Jonas' 2nd Birthday

Uncle Mike and Aunt Lisa made this video of Jonas's birthday party in the park. Thanks to them for making this special video. We love it.

Drawing Circles at Kita Ko

We have many pictures to post from Mike's and Lisa's trip and we will get to that, but for tonight, it seemed more manageable to post these. Hours before Mike and Lisa arrived, I took Jonas to one of my schools to visit my supervisor. Jonas loved running in the wide and beautiful hallways (the school is the newest and most beautiful school that I have seen in Japan; ask Jason and he will tell you too, most of the school buildings are old, old in our area). We happened upon a classroom (it was after school) with a few students studying. Jonas found the chalkboard, which was a dream come true for the little guy. The chalkboard moves up and down, and luckily for Jonas, you can move it down pretty far. He loves to draw and recently was in a circle drawing stage, which he seems to be moving out of this week. Anyway, he discovered that there were multiple colors of chalk and then he was really happy.



The students were funny and there was a lot of squealing and picture taking, the general fanfare that Jonas attracts here in Japan, that he won't attract in the states.



This school was an all girls school until a couple of months ago when the new year started and 40 boys were admitted. The second year students are still exclusively all girls and I taught in their classes today. In one of the classes the Japanese teacher left (we team teach) and the students were preparing for exams. I said something along the lines of please raise your hand if you have questions. Well, I meant about English, but they started asking questions about Jason. They wanted to know how we met, how long have we been married, do I love him and other assorted information. At the end of the questioning session, they concluded that I love love Jason. Yes, I intended to type love twice. That is what they said. They also told me Jason is 'cool.' It was pretty funny. Actually students have asked me quite a few times if I love Jason. They have also asked who do I love more - Jonas or Jason. Funny questions.

We leave Japan in about 5 weeks. The 5 week mark hit me tonight while I was at yoga class. I started going to this yoga class in February and have gone almost every Wednesday for the past 5 months. (Thanks to Jason for putting Jonas to bed every Wednesday without me. You got to love love him for that.) I remember thinking that we were about half way through our year here when I started the class and it was snowy and cold and now it is warm and sunny. I am sort of just rambling here about time and how it moves. But anyway, I also reflected on how unique this time is for us. Jason and I both miss home and are looking forward to being back, but I will miss the slowness of our life here. My job has been a lot less stressful than my last job at home and I can feel this difference every day. I also have enjoyed all the time we have had as a family and know that our lives will get busy and more jam-packed with stuff when we get back. That stuff is a lot of stuff we miss, but the lack of stuff has been nice too. Of course, we have done a lot of fun stuff this year.
Enough stuff about stuff.

One last note, Jason turns 34 in 7 minutes (Japan time). He is sleeping, as I should be. I don't think he wants me to wake him up to tell him Happy Birthday (I woke him up for 2nd earthquake the other night and he told me the next day that it wasn't necessary. It was small and there was no damage, so I can see his point.)

Okay, I will go to sleep now...

Saturday

I began my day by rolling over to Jason's open laptop at 6 in the morning. Jonas was still asleep (surprise) and Jason was awake watching the US Open (not a surprise). He has been known to wake up in the middle of the night to catch a US sporting event. Jonas woke up soon after and I remained half asleep for a bit while Jason and Jonas drew pictures (you can only remain half asleep in this small apartment when the other parent is 'on duty.'). A few hours later, after breakfast, we felt an earthquake. I picked up Jonas who was happily playing with his legos and had the idea that we should all go outside. Nobody else was outside and afterwards I read on the internet that going outside is what NOT to do. When I picked up Jonas he started to cry a bit. I thought maybe the earthquake scared him; Jason thought he was just mad that I was taking him away from his legos. I think Jason was right.

The earthquake's epicenter was a couple of hours south of our home and we did not see any damage here in Akita City. It was Jason's and Jonas's first earthquake, my second. I felt one in El Salvador when I spent a summer there about 10 years ago.

Over the past month I had started to ask my co-workers a lot of questions about earthquakes and even talked to Jason about what our plan would be if there was one while we were at work and Jonas was at daycare. (Of course this caused Jason to wonder why I was waiting until a few weeks before our departure to decide we needed this plan.) We were lucky, because the earthquake did not affect us except for a minute of shaking and we were all at home together.

Switching gears, I will post a few pictures of Jonas with Uncle Mike and Aunt Lisa. They are safely back in the US visiting family in Texas after nearly 30 hours of travel (train, plane and automobile).



This is one of the reasons uncles are so much fun. They put you in laundry carts and push you around.



Aunt Lisa loves swimming and lakes and so does Jonas. She got in the freezing water with Jonas and he loved it.



This is at our campsite where Jonas split his time between exploring the area, playing with ants and drawing pictures.

