He likes it! Hey Mikey!

Ethan had a great first day of school! Although he's not normally the best source for information on what he did at school, he says he played with his friends, colored and ate a snack. After I got him dressed this morning he said "Wait, I need my hat!" I was sure he'd refuse to wear it because he's always hated hats, but he loves his school hat. He very happily hopped on the bus this morning, that's a good sign that he does indeed like his new school.

And so it begins......

He's got a long way to go in the "Yes, my mom's the idiot who dressed me like this" world of doggy fashionistas before he catches up with his cousins Monty and Bazzle, but he's on his way!

My little mishuugakujidou

Ethan started at his new school today. I drove him, but he'll ride the bus home. The teachers meet the kids at the gate and walk them to the courtyard where they wait for all the kids to arrive.

Once all the kids have arrived, they all bow to their teacher and say "Ohiogozimasu Sensei" (Good morning teacher), then bow again and say "Ohiogozaimasu minasan" (Good morning everyone). At the end of the day they'll do the same thing except it will by "Sayonara" instead of "Ohio".

This is the view of Higashi Yamamoto-shi from Ethan's school. The school is perched right on the tippy top of a hill in the middle of the city.

These are ETHAN'S school supplies!!

In Ethan's box of school supplies were instructions on labelling all the supplies. His name had to be written on everything, not just every supply, but every single piece! Every box and its lid, the paste jar and it's lid, the crayon box, the lid and EVERY crayon! I had to write is name on every crayon! Gabi wrote it on two in Japanese. I wrote his name 32 times! I practiced writing it in Japanese a few times.

Ethan is pronounced IISAN. The "I" makes a long "e" sound, like in meet, double vowels like "II" are held for twice a long as single vowels. The "a" sounds like a in father.

Blog Design

I'm tinkering with some blog design stuff. I don't understand most of instructions and tutorials, so I haven't gotten very far. The new picture in my header was taken from the monorail as we passed over the Tama River, heading into Tachikawa.

School Days

Today was the Welcoming Ceremony at Ethan's school for all the new students. Me and my American brain were thinking "open house at the beginning of the year", casual, visit Ethan's class, meet his teacher, etc, etc. Remind me to stop using my American brain for anything Japanese! It was a huge, formal ceremony! All the moms and girls were in dresses, the dads and boys in suits, it was a very long, drawn out affair. Very typical Japanese style, I've heard graduations are a hundred times worse. Of course Ethan and I showed up in jeans and Ethan had spilled chocolate milk all down the front of his shirt! I was mortified! But again, in typical Japanese style, everyone was extremely polite and friendly and made us feel very welcome. Ethan is in the Himawari (sunflower) class, his teacher is Nyuuda Sensei. He spent about an hour with his classmates and teacher and seemed to be enjoying himself.

This is Ethan's winter uniform, it's just a smock. But it has the cutest matching hat and all the kids wear matching backpacks. Don't worry, you know I'll be taking tons of pictures of him on Monday! In May they'll switch to a lighter weight smock. The little duck pin on the left says "Welcome to school"! (in Japanese).

This is Ethan's name badge, he'll wear it everyday for the first month or so, it actually says Ethan Baker (Gabi read it for us!!); there's also a little tag w/ his bus number on it.

These are the school supplies, every child has to have exactly the same supplies, so the school puts together these "craft boxes" and you just buy them from the office. In the box (clockwise from upper left): box for clay, scissors, paste, castanets (weird), crayons, clay, clay molding sticks. To the right of the box are his gym/outdoor hat, drawing pad and 3 different books for communicating different things b/w home and school. Each class is color coded, the Himawari class is orange. Next year he'll be either pink (Otis is very nervous about Ethan getting a pink hat) or yellow.

Ethan in his gym uniform.

EARTH SHAKE !!!!!!

We had our first "appreciable" earthquake tonight! It was really......quaking!! I've felt 3 or 4 since we've been here, but they've all been barely perceptible and they all happened in the middle of the night when everyone else was sleeping. This one was about 7:00p; it lasted about 15 seconds, the front door was really shaking and banging, even Ethan got scared and jumped into my lap.

A beautiful spring day!

Today was such a beautiful day! There's a really great playground on the other side of the base that has a big dog park right next to it, so we packed up the kids and the dog and headed over for a picnic.

Here's today's view of Cherry Blossom Street:

The blossoms are beginning to fall, it's so pretty. It really looks like snow!

A rebel:

Our newest addition...

Meet the newest member to our family......

Fennigan Blues Clues

He's an 11 month old Boxer, we got him from a family on base that is returning to the states unexpectedly and couldn't take him.

He can look pretty ferocious, but he's the biggest, cuddliest teddy bear. He very sweet and thinks he's a chiuaua, constantly trying to sit in your lap! At his last vet check in December he was 50 lbs!!

The kids adore him and he really loves them too. The girls have been sleeping downstairs with him until he "gets settled in".

I really wanted a Japanese name for him, but just couldn't come up with something that fit. On the base we have a television network called AFN - Armed Forces Network, which broadcasts all our American programs. When I lived here as a kid it was called FEN - Far East Network. From that I came up with Fennigan, but we call him Fen. Ethan insists he's our very own "Blues Clues".

It's Cherry Blossom Time

Sakura sakura

Yayoi no sora wa

Miwatasu kagiri

Kasumi ka kumo ka

Nioi zo izuruIzaya izaya

Mini yu kan

This is "Cherry Blossom Street", otherwise known as the street that runs behind my house. It's lined with close to 100 cherry blossom trees. This picture most definitely does not do justice to how beautiful they really are.

This is the cherry blossom tree in front of our building.

Today the Japanese side of my culture group took us to a park not far from the base, along the Tama River, to see the cherry blosoms.

Cherry Blossom season is a huge deal in Japan. There are big festivals and everyone plans for hanami, "flower viewing". Every where there are cherry blossoms blooming you'll find people on blankets picnicing under the trees. Oddly, a lot of Japanese people like to come on the base to see the trees blooming and all week there have been people picnicing on "Cherry Blossom Street". Here are all of the pictures I've taken this week.