Halloween

Halloween this year was really low-key. We weren't sure if it was going to be canceled because of a Typhoon but it ended up being a beautifully balmy 80 degrees that night and the kids really enjoyed it. As you can see, Alex was Luigi (I'm sure I spelled that wrong and that Pete will come and leave a comment on how to actually spell that ;) Lalee was a butterfly, Zach (our close family friend) was a vampire and Becca was a princess / fairy.
We went trick or treating with some of the neighbors. Alex and Evan were absolutely thrilled when they realized Evan was Mario. Cool. There were a ton of kids out that night as they let many of the Japanese on base to trick or treat as well. It was rather crazy- I'll post a picture of the crowded streets when I get the right camera. The kids had fun and fortunately, they didn't end up with too much candy this year! Mom was happy.

Pics from my work

I took these pictures of my counseling office and classroom at the beginning of the school year. Of course the classroom has changed a bit since then ;) Just another snapshot from our life here at Okinawa.

Looking into my office from the hall

My desk

Moving around the room...



The kids all painted me pictures that hang that across from my desk. I love looking at them throughout the day.

Lalee and I painted this together so I would have something to match the other picture (below). We added Dr. Seuss's quote: You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes. You can point yourself in any direction you choose. You are on your own, you know what you know. You are the guy who will decide where you go.

And just a couple of pictures from my classroom:

I have a map wall- for this unit a string lead from all the student's pictures to their favorite place in the world. Right now we are doing "snap-shots" of different ancient civilizations as we talk about them. It changes as periodically.

This is my graffiti will. Each unit the students have to find something (picture, new sarticle, comic, etc) that ties into what we are talking about in class and bring it in a present it. Trying to enhance that continual outside of the classroom learning thing. It always ends up looking different each unit and it's fun to see what the students find :)

If you all wanna see more, meander over here and I'll take you on a tour :)

Typhons . . .

It's been a long time since I posted anything. Sorry about that. I have been taking pictures, I just haven't found the time to post! We have had several Typhoons this past month. Fortunately none of them actually hit our part of the island. We had a smaller Category 1 hit the north part of the island a couple of weeks ago which caused damage. Today we've had Typhoon Chaba in the area. It was on course to come right our way but fortunately this Typhoon, which registered at a Category 4 this morning, changed courses. Although it is was 115 miles away when the video below was taken, you can still see the strength of the winds. This Video was taken during TCCOR 1. I wish I would have gotten the camera out at the more intense times (TCCOR 1C or TCCOR 1 E). Anyway. You don't get to see anything amazing- it's just the wind and the rain. But for those of you who have never experienced a typhoon, a small sample ;)


The noise you are hearing is the wind...

Lalee and her camera

This is a video of Lalee trying to show everyone where she lives.

Becca's Birthday

Becca's birthday was on the last Monday before school started this year. Ms. Brenda made her cupcakes that she shared with all the neighbor kids and then mom and Lalee took her out for a surprise- pedicures!

This is Lalee before our pedicures trying to decide what she wanted her toes to look like. There are 100s and 100s of pictures / styles to choose from.

We all settled down for a little bit of pampering.
This is Becca after deciding she wanted rainbows and smiley faces :)

After 40 minutes of foot massage and care came the drying lamps.

Of course we had dinner, cake and ice cream and opened presents!

Randomness

As I was cleaning off memory cards I ran across a lot of fun pictures and videos from this past year that I haven't done anything with. I decided I'd try to post a couple random memories throughout the next week or two to share with you all. There are lots so I'm not sure how many (or how few if I don't have time) I'll post. It'll likely be just a mosh-posh of memories but maybe you'll smile. WARNING: the videos were created by the kids and they may induce confusion, dizziness. Also, parents can not be judged harshly for content of the video taken without their knowledge! Enjoy...
There are often little 'flee market' type places on the side of the road, especially up north where it's almost like miniature outdoor pawn shops. You find the most interesting things. Notice the larger-than-Pete sized monster in the background, the large handmade pots to the side, flowers, etc. It's always amusing to see what you can find and even more amusing coming up with reasons why the kids can not bring home a 7 foot monster!
This is Lalee on one of our fruit and veggie shopping trips. Because produce costs so much on base we typically shop for it off base at little mom-and-pop lean to like produce stands.
A picture of a boat in a pond. I shared it because you can see a lot of the local vegetation and the colors and style of the boat are very common things to see in ponds.

Meandering up North

After weeks of rainy weekends we finally had a beautiful Saturday! Not exactly knowing where we were headed, we got our swim suits on, loaded up on snacks and set off on some of the more narrow and curvy back roads of the east side of the island. As we drove further up into the not-very-populated Nago area we began to see some of the lingering destruction from the recent Typhoon which hit the top part of the island with Kadena only feeling the side effects. Seeing the Typhoons aftermath up north (even 2 weeks later) made us appreciate the protection of our concrete homes even more!Eventually (read 3 hours and about a dozen scuffles between the kids later) we found ourselves at Hedo point, the very top most north area of the island. Here the tempestuous waves of the Pacific Ocean and East China Sea dash against its cliffs, throwing spray high into the air (Should have taken a picture of the spraying waves ;)
During the campaign for reversion to Japan, people used to light bonfires at this cape. Lalee is standing beside marker commemorating the locals struggle to have Okinawa returned to Japan after being ruled for 27 years by America following WWII.

Of course we found ourselves at the beach. Becca and I took an afternoon nap floating on the lounge chair while Lalee and Alex snorkeled. Ahhh.... welcome back sunshine. Please stay awhile!

P.S. YES the water really truly is that clear and beautiful!