Pre-K, Kobe, Birthday Party and all the in-betweens!

For the past month I've been subbing for the Aide in the Pre-K class. Dayle (we traveled to South Korea together) is the teacher for that class and I have no idea how she does it day in and day out. It's exhausting!! The kids are unbelievably adorable and so much fun but if you turn your back for 1 second - they somehow seem to find trouble! I must say however, I had some great laughs while I was there and truly enjoyed myself. It's an environment I've never worked in before. I've told several people, I'm not sure how many times I had to say - are you sitting correctly (criss cross/apple sauce), get your finger out of your nose, do you need to go to the bathroom (as they're holding their bums) or please go get a tissue (since they have snot running down to their lips)!! EWWwww! But... they're learning!

While I was subbing in the class I was able to go on a field trip to pick apples and dig up sweet potatoes, sing in music class, run around during gym, have recess, count to 100, work on journal entries and learn the letters: F, P, N and (I forgot the other). :) They're smart little cookies and absorb everything! We also celebrated United Nations Day together and dressed up for Halloween. My whole life I've always respected teachers and witnessed how hard they worked. My Mom was a teacher, my Aunt Carol, many of our close family friends and Matt and his Mom are both teachers. Now that I think of it, maybe I had no choice - I had to like teachers. Just kidding. ;) Love to you all! In all seriousness, this experience in the Pre-K class was truly moving. You witness a child receiving an education. How does a child learn to count? You teach them. How does a child learn to hold their pencil? You teach them. How does a child learn to write? You teach them.




UN Day








apple and sweet potato picking...(click on it)

I'm going to hit the rewind button for a little bit... Matt had a conference in Kobe back in the beginning of October that I tagged along on. We took the Shinkansen (bullet train) and stayed for 4 days. Tim, another spouse that tagged along, Sunny (my 3 year old friend) and I toured around parts of Kobe while our spouses had to sit in meetings all day. Mainly we toured a couple of Sake Brewery's (don't worry, I was VERY well behaved), wandered the streets, played on playgrounds and Sunny, Tim's Mom and I went to the Kobe Fashion Museum. At night, the whole group would normally go out to dinner and share a couple of laughs! On our last evening a smaller group of us took off to Osaka to meet up with a friend of a friend of 2 FIS teachers (did you catch all that?) for dinner. I'm not sure I've ever eaten that much fried food in my life but it was worth the experience!


displays inside one of the breweries



dinner in Osaka

fried lotus


sake - I love how they served it

On another weekend, Matt and I took off for a Saturday bike ride. Of course he rode his road bike and somehow I was to keep up on my 6-speed cruiser! (not so much) It was a beautiful and relaxing afternoon. We took some detours off the main road and wandered through neighborhoods, sat along the ocean, spotted some cosmo fields and just enjoyed the mountainous view and fresh air.

click for more pics

That same weekend we gathered with some friends to go to Nokonoshima Island which is a tiny island we take a 15 minute ferry ride to get to. The weather was perfect. It came highly recommended that we eat burgers for lunch at a tiny grill just off the ferry. Of course we took the advice, filled our belly's then jumped on a bus to the top of the island to enjoy the rest of the day frolicking through the cosmos. Did I mention we brought the other "cosmos" with us to share? A tasty little treat mid-afternoon!


click for more pics

About 2 weeks ago, Matt was invited to go on a fishing trip which he immediately jumped at the opportunity. It was almost canceled the day they were supposed to leave as there was a typhoon headed our way but they got the "all clear" and took off. Wanna guess how well I slept that night? Matt would be much better at telling this story and I'll do my best to get him to share but it may take me 6 months to convince him to write. So, in the meantime I'll tell you what I know. There were only 2 of them that spoke English out of about 10 or 12 men (and Matt was 1). The swells were over 10 feet high, a couple of them got sea sick and they caught TONS of fish! How's that for a story? :)
Enjoy the pics.

dinner the night before

Matt's bed




soon to be sashimi..


This past Sunday morning, Matt and I set our alarm to wake up at 5:30 am. Our niece was turning 2 and we were attending her birthday party back in Boston on Saturday afternoon via Skype! Her favorite present - Mr. Potato Head! Love it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GG!!