Japan is still cleaning up after the 4th strongest earthquake in recorded history

It seems like the March 11th earthquake was a long time ago. The media has stopped airing coverage of the devastation, but the recovery efforts are very much still underway. This past weekend we went to a beach that we have been to several times to walk around. This beach is roughly 8 minutes from our house. Elijah has picked seashells here before, climbed the tower over and over again, played in the sand, etc. We were surprised to see so it in the condition it was in ......

A beautiful landmark on our way through the woods to our beach.

This sign was not covered by sand like this prior to March 11th

This stand used to hold a replica plane of Miss Veedol. The first plane to take a trans-Pacific flight. It was washed away during the tsunami. Part of it was behind me (picture below) and the other part was about 200 feet away by the tree line.

This asphalt was lined up with a smooth decline of the sand, that gradually went down into the coastline. Now it's a 5ft drop!

Even the concrete barrier separated during the quake.

Please continue to pray for the recovery efforts of such a beautiful country!

How about some chips??

So this morning we decided to get out the house and just drive around to see what we could find!! We thought these would be an interesting post --- these are the 'unique' Japanese chip-like things we found today. Some we bought .... some we didn't.

I'm a sucker for a store that has organized shelves! This was a GAS STATION guys! Way to go!

E.V.E.R.Y. single item is stocked and pulled to the front of the shelf! They are actually a very busy store too!

Check out the Gourmet Doritos......salad flavor

Mmmm these are sausage flavored Doritos

Curry flavored chips....on another note: CoCo's is a curry here in restaurant...very yummy too!

Eddie and I think this one is French Onion Soup flavored? Since we don't/can't read Kanji...I guess we will never know :(

spicy taco flavor....these were DELICIOUS to all 3 of us! Eddie polished off the bag the same night we bought them!

Fondue cheese flavored ....yummy also! These are so much better than American Cheetos...they have a softer cheese flavor.....like a cheese soup.

BBQ flavored Cheeto-like.......also great!

Hamburger flavored chips

Notice that these are actually shaped like a ham bone! ha ha ha Ham flavored

Geeee I am going to miss Japan!

End of the school year awards

YEP! Elijah does it again! I really feel like I am showing off lately ----- let me be clear -- I AM!

Elijah won all 3 awards in his class this year!

Math Whiz w/ division war flash cards attached

Reading Champ w/ a new book attached

and the You are Awesome Award with a Snickers candy bar attached because his teacher said that every time he smiles or laughs it makes her snicker!!! I love his teacher!! I really do!

You just gotta love him!!

Next up: The base's summer reading challenge

Let's make Rock Candy....ohhh Epic F.A.I.L.

So Elijah had his last project of the school year....edible book project. You have to make something that makes you think of the setting of the book!

I was jazzed, so I decided that Elijah was going to read the book How to Eat Fried Worms and we were going to make Dirt with gummy worms hanging out for the class. Then I thought - oh no that would be way too easy....someone else in the class might think of that idea, so I wanted something else. (Moment of honesty: Please remember this is ELIJAH'S project - not mine.......but I kinda got excited and took over).....ooooyee I've become one of those parents:(

So he read Rocky Road Trip (it was all about rocks and the Grand Canyon). So I decided that we were going to make rock candy for the entire class. GO LOVE!! No one is going to think of that idea!

So here we go and we made a family project out of it:

counting out the sticks for his class....getting ready to soak them to coat them with sugar.

pouring in sugar -- 8 cups to be exact!

All for NOT - a week later we had 4 mason jars with 12 sticks in them and NO crystals have formed. It was only supposed to take 24 hours to start forming crystals. What did I do wrong???

Well, just so you don't make the same mistake I did - and waste 8 cups of sugar and a lot of time: crystals won't form when you live in a place with 70% humidity during the summer time. I'm just sayin'!

We ended up mixing soft vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips, placing it into plastic dixie cups and having his class excavate the 'rocks' AKA chocolate chips out of the 'dirt' AKA vanilla ice cream.

P.S. In all fairness, someone DID bring in dirt with gummy worms hanging out!

That's RIGHT ........Elijah is like a math genius!

Elijah was in Soroban. Soroban is an ancient form of Japanese math using a Japanese abacus. The use and mastery of the Soroban instrument has been proven to help with mental calculations in math, recognizing number relationships and the understanding of the place value system. What's NOT to like?

So he went to practice everyday for 1 hour.....he got Japanese treats after, so he was more than happy to go!

Well, there was a competition with the 3 schools here in Misawa.

Elijah worked really hard ...........and...........he won 2nd place in the visual calculations division! WOOOHOOOOO! So this division shows positive and negative integers on a screen at a rapid pace --- 6 numbers in 4 seconds and students have to watch the numbers and write down the correct answer.

Director of all the Pacific DODDS schools....Japan, Korea and Guam

That's right! My boy represented for the math lovers out there (me)!! We are very proud of him!!

Now that's what I call REAL sushi!

We have eaten sushi several times here in Japan...we ate it in America too. WE (yep, all three of us) love it! So we had to try a restaurant I heard about that has the BEST sushi in Misawa! We call it Fear Factor Sushi!

REAL wasabi -- YUM-O!


all different kinds of raw fish...DELISH!!
The course we have been waiting for -- LIVE fish!
Another large variety if fish...this time the shrimp in the middle was still alive! REALLY - it was moving its tentacles and all.......it dies about 8 min later and then the sushi chef pulled the tail off and I ATE IT!! It was sweet tasting :)

It's Rice Planting Time

Here are the pics I promised....
This is what the rice plant looks like when we put it in the wet fields

I LOVE older Japanese ladies! Here is one walking between the rice fields
A rice field after it is all planted
the rice plants before we put them on the machine
Can you believe that MANY people still plant rice by hand! The farmers we went to visit had several rice fields so they had a machine. The machine automatically sticks a few rice plants in the mud
Elijah got the chance to drive the tractor...with a bit of help ...he couldn't reach the peddle
TRUE FOCUS!!