A Marine Corps family of four recently receiving orders to Okinawa Japan chronical their adventure from processing to make an international move to experiencing an exciting different culture and people.Come with us!
We have had Oshi (meaning "precious") for about 5 weeks now and she has really blossomed and made herself at home as you can tell. She is quite the little baby meowing and calling for me whenever I walk out of the room. I just thought this was so sweet, it's like little kitty narcolepsy! For a bit we thought the word for precious was "Oishii" but were quickly corrected when we were told that Oishii means "delicious". Not really the effect we were looking for!
I am expecting a small scolding from Mrs. Taylor and my other teacher friends for this one but I have to say I was totally at the end of my rope and...I was pretty excited about MY AWESOME montage.
Marissa has a Language Arts class that she just CAN NOT please her teacher in AT ALL! She worked on her montage for days! Cutting and pasting,even drawing her own photos, the ones I used on her 3rd montage finale. I was impressed with her ability to put it ALL together ON HER OWN, from beginning to end! She worked on the draft and everything, all 7 pages with her own creative abilities and I was impressed.
Her teacher had her bring it back home and re-do her montage because she felt she needed it to be more "montagie". No biggie, she worked on it again that evening and took it back to school,again. That afternoon she came home from school with her montage,AGAIN! This time it was not quite "neat" enough. Now I totally understand and appreciate her giving sis the opportunity to "make a good grade" but this is the part that upsets me, Marissa does have other subjects in school that also require attention! This time I told her to do her other homework and I would do her montage- Of course I had to discuss my issue with a few parents that share the same teacher and have been told that they completed their child's montage and actually had already turned it in.
Do you think teachers can really tell when parents have completed a childs project? I mean, for real, compared to her other montage I feel there is a definite contrast. Can she not tell? Either way the only response she had for Marissa was "See Marissa, I knew you could do it". Probably not the best way to build her self-esteem, but I was quite impressed with my project!
Oh, and yes...that is actual beach sand with coral in it and everything if you are wondering.
This is so sweet. I know, I know...He is almost 7 and is now such a big boy but I just can not resist every now and then just getting so excited because he looks soooo cute and small still. Marissa by this age had A LOT of ideas as to how she would and would not allow me to dress her. Once, when buying new school clothes for sis for first grade I was excited to go the the little bow and clips section of Target to mix-and-match ribbons to go with her new outfits, she proceeded to tell me that she was now in first grade and she could not wear baby stuff like that!
Javan did not say a word as I dressed him in his little tram poncho with little faces. I Love it!!
We packed up the family (and Carmen) and headed to Naha for the day to experience the much talked about Naha Tsunahiki. We all enjoy ourselves so much when we are out and enjoying the local culture and people that you almost forget why you are actually here. It is like a small mini-vacation every weekend packed full of memories that will last forever! This tradition of a local Tug-O-War is an ongoing "right" to bragging of the East and West side of the island. News on the local street is that historically when the East and West side needed to settle a dispute they would prepare a rope and the local "Strong Men" or "Leaders" would gather and decide to either fight it out of play a manly game of Tug-O-War. Now it has become a tradition that had moved out of the bounds a rational reason of a friendly game of backyard tug-o-war. The Naha Tsunahiki games are now listed in The Guinness Book of World Records and every year they attempt to break their own record as the most people involved in the tugging.
I have some pics and video I can share with you as we go along, come on! This is where we actually wandered onto a side road with the kids to take in some of the sites and were used as Japanese party favors for the drinking pole carriers and parade participants. They loved us, and we enjoyed them too. See, this is how it all starts... A Japanese party waiting to happen. This is just one side of the road, the East side actually. The rope takes up about one city block in length and judging by the man standing next to it you can see had wide it is, it is said to be about 40 metric tons. They have an identical rope on the other side of the intersection that needs to be joined to make one full rope.This is done by everyone grabbing smaller ropes that branch off the large main rope and pushing forward all at once until the front of the ropes touch. This is a big effort to get thousands of people working together, especially when they don't all speak Japanese! Once the ropes are bound together by a large piece of wood slipped through the knots you are then directed to pull back to take the slack out of the rope and prepare for the actual "Tug". As you can imagine this took a little bit of time.
The East side rope- These three had their piece of rope and pulled with all their might, I think they might be the reason our side won. I was a little nervous because I did not want one of them to fall and be trampled! Marissa had just about enough once she was choked by a rope and another participant.
What an awesome time! Tradition has it that once the war is over you should take some rope home with you for good luck throughout the next year. It was so funny to see EVERYONE with small or large pieces of rope all evening everywhere you went. Here is bit more about the Naka Tsunahiki that we went to, http://jpgmag.com/stories/8290 (copy and paste, you know I have issues getting my link thing to work)
