Valentine's, etc

Woot! What a sweet holiday! We got quite a few gifts of chocolatey goodness. Today, we received Grandpa Leibbrand's birthday package - so we're having beefy jerky and mac-n-cheese for dinner! Yessss! Seriously, it's been a LONG time since we've had either and we were quite excited. Thank you!!

We got paid on Thursday!! We had been eating a LOT of oatmeal prior. Please pray we can do better with our finances this month - somehow, we either lost or over spent $200 within the first two weeks last month. Ugh. We really need to send money home this month too. We're at an all-time low. Lucky for us, the yen is quite high so we'll actually be making money when we send it home. :-)

For Valentine's, after school, we went out for dinner at our favorite mom and pop restaurant, Densuke. I tried the cream chicken and Jeremy had a fried pork and curry plater. After dinner, we walked home past all the bars, under the flickering street lights, and giggled at the steady stream of a drunk urinator around the corner. It was indeed romantic. Back home, I popped in a 'girly' movie that I knew I'd have no other chance of getting Jeremy to watch with me if not for the fact that it was Valentine's day, and enjoyed some of the chocolate from Mom's package (that arrived on V-day). That was our day, though Jeremy still owes me a massage and I owe him cookies.

Today, was another Open Day at school. Jeremy went to Nagato - no kids came, so he was able to leave and meet us at the Hagi school before the classes there started. I had five pre-k students and Carla had three 3rd graders. The 3rd graders are all signing up for classes!! We don't know about the PK kids yet, but they'll most likely sign up as they all have older siblings at our school, so it went very well even though we didn't have many students. The kids were very interested in our lessons and enjoyed playing with us while their parents were in the meeting. The little kids adore Jeremy. It's so cute to watch!

Jeremy also got a computer today. We upgraded the old school laptop with a brand new one (it's tiny!), so they gave the other one to him. He's excited we don't have to share my computer any more, and the other one has Windows (granted, the system is in Japanese (maybe it will give him a reason to learn some new kanji) - mine doesn't - so I'm sure he'll be able to do more with it. We may be able to play online versions of some board games together now. He's already changed the home page to Board Game Geek. :-)

Happy V-day! (chocolate, bath salts/bubbles, and some candy from the kids)


Ooo!! More goodies!


Wow! These cakes were a V-day gift from our boss.

Spring is coming/here!

I love, love, love it! Granted, it's still chilly, but nice enough that we don't need our hats and gloves anymore. :-) Some trees are starting to bloom with flowers and I saw a few tulips shooting up the other day. I thought I'd post a few (a LOT) of pictures from last weekend and today - Japan's birthday, a national holiday, so we had the day off school. :-)

On our way to the beach, we noticed some black smoke off in the distance. Since it was a nice day, we decided to go investigate. It turned out to be an old family shrine up in the hills. We saw the firemen dragging hoses uphill from the river to put the fire out. By the time we reached the beach the black smoke had turned completely white.



I had to crop this picture per Jeremy's request as his hands in his pockets made him look a little larger...



On the way home, we stopped by a mikan (i.e. tangerine or mandrin orange) grove to take some pictures.





Today, we went to Mt. Kasa again - this time to tour the camellia groves since we heard they were blooming, but before going in, we took a short walk down to the shore.





This is a camellia.



They have many different varieties. I liked the "candy cane" ones - they were mostly white with random red stripes running up their petals. I couldn't find a good picture of one, so I grabbed a pinkish one from the ground and held it in my hand (but maybe it's another variety all together!).







I got all 'artsy' and took dozens of pictures from all different angles of the flowers (I love flowers!), but I won't post them all here - Jeremy got a little bored with me. :-)

I felt a little out of place... there were dozens of other photographers with their big fancy cameras and tripods... and there I was on my knees in the mud with my little point and shoot.



This one is funny because I was looking around for some nicer flowers to toss into the water to take a picture of, and as I was doing so, I noticed a couple behind me waiting their turn to take the same picture I had just set up for! Hehe!



Here we are in one of the groves:







A cat appeared to be guarding a row of flowers someone had left on a bench. It only moved away when I arranged one of the flowers on the bench to take a photo (can you tell which one?).





I didn't place the flower there, but I thought it looked interesting torn over the branches.



We also walked up to a teeny tiny light house at the end of the point. Aww!!

License Update

All thanks to mom Knapp, I don't have to worry about this issue anymore. I didn't even realize my state had a 'safe driver' program that would allow me to simply get a sticker instead of a whole new license. Simple and sweet! Thank you!!!

Legal stuff

Does anyone have a clue how we're supposed to file our taxes this year? I usually do my own taxes, but this time it's way beyond me... income from overseas? marriage? How does that all work? Oyi. I have my work cut out for me this year unless someone back home can help us out a bit. Sigh. Also, does anyone know how I can get a new US driver's license from overseas? Mine expires on my birthday this year (March 20th, so it's coming up soon!). I don't think I'd be able to just renew my Illinois license because I don't have any address there any more (and I haven't lived at the address on my current one for four years)... or maybe I'm eligible for an Ohio one since we do have a 'mailing' address there (thanks again Mom Knapp!). Eh... or maybe I should get cracking on my Japanese license, which I technically won't need until August. Yeesh.

