Keeping up with Us: April 2006

Friday, April 14, 2006

Happy Birthday Jerry

This is rather old, but since I figured out how to upload videos, here is a short video clip in the rough of Jerry's 14th birthday!

Happy Birthday Jerry

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Subscribe to new posts

I just set up a new feature so you can subscribe by email, and whenever there is new content, you'll get an email to inform you. Enjoy!!

I got this overwhelming urge to do some crochet, so I made this cute little bag for myself, it goes well with my 'hippie jeans'. Actually, it was a great project cause when I had to sit for 2 hours at Janina's graduation ceremony from elementary school, in a freezing cold auditorium, I hid myself in the back and worked on the bag, yeah! Finished it in about 3 days. Thank God for handy projects to do during boring ceremonies.

The big Lizard

Monday, April 10, 2006

little julia and the big lizard

That was one big lizard Julia found in the garden, and she fell in love with it, determined to keep it in a little box, until, that is, the horrid thing bit her! Scared the crap out of her and now she hates lizards. She almost sicced Jacq on the poor thing, but I managed to convince her that the lizard was just as scared as she was, and we held Jacq back until the lizzy scampered off to safety.

Bicycles and more bicycles

Art has gotten into Yahoo Auctions Japan, and has done fairly well. He sold his used soccer shoes for over 4,000 yen (maybe $35).

Anyway, I told him I'd be interested in a nice mountain bike so I could get out biking around our area, which is in the hills and I haven't been biking for about 5 years. So, he gets online and starts looking around, and finds a nice one starting for 5,000 yen, and he bids on it. It so happens that if you win that bike, you can get a second one just like it for the same price.

OK, so the auction is coming to its end and it looks like Art is going to lose it, so he starts bidding on another bicycle set, and it looks like that one is going to end too and he's losing it, so he bids on a single bike at another auction. It's late now, so he goes to bed.

The next day is White Day, a Japanese version of Valentine's Day for guys to give gifts to girls (that's a whole story in itself). I had to work, but we decided to meet out for lunch. During lunch Art asks me if I want to hear the bad news or the good news. I'm wondering whatever is he talking about?? So, I say the bad news, but he started with the good news--

Honey, I won the bike!
That's great! How much was it?
Well, ummm, let me explain..
Honey, how much was it??
Well, actually, I won 5 bikes.
What!? How did that happen--what are we going to do with 5 BIKES!!

And he told me the story above about how he thought he was losing so he wanted to be safe, and well, it was a bit of overkill.

I just could NOT believe it!!

Fortunately they all came from the same company, and he was able to cancel two of them. We gave one to Janina for a present, I kept one, and the last one we are trying to sell to someone else (any takers!?)

Mommy and Julia

Here I am with Julia, on my way to work. Take note of the pink jacket, you'll see it again but not on me.

Police in Hashimoto

We actually get a lot of excitement in our little town, apart from death threats at the school, fires in the neighborhood, and a few other thrilling stories (someday I gotta tell you about the local affair gone bad which resulted inlocal housewife nudie-cuties posted to everyone's mailboxes!), we had a police show-down at the shop across from the local family restaurant where my friend and I were enjoying an afternoon of quiet chat and tea. I had my camera on me, so ran out to get a few pictures, but I missed the main arrest. We still don't know what happened, except that it required about 50 policemen, maybe they were just bored and wanted in on whatever action was going on!

Karaoke

I absolutely hate karaoke, I don't find it fun nor do I find it entertaining, which is unfortunate because I live in the frikkin' LAND OF KARAOKE! It was invented here, it's a major source of entertainment, and what's worse, my kids LOVE it!! So, for Janina's congratulations for making it through 6 years of elementary school party, I dropped her and a few friends off at the local karaoke place for a few hours, and then took myself off to the nearby family restaurant with my friend for a few hours of chat--actually, that's a story in itself too.

Graduation from 6th Grade

Japan absolutely loves ceremonies, I swear, it seems there's always something going on! In March Janina graduated from 6th grade, and yesterday she had entered into Jr. High. Here's a few pictures of her graduation. Notice the pink jacket she's got on, guess whose that is! Yes, yours truly here--she is almost as tall as I, and her feet, fortunately, will soon be bigger so she won't be borrowing my shoes for long, not like me and my Mom whom are still the same size--lucky me!

Sakura Season

Japan is winding up the long-awaited Cherry Blossom season. Unfortunately, we had few good days of weather this year, and the days that were sunny were also windy, but we were able to get out for a picnic. Here's a picture of myself with my students and friend Renee enjoying the afternoon under the cherry blossoms at the local country club by our house.

Testing a video

I'm testing this video clip I took of my girls during a dance show they did in October. If you can see the clip, then Julia is on the far right, the little short girl in red, and Janina is on the far left, the girl with white decor on her costume. Our good friend Renee is the one in the center.

Girls Dance Rehearsal

USJ

A few shots of our day at USJ. It rained pretty much the whole day, but that didn't keep us away, nor did it keep out half of Japan, it was SO crowded!! Here we are in front of the main entrance (with a cake behind us), in front of the Terminator robot, in front of the Devorian(?) in Back to the Future, and with one of the actors from the Water World show. Check out the three boys while waiting for Back to the Future, they were so bored in line!

Events

Events in our live in the past month or so:
Not that much has been going on, Janina graduated from elementary school and is starting Jr. High this month, Jason is now in 5th grade and Julia in 3rd. We had Spring Break, and went to USJ, but the weather was sort of miserable so we didn't really go out.

Oh yes, in March the local elementary school had 3 death threats against the students, someone threatening to follow students home and kill someone. The last one was on the last day of school, and they had actually called the NHK television station and told them to come film our school as they were going to snatch a kid and kill them! Whenever this happens the police show up for a few days, driving around, standing outside the school, and the teachers will only release the kids to a parent, noone else can pick them up. It's sort of scarey, but so far nothing bad has happened.

I thought maybe it was normal for schools to get these sort of threats, but apparently none of the other schools in our city get any sort of threats or calls, it's only ours, weird!