Day 1: The Tree

Well, this being the first day, we introduced the idea of a calendar (and days and months) to Emi and Mika.
最初の日はカレンダーを説明します。

Emi knows that the days have names thanks to the "Days of the week" song.
恵美も日の名前を分かりました。

She also knows that her birthday is in December. I think she suspects this is all for her...
１２月で恵美の誕生日も分かります。　たぶん、クリスマスの祝いは「全部は私のために」恵美と思います。

Nah, just kidding, she knows that Jesus also has a birthday (observed) in December.
ちがいます、冗談です。　イエスの誕生日分かりました。

Well the first card instructed us to "Set up Tree".
第一のカードは　「クリスマスツリーを立てます」を指図しました。

This was not a surprise, since we had written the cards.
不思議じゃなかった。　私達はカードを書いた。


Setting up the tree was quick and easy; it was tempting to decorate it.
クリスマスツリーの立てるは簡単です。　もっとを飾りしたい。

However, today was to focus on just the tree.
しかし、今日は木だけです。

As a symbol of "life", since evergreens stay green all year long.
木が命の象徴します。　常緑樹はいつもみどりです。

So the tree is a reminder of life -- the life that God gives us, first physically and then spiritually as well.
クリスマスツリーは命思い出した。　
物質界の命は神様を貰いました。永遠の命も。

The 12, ur, make that 24 Days of Christmas!

I have always wanted to have/do an advent calendar. Maybe it is the German blood in me.

However, although we seem to talk about it every year, we still have never had/done one.

Well not this year! It's time to stop procrastinating and just do it already.

Instead of chocolates or pictures though, we decided to have 24 "events."

The 24 stockings each hold a piece of paper... whatever could be written on them?

We'll try to do a quick post each day!

Nami's Visit

Debe's cousin Nami (and her new baby) lives on the mainland, so we don't get to see her much.

So it was nice to have them come for dinner.

I love the way Japanese baby hair stands up!


Lisa, Nami, Nina, Hiroko, Mika, Junko, and Emi

Dan, alas, was teaching at W2, so he didn't get to see them. Next time, though.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, this Thanksgiving was a little different this year.
Both Debe and I worked. I usually am supposed to work, but take the day off.

I didn't this year because I took off two days last week when Emi had a bad cold.



So, we were not able to cook a turkey this year (the turkey on top is not ours).
But even if we had the time available we wouldn't be able to fit the turkey in our current oven.
Our last apartment had an American style oven (think: Big!).

So we ended up making Kalua Chicken in the crockpot.



Well, the party at church started at 4 and would last until 10 or 11.
As you can see, we packed the place out. I would guess there were probably 75 or 80 people there.

We came a little late (6:00) and left a little early (9:00), since we also work tomorrow. But it was a great night of food, folks and fun!

Thanksgiving Party

At Debe's preschool they had a Thanksgiving party on Wednesday.
Although they are open on Thanksgiving, they had the party early because the American students would not be coming on Thursday.

Well they didn't serve turkey or anything, however they did have a Thanksgiving cake.

This was a first for us; we usually enjoy pie.

文化祭・Culture Day

I had to work this past Sunday due to Bunkasai, or culture day.

I really enjoy attending Culture Day, but I wish it were not on Sunday.
Not only do I miss church, but Debe and girls miss as well.

Well, at least it is only once every two years.

There were a lot of individual projects in art, music, English and Japanese. Oh yeah, they had some cool science things too (think "Slushie made from dry ice!).

The 2nd year students (8th graders) worked for 2 months on this huge Mosaic (pictured above).

They took a class photo (of 262 students) and blew it up to the size of 10 X 17 meters! They cut and glued each pixel by hand.

It was a lot of work -- I remember several times where some students got in trouble. Their punishment was to sit in seiza and cut out pixels.

Anyway, it made the newspaper.

Pumpkin Carving

While I am not a huge fan of Halloween (especially the scary stuff), it is a part of American culture and thus I am called upon to teach about it at school.


Here we are getting ready to carve some pumpkins.

This was their first time, so we took it slow.

These are "wakanatsu", Special Ed students.

Anyways, they seemed to enjoy it.