Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Weekend trip to see Gundam Robot

The "glass" facing the sidewalk (the outdoor tables)
is actually open - this is a bad picture, it looked
a lot cooler in person
The "Japanese" Hummer
S.W.A.T. vans
This is a gas station - full serve and the gas lines
are hanging down from the ceiling. The yellow square
behind the car, is the car wash. I should have taken
a picture of the surrounding bldgs so you could
understand just how packed in this was!



S.W.A.T. vans
An entire showroom of them!
Sign on the train
SURE, you were scratching your nose....
Eli's always got to get an ear (he was wore out!)
My growing boy - I love his smile :~)
The train being passed by a car carrier truck
59ft Gundam Robot - it was very cool




Dakota picking up the 59ft robot :~)
We haven't seen the real one, but this was cool to
see in Japan!

Sunday, August 16, 2009

America Camp '09

Every August our good friends at BEC school have "America Camp" and it is where the children from the school stay at some kind of campsite and the Americans are invited. We play games and cook out and such. This was the first year they actually stayed in tents and it was our first year participating. We participated in the activites, but spent the night in the lodge beside the camping grounds - we don't mind the heat, but when it comes to sleep we need cool!
(Glad to see our homestays again!)


another homestay!

the owner of BEC school is on the right



after the kids did their balloon toss, the adults
had one...Tony and our friend were the furthest
apart and did not drop it!


someone hung a make shift rope swing for the kids
with 2 loops on the end for their feet

playing frisbee




the men v/s the kids


Eli reading "Green Eggs and Ham" to us at
breakfast the next morning




Homestays '09

This summer we had some Japanese children stay with us. There were 3 groups (2 groups of girls and 1 group of boys). The Japanese call this a "homestay" and it is something quite common between the schools and the bases. They were loads of fun for all of us. These are pictures from all 3 groups.
The first group was the largest (3 girls) and I had put them in Eli's room. My thinking was that 1 could sleep on the bed and the other 2 on the air bed we have...however, they all slept on the air bed in fear of falling out of the "big" bed. It is only a twin but it sits so high off the ground in their eyes. So, I quicky learned my first lesson in having them stay with us!


The parents come and visit for an hour or so before leaving their children in your care. So, they all posed for their parents with Tony's guitar...after playing a few...ummm...notes (?) through the computer (Tony has something hooked up and it sounds like you're playing through an amp so it was really loud and they just thought that was very cool :~)

This young lady has actually lived in the states
longer than she had in Japan because of her father's
job.

This was the sister of one the girls. The girl was too shy
to get her picture taken and this sister was too shy to
stay with us :~)

Tony playing for them. As you can tell, I wasn't
planning on having everyone in my room or I would
have found somewhere else to store the laundry
baskets - thank goodness they were empty :~)

PIZZA!!!!

She was cold!

So, I asked them...are all of you cold??? Yessss, they
said, so Dakota had to lend them all a sweatshirt!! And
yes, we did turn down the air.
Making heart-shaped biscuits for breakfast....
to go with the pancakes being made on the other
counter!
The pancakes are almost done.

Everyone's ready to eat!

Time for group 1 to say good-bye and go home
with their parents.

Group 2 like having a "nob" fire and making
s'mores...actually they just liked burning the
marshmallows and catching their sticks on fire.

Our charcoal writings...they wrote their names
in Kanji under their English spellings

This is Dakota on the high dive!!
ALL the groups LOVED going swimming in the
the "huge" pool. I don't think uncrowed, big
public pools are common in Japan.


Our last group was boys and Dakota couldn't have
been happier :~) Games, games and more games -
the universal boy langauge!
We went bowling too!