Happy Birthday Jonas! and We miss Uncle Michael and Aunt Lisa already...

Jonas turned 2 last week (June 5) and the next day my brother Michael and sister-in-law Lisa arrived in Akita City! We have been a whirlwind of activity since they arrived and they just left this morning. It was so great to have family here with us. Jonas was visibly excited to have them here too.



We went to a small festival, camping, visited samurai houses and celebrated Jonas' birthday in the park. It was fun. This visit reminded me just how much I miss all my family and friends at home. We will post more later, but here is a picture from the park. Michael and Lisa gave Jonas art supplies for his birthday. In this picture he is drawing with some markers that he loved. His favorite activity these days is drawing. He is a prolific artist and we have pages and pages of his work.

Hey! Where'd My Parents Go?

Tricia is off to Tokyo to meet up with brother Michael and sister-in-law Lisa, who will spend a few days there before going to Hiroshima and Kyoto, and then it's up north to visit us in scenic Akita, which will be the last hurrah for the Straits (and DeGraff) before leaving Japan for good. So with Tricia gone, it's just me and little junior from now through Sunday night (a group of students have taken to calling Jonas "Jason Junior" for some reason, which I like and am hoping becomes a trend. Tricia doesn't seem too wild about it). As was the case last time, people have reacted with shock and outrage that Tricia would leave us all by ourselves for so long. I calm their fears by telling them I'm an ace with a can opener, and that we have enough cat food to last us for weeks.

A couple of weekends ago we went to our local aquarium, GAO. Here is the evidence.





Did my best with the photos. Signs everywhere warned people not to use a flash, though we seemed to be in the minority of people following this rule. They must have missed the numerous drawings of a flashbulb with a giant X through it.




This was some sort of bizarre end-of-the-exhibit game where kids colored in a paper fish, which was then scanned into an impressive-looking computer. Then in the next room, the fish appeared on the screen where it took a virtual tour of the ocean. Allegedly, kids were able to control their fish during the tour by slamming the directional arrows as hard as they could. It was very weird and very Japanese. Kudos to Tricia for figuring out just exactly what was going on.

The kids' fish then shot up into the air and exploded in the night sky, showering the children with fish bits and horrifying all the parents.

Jonas before eating a spaghetti lunch.



Jonas after eating a spaghetti lunch.



Some fisherman way out there.






Jonas got a free balloon dog, which he immediately tried to eat.

Moments later, he was asleep.

Cage Free

 
Jonas graduated from his crib last week and was rewarded with the Japanese equivalent of his own bed – a spot on the floor with the rest of us. This became necessary as the process of him climbing up and out of his crib became a thrilling game for him, one that he enjoyed a little too much. At bedtime, Jonas would climb out, sit by the door and stick his hands through the opening between the door and the floor. He’d then wait for us to tell him to get back into his bed, which is when he would laugh and laugh and laugh. The sterner we were, the more he’d laugh. So, while Tricia was at yoga, I pulled all the toys out of his room, broke down the crib, pulled a futon into his room, left him in there with a handful of books and barred the door. Within about 20 minutes, he was asleep. It was a miracle.

 

And ever since then, he’s gone to sleep pretty easily. He probably was wondering what we were waiting for. Now if only we could get him to sleep in on the weekends.

We went to another baseball game over the weekend. My school won. Sunday's semifinal was rained out, which I didn't find out until I biked all the way to the stadium. I assume they'll make them up Monday and hold the final on Tuesday. I expect they'll let us out of school to go watch if they make the final. We spent an hour practicing cheers last week. I'll post those in action in the next couple of days. You haven't lived until you've heard We Will Rock You sung in Japanese by teenagers.
 
 

Rice Planting

On Fridays I teach at an agriculture high school. I was excited to learn about this assignment before moving to Akita, because I grew up visiting my Grandparents' dairy farm. I was even active in 4-H as a kid and in Future Farmers of America for one year of high school. So I was excited that I was able to participate in a little bit of Japanese farming - rice planting. Every year, the first year students spend a Friday afternoon planting rice. It seems that it is a tradition.

Here are the rice plants.


These students are planting the rice plants. Notice the standing water. All the rice fields have been flooded.



After the students left the rice fields, a teacher explained to me that last year people who live near the school's rice fields complained that the students did not do a good job of planting the rice. If you look carefully in the picture below, you can see straight machine-planted rows on the left and student planted rice on the right.


To avoid this problem this year, a teacher planted new plants on top of the student plants. Or the machine straightened the plants that were already there. I am not sure how it worked, but while he was doing this, he invited me to drive the rice planting machine. Unfortunately, in the pictures I have, I am only standing to the side. But, he did let me drive. I don't think my rows were as straight as his.



Here are some students washing their feet after standing in the muddy rice field.