egg or elephant. I guess “earthquake” is more directly applicable to life than other E words that he could have learned, like “earwax” or “eellogofusciouhipoppokunurious.” Anyway, this got me thinking about some of the unique things that I have learned during the last 9 months I’ve lived in Japan. So here’s a few for you to think about too:

Driving less than 60 kilometers per hour for any length of time is very painful. For those of you living in Burma, Liberia or the United States (according to Wikipedia, the only three countries in the world who have not officially adopted the International System of Units, aka metric system), 60 km/hr = 36 mph. A bit slow when you’re used to 75mph freeways in Montana (or the no speed limit thing that I got to experience during its short run in the mid to late 90s).

Speaking of traveling, I’ve learned that in order to not go crazy, you have to be willing to travel. Not to mention it takes us an extra 10 minutes just to get from our house to off-base (because we live in the less inhabited, yet clearly superior, far northern reaches of the base, known to others as North Base, but for those of us who dare to live on the edge (of the base), we humbly refer to our little enclave as “paraíso del norte.”) (I like to use parentheses.) (I also like to say parentheses. You should try it, too.)

1 hour seems to be the magic number. Most of the fun places we like to visit (besides the restaurants, which I’ll get to in a second) are about an hour away. So if the speed limit is 50-60km/hr off-base, then based on how I drive, it’s a distance of 80-90 km (or for the Liberians, 48-54 miles).

It’s fun to eat at the Indian restaurant. Who would have supposed that there would be Indian in Misawa, Japan. (I’ve been to two Indian restaurants here already). We have become regular customers at the newest Indian restaurant (we’ve been 3 times already) because we are hooked on Naan (oven-baked flatbread). The other day, Lyana and I went on a date to a random Japanese restaurant, which didn’t feed us enough, so we went across the street just to get some Naan to-go. The owner made us sit and eat soup (no extra charge) while we waited for the Naan. Lyana won’t touch the soup, so I get to eat twice as much (bonus for me). She likes to eat the Tangoori chicken. I like Mutton curry with extra Mutton.

 

Two final things I’ve learned in Japan:

Anyone can do sumo wrestling, even my kids.

And boys can wear kimonos too.