Monday, October 25, 2010

Countdowns...

I can't believe I forgot to post this past week! I guess that means I'll be posting twice this week instead.

This post is going to be lame but I have a few countdowns for ya...

151... days till the last day of work
62... days till I'm in Europe for 12 days
60.... days till Christmas!!!!
25... days till Tokyo

What to look forward to in the next post:
Kids and Parents Day update
Michinoku Park
100th Day of School Celebration
... that is if nothing better happens before my next post

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Animal Day

This week we had Animal Day! Basically that means all the K5 kids (and teachers) dress up as animals for the day. It was so cute and hilarious. We sang songs to the animals at school (weird and funny), we ate candy corn since mice eat corn, and we went on a hayride. It was quite the day. Back in August when I went home I knew about this day and so I brought back my penguin costume from sing song a few years ago. Since I teach the Penguins class I thought it was fitting. A lot of the parents drop their kids off on special days to take pictures and videos and they were all cracking up at me.


Here is a class picture in front of the barn. The shadows are blocking it a bit but you get the idea. I was a little disappointed that some of my kids only came with things like cat ears on but there were some pretty good costumes. You might be thinking, "what is that kid supposed to be with the cape and wizards hat on?" Oh that's just mickey mouse of course.


Here is Mickey Mouse again with my favorite costume of the day, horse. This kid was so hilarious... he kept picking the horse's nose and all the kids thought it was SO funny!


One of my kids, Kevin, wanted to take a picture with my camera and he proceeded to pose us in this awesome pose. In the front is Candace, one of our new teachers. He kept making her scoot over so her ears weren't blocking anyone and he made me get in the back hahaha.

And then of course I had to show one picture with the other K5 teacher. a) She is a dolphin (Dolphin's class teacher) b) I made her do that pose c) she didn't hate it and d) everyone thought she was a butterfly.

On another note, tomorrow is Open House so I've had a pretty busy weekend. We had to go help at the other campus' open house today and it turned out pretty good. I will be teaching English, doing stations, playing games, and eating lunch with my kids and their parents tomorrow. Once again I have the most parents coming... I like to think it's because I'm so popular. Should be an exciting day!

Sunday, October 10, 2010

10-10-10

I'm a day late on my posting!!! I went out of town this weekend and I forgot to do it early so I guess this is my first mess up on posting once a week. I'll just have to post twice this week I guess!

Friday night: On Friday night we went out one last time with our friend Shoko. She is moving to an island near Okinawa so we might not get to see her again before we leave Japan! We went to a restaurant called Vindome down town and it was delicious!



Saturday: Saturday Ally and I headed down to Tokyo. We decided we wanted to see Disney decorated for Halloween so why not head on down. This first picture is to show you what time our Shinkansen got here.... it was supposed to be here at 2:26 but they had electrical problems. This is like a first in the history of Japan. Also, since we don't speak Japanese we had no idea what was going on but at like 3:30 I texted Shoko and she called and figured it out for us. Because we ended up getting to Tokyo so much later than anticipated all we did on Saturday was eat American food for dinner then go to sleep. We had a busy day for Sunday so of course we had to go to bed early.


Sunday morning we woke up at 5 so that we could leave at 5:45 and be at Disney at 7. The park opened at 8 but it was a holiday so we didn't know how crowded it would be and we wanted to make sure we got tickets. First success of the day.

When we got there it was pouring rain and supposed to rain ALL day but it cleared up around 8:30 and we never had another drop! First stop was shopping because some of our friends had sent us with money to buy things for them or their kids. Needless to say I had a ton of bags before 9 and none of them were mine.

Second success of the day: We found out why everyone is always staring at the wall of stones. We've walked by this stone wall a few times and have seen a bunch of people staring and pointing at something but no idea what is going on. This time we heard someone say "mickey" and Ally said, "I bet there is a hidden Mickey in the stones!" Found it and now the mystery is solved!

Third success: Everyone was decked out in their halloween gear and I happened to see someone wearing this awesome hat from Nightmare Before Christmas. Since I'm never sure if that is a Halloween movie or a Christmas movie I had no idea if they got that today or last year at Christmas. I stated that if I found it I was for sure buying it because what do I love more than Christmas? Nothing. Next store.... found it!!


Bought it... and wore it! This is kind of a weird angle picture but you gotta do what you gotta do when their are only 2 peeps in your group and you are trying to get your awesome hat in the pic. From then on every time Ally looked at me she started laughing... I have no idea why!!

We got to ride a few rides even though it was crowded (thank you fast passes) and see a few shows. The best attraction of the day was definitely the Mysterious Mousequerade halloween show. It was awesome! I really wanted to buy the sound track but 3 songs for $28 is a rip off.

Of course you can't have a disney show without a few Disney characters showing up.

One of our favorite shops at Disney Sea would be in Tritan's castle. First of all this area of the park is where all the kids rides are but the shop is awesome. It has everything! Plus it's inside this awesome whale's mouth. Now if that isn't cool then I don't know what is!

So our halloween trip to Disney was a major success. Since we will probably never again have the opportunity to visit Disney as many times as we do this year we have been trying to take maximum advantage of it. Of course we will be going during their Christmas season to see all the decorations and Christmas shows.

Saturday, October 2, 2010