Skype!

Hey! I know its been a while, I've been busy! Here's some pictures from this last week. We took it easy for school, and just had a family Thanksgiving dinner. We've been working with Skype and I've had a few conversations with brothers and sisters stateside.

What are we doing?

Oh. Look who joined us for dinner? They all called and we were able to have a conference call. It was Thanksgiving in Japan when they called, but by the time we hung up it was Thanksgiving in Japan, Texas, and Oregon.

Guess what?

Yep, there's a birthday in the house! Guess who's it is?......




Happy Birthday Dad! You're the best! If there is one person who I could be just like, it would be you!

We're all pretty busy with school and chapel sort of stuff. I have youth group on Monday nights, which is fun.

We also have piano lessons during the afternoon

It has been raining a lot these last few days. I was looking out my window, watching the dark clouds build. I said, "if you're going to snow, then snow! If not, then warm up into the 90s!" A couple of minutes later it started to snow. It has been snowing most of today, making it a very cold run!

The ocean was a bit agitated by all of the rain and whatnot

I don't know...I just saw it and so I decided to put it on!

Science!

I've been busy with school. The other day I ran down to the farmers pond to get some pond water for experiments in the future. I let them sit over the weekend and then on Monday went to work. I had four jars, one had egg, another had soil, another hay, and the last had rice.

And then I actually did the experiment, with siblings wanting to take a look in the microscope. They all were sure they saw "something," but it was always different from what the other saw. lol

Stacia even said she saw a princess!


I was cleaning up the mess in the garage...because the jars smelled bad. I had the garage door opened. I was heading inside when I noticed a pair of feet standing on the other side of the door. I could tell by the make of the boots that it was Japanese. I bent down, the same the Japanese gentleman did. We both stared at each other from under the garage door. "Uh, konichiwa." I say, trying to make it seem like total strangers sticking their heads under my garage door was normal. He started speaking...I couldn't understand him, but nodded me head in whole-hearted agreement. He said, "domo" and then walked off. I have no idea what that was about! Mrs. Kim, any insights?

I'll update tomorrow!!!!

Running

Alright...hmmm I did school this week. I'm doing "fantastic," if you ask me! lol

Life can start to feel normal again...we're not traveling anywhere, we have Internet at the house, we have a church, and a house. I think I can finally say the Summer of '09 is over! It was long and hard...I think I learned a lot and am a better person now.

The farmers continue to harvest their crops. They go through and take the best stuff and then leave the rest to decompose and fertilize. That's great for their fields, but when the wind picks up it smells awful! I was out running and nearly threw up, it smelled so bad!

On the topic of running, I finally found a running route that the chances of dying aren't 50-50. I was used to in Texas just being able to run in whichever direction I liked and would have thousands of trails ect. to follow. It's not the case here. You have to run about 1 mile west to get to Oriosi and a safe route. And a 1/4 mile East till you reach the Shinto Shrine. You can either follow the route up passed the Shrine, but it is very scary and dangerous. If ever any of y'all visit, I'll show it to you. There are no shoulders on the farm roads, so you have to run on the road until you can find a side-walk. It's exciting to me, it's an adventure!

I'm Back!

Alright...we're in the house, we have Internet, we are busy, and life is starting to have a bit of routine. The farmers have been real busy harvesting their second harvest of rice. They haven't had much luck with drying it though, it keeps raining.

Rice set out to dry

Arielle, Nolan, and I started piano lessons this week. I'm excited to try and learn it, and yes it is very manly! lol

Last week we started our Japanese lessons. We have a Japanese tutor, all is going well. She showed us the Hiragana alphabet (is it an alphabet, Mrs. Kim?). She showed us how to write our names in Katagana.

On Saturday night Arielle, Nolan, and I went to base to help out with an out reach. We set up booths with games, candy, hot apple cider, and hot-dogs, for the American and Japanese tricker-treaters. I didn't know the Japanese celebrated Halloween, but they probably just do it because they like to try American food. It was a lot of fun. I had a little bit of trouble communicating to the Japanese that we were handing out hot dogs. So I tried, "Dozo hot-dogo!" Eventually they figured it out!

Mom and I went to Homac (a Japanese Lowes). Outside was some Christmas stuff. The Japanese don't do Christmas, but are marketing towards Americans. I looked around, but all I saw was snowmen and Santa Clause, no Baby Jesus. I'll keep looking. I find it sad that those in America have marketed Christmas to the point that the main point is no longer the main point.

Oh, it also snowed yesterday. All of it melted, but it was exciting!