Valentines day and 100 days

J's Kindergarten class is nearing 100 days of class. They will have a big celebration and math day on the 100th day of class. Each child has to complete a 100 days poster with 100 of some object glued onto the poster and bring in 100 of some kind of snack to share with the class that day. J chose to take blue and yellow (Michigan's colors) jelly beans for his snack to share. He wanted to do popcorn for his poster. I think he thought that he got to eat the popcorn too because he was a bit disappointed after the glue dried and they were stuck. Here is a picture of his 100 days poster.

For valentines day all of the kindergartners were supposed to wear red. I found J a black shirt with a red stripe down the sleeve and asked if it would be okay. He wanted to find something with more red. So we looked in the summer clothes. This is what he found. A shirt from Grandpa and Nicki from Hawaii. We just had about 10 inches of snow and a snow day recently, but that didn't stop J from wearing his shirt from Hawaii to school! He had fun exchanging valentines with his classmates for the first time.

Michigan Winter Fun

The snowman. First of the year for our family!

Pulling little brother outside in the back on the sled.

The view out my back window!

Top 10 of 2009--Tokyo, Japan

I know that this post is a bit late as an end of the year wrap-up, but December and January have been busy. Since I am now officially calling our main floor moved in I thought I would take some time to blog. Here are a few of our favorites from last year in Tokyo, in no particular order, we enjoyed so many different things!

#1 All of our great friends. We truly developed some wonderful friendships, here are a few friends from J's school.

#2. Takaosan. Great scenery and hiking!

#3 Mt. Fuji. I really wanted to see Mt. Fuji close up and during our last week in Japan we took a trip with some great friends.

#4 Kashinomiya Park. Actually I could write a whole top 10 list just about parks. This park held a lot of great activities and we spent tons of fun filled hours playing in the grass and riding scooters.

#5 Undokai. Everything about J's school was fantastic. He was really sad to leave Japan in large part because he enjoyed school so much.

#6 Festivals. Lots of different kinds of fun festivals.

#7 Trains.

#8 Tama Zoo. Especially Tama Zoo with friends!

#9 Train museums.

#10 Grandpa and Nicki's visit to Japan!

#11 Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea.

#12 Tokyo City office building. Great views and totally free!

Skiing

J went skiing with us yesterday. What a difference a couple of years make. He was skiing on his own and he had a great time! Here are a couple of pictures.

Skiing down Milk.

J and I in the lodge getting some hot chocolate.

Curry

Yesterday we went to a really fun curry restaurant. It was train themed and they actually bring you your curry and drinks etc. on a model train! The kids loved it.

The restaurant interior. Lots of cool train stuff, including a clock just like they have in stations.

Taking the water from the train.

S was a bit scared of the train at first.

Here comes the curry!

J had the shinkansen special. It came in a special dish!

Takao-san and fall hiking

We took advantage of a national holiday and a nice crisp fall day for some hiking.

We took the chairlift up half of the mountain.

Then we enjoyed hiking up to a temple and viewing the leaves along the way. Here is a picture of a monk playing a conch horn.

We also got our books signed. Including yours Grandpa and Nicki!

Rice Husking

Last weekend we learned about and helped with the process of husking rice at a local park. J and B helped plant the rice in the spring. So, it was fun to be a part of the end process too. Here is a picture of the rice when it has been cut and dried for a few weeks and is ready to be husked.

First, J stuck the ends of the dried bushels into a machine that knocked the rice kernels off of the stock.

Then, J turned a crank, turning a fan to blow the heavy rice kernels from the light chaff.

S. helped pick up the scattered grains. This is better than the sand box!

Finally, J. put it into another machine too take off the outermost husk off of the rice, leaving brown rice. Yummmm. Too bad, they later polished 30 percent of the rice grain to make it into white rice. But, still, I can't wait until the harvest festival in a few weeks where we will get to eat the rice that we husked!