New Jeremy

I found a shirt here in Japan that actually fit me well and was cheap, so I bought it. Because of the flannel I felt compelled to change my look a bit. So how do you like it?Just kidding, the mustache lasted all of five minutes.

Sunday fun-day

We had a fun day today!

After church, during the tea time, we experienced a new Japanese snack - imokempi. Sugar-coated french fries. Glazed fried potatoes. Sugary shoe strings. Whatever you call them... it's true! They mass produce 'em, bag 'em, and sell 'em along with the rest of the chips in the snack isles. Pretty cool, eh? I saw them in the store this afternoon.

Then we went out to lunch with some friends. The place is near our house, and CHEAP. Amazingly so! The menu included many different things, all set meals, and everything was under $4. Jeremy got a tasty bowl of curry udon for about $2, and I had a delicious unagi set for only $3 - usually, any dish with unagi is no less than $8. As if the place couldn't get any better... they specialize in karaoke entertainment. Carla tried it out at the request of owner/server? and we were all surprised when several fountains began springing water into the air at the end of her first song, and at the end of her second, bubbles rained down over the stage. All this in addition to a couple of disco balls, flashing lights, and color blinking in rhythm to the songs. Who knows what other surprises we would have discovered if we had stayed longer! We'll be back for sure. :-)

Later in the evening, Carla and Eriko came over to play some games with us. We taught them Tsuro and Galaxy Trucker. They enjoyed both and we were thrilled. Jeremy won Galaxy Trucker (our first four-player game of it), Carla won one game of Tsuro, and Eriko won twice. I didn't have as much luck tonight. I really hope I can get my butt in gear and call some of our other Japanese friends over soon. I miss them. Maybe we can play more games tomorrow.

PS. I hope you had a wonderful 2nd birthday, Brianna! Jeremy and I had fun looking at animated ecards online this morning.

Konnichiwa!

Hello all. I guess it's been a while since I've written here! There hasn't been too much going on on this side of the world. At school, we're prepping for the next open school day, the second or third Sunday in February. We've lost quite a few high school students due to the busyness of graduating and starting driving school (at age 18). I'll miss them. I'm a bit curious as to how our classes will change in April for the new school year. They say they won't change too much, aside from some students moving up to junior high or senior high classes, but occasionally they'll move students around to different classes or days depending on their new schedules. The open school is focusing on bringing in more younger students though - preschool, mostly. We have had several new students join since we've been here, but it still seems like we've lost more. They say the best way to advertise the school is through social connections, but we don't have any connections outside of the school! Haha. We'll probably end up handing out flyers at the park again. :-)

Our New Year was uneventful. We watched all LOTR extended additions the first three days of the new year and played board games, of course. Last Sunday, we had a taste of a popular new year's dish called 'zenzai', which was delicious. It is made out of sweet red beans (red beans soaked and boiled in sugar water for a LONG time) and boiled mochi (white rice pounded into a paste). The sugar water used to boil the beans, is then used for the broth of the soup. It's VERY sweet, but tasty!

Last weekend, we went to Yamaguchi for a day and visited Toys-R-US. It was neat browsing through all the Japanese toys, books, puzzles, and electronic games. Much to Jeremy's dismay, they didn't carry any of the kind of games he was hoping to find there. We'll keep searching. We know there is a Japanese version of Settlers of Catan somewhere in this country, but we don't know where to find it (not that we'd buy it, as we're making our own copy, but it would still be interesting to see!). We also ate lunch at a restaurant at a local TV station, which was fabulous! I can't wait to go back there again! It was some of the very best food I've had since I've been here. I ordered the grilled hamburg (hamburger patty with no bun) special that was dressed up in a delicious sauce and topped with a soft boiled egg and ketchup, with a salad and fried potato slices. Seriously. It was the best!

Today, we FINALLY bought a DVD player!! Jeremy just finished hooking it up and it works perfectly, so tonight we'll watch the first Harry Potter movie. We bought the first four movies shortly after we arrived here, but had no way of view them until today - and now that we have a DVD player, we can also use our video rental membership we signed up for earlier. Maybe we'll start a movie and/or game night sometime soon...

The best news we have so far though, is of Jesse's impending visit in March! We're thrilled to have him come stay with us and explore the area together. We can't wait to see a familiar face. :-) I really hope he brings some spring warmth with him too - it's so coooold here! Actually, the temperature outdoors isn't so bad, but when it's just as cold inside as it is outside, it gives a whole new meaning to 'cold'. :-p Lucky for him though, it'll be the very best time to view the beautiful cherry blossoms that bloom around here. We're excited to see them for ourselves too!

Well, like I mentioned, there isn't much happening around here, but I'll try to keep you all updated a bit more... even if we bore you to pieces.