Lalee's Recycling project

Lalee's class always has a bunch of projects to do. This months project was to create something useable out of things which would just be thrown away. After much debate where we came up with all sorts of ideas (for some reason most of them using toliet paper rolls?) we stumbled on the idea of a jean quilt. I've made several of these in the past and Lalee has always loved them. So... that's what we decided on... and promptly forgot about until the night before it was due.

Picture one is of Lalee sorting through the clothes that no longer fit or have stains, rips or otherwise make them unwearable. Anything that was still in good condition she put in the 'thrift store' pile, after all we were only supposed to use things which are no longer usable. Pic. 2, cutting it all up, Lalee's idea of squares / rectangles varied greatly from my ideas! But we compromised. Laying the quilt out and then sewing. I didn't get a picture of us tying it. All-in-all, the project took about 6 hours, I have no idea what grade she got but I do know she was happy with it.

Culture moment:: Fish Flags

Alex and Becca standing on a bridge, notice the fish flags in the background over the river.

In Japan, the carp (or Koi as it is known is Japanese) is a symbol of perseverance in the face of adversity. It is the symbol of strength and determination to overcome obstacles and attain high goals. Thus, the fish flag is symbolic in a family and on Children’s Day in Japan, these flags are flown in all homes. Black fish flags are for fathers, orange/red for mothers, blue/white for boys and red/pink for girls. If possible, the flags are flown over water to represent the strength children (but especially boys) will have as they 'swim upstream' against the challenges of life.

Until recently, Tango no Sekku was known as Boys' Day while Girls' Day (Hunamatsuri) was celebrated on March 3. In 1948, the government decreed this day to be a national holiday to celebrate the happiness of all children and to express gratitude toward mothers. It was renamed Kodomo no Hi. During this period, Japanese companies are closed for a week and people use this occasion to travel either in Japan or overseas.

We've loved seeing these flags decorating most of the city over the past month. They are bright and cheerful. This coming weekend we are planning on going to the Children's Day festival. We're looking forward to it :)

Braces!

After what felt like numerous visits to the dental clinic and experiencing everything from x-rays, teeth being pulled, spacers, and the usual torture they put kids through before braces, it was finally the day! Lalee was pretty nervous for the past week or so, she was certain it was going to super hurt. The whole process took about 2 hours, she didn't whimper once.

"It didn't really hurt mom, my mouth is just kind of tight and sore." I tried and tried to get her to get orange, purple, black and blue just 'cause it doesn't really match but she would have none of it. She picked purple and pink. She's learning to talk again and drooling, yep- she's doing it. Funny how having something permanently in your mouth changes the way you talk! She's been kind of embarrassed to show her friends, not sure why 'cause she's pretty excited about it. So funny. She looks cute and in 2 years or so she will no longer be sporting her mom's gappy front teeth and her top teeth will not overlap the bottom teeth by so much.

Bios on the Hill

We ended our spring break week by going to 'Bios on the Hill'. A rainforsty place that has all kinds of activities. We took Kendal and Griffin with us, some of the kids friends who we are lucky to have as neighbors. There were lots of pathways that wound around with orchids and trumpet vines everywhere, with 100s of different shades of green.

We took a river boat ride. It was extrememly amusing with everyone on the boat laughing for most of the 30 minutes, everyone except us as we weren't exactly sure what was being said ;) But we made up our own stories while we were going along.


There were tons of activities and things for the kids to do. Becca hated walking the goats as they pulled her everywhere, she had NO control over them. One even head-butted her. She wasn't pleased. We were laughing to hard to get a picture of that but here's one of Lalee and a goat.

Alex loved playing with some of the Japanese toys. And Lalee thought it was fun to play with the Sanshi, the Japanese guitar like instruments.



We all played on the stilts, Pete asked me not to post the pictures of his attempts, something about him looking silly ;) I was the only one who was able to walk a little on them.

The girls loved playing in the water with the Japanese kids and the boys spent hours climbing all over the massive tree trunk playgrounds.

The huge swings were a favorite, especially for Becca.

It was a lot of fun, someplace we will likely go back to again and again.

Neighborhood Potluck

Spring break was great. We explored some of the outer islands we could drive to, had oddles of beach time and played with a lot of new friends. On Friday we finally got around to throwing a neighborhood potluck.

We invited all of the 12 families in our commons area/parking lot. All the neighbors have 3-5 kids so we were expecting between 50-70 people. We had almost all the kids in the neighborhood come, there were 7 adults (including Pete and myself). Regardless, it was fun to chat

and the kids had a great time playing games and then later night games.

Plus, we had enough food left over I haven't had to cook for the past 7 meals :)

Spring Break, here we come!

We began spring break with two different extremes, okay- maybe extremes is a strong word, but let me tell you- it was nice and warm (80s) outside today with decent amount of humidity and the ice-skating rink we went to was very cold (see your breath and nose turn pink cold). I stopped by ITT travel to see if there were any good tours going on this next week, there weren't any affordable ones but they did have discount tickets to the ice skating rink. Pete and I were both really surprised at how quickly Becca took to ice skating. She LOVED it. Lalee and Alex had a great time too.

Afterward we went to one of the parks and watched fireworks. The fireworks here go on for a long time (like an hour or more) and they have a story that goes with it and lots of music. So during the dramatic parts of the story lots of crazy loud, bright fireworks. During the slow parts there are slow drizzling white fireworks. Pretty cool. We didn't stay for the whole thing because we were so tired. All-in-all, it was a great way to start our week long spring break. Wonder what kind of other adventures we will have.