Hannah's Graduation

Last week Hannah graduated from elementary school!
The ceremony was nice and not overly long.  Hour and half in the gym and thirty minutes in the classroom after. The speeches were short and to the point, no old grandfather waffling on forever this time!
The weather however was awful, rain and wind.  Mikey drove David and I up to the school gate but we had to walk from the gate to the gym. Not far but the back of my dress got soaked and I had to sit in it for the whole morning, rather yuk!  David took photos for me! With my eye still bad I never know if the camera is out of focus or its just my eye!  He got some nice shots until the battery died!

Hannah dressed up for graduation

Hannah waiting, her friend yawning

Receiving her diploma

With her teacher and friend, at the end the sun came out

We have to finish sorting out her elementary school stuff, pack away all the things she doesn't need any more and make space for the junior high school stuff.

Hannah's hat and bookbag have now retired.

For me it is going to strange not dealing with elementary school anymore.  I've had a child in elementary school for the past 17 years.  Really the end of an era.  I feel old! While Hannah was still an elementary school student I felt younger!  Now I have one kid in junior high school, one in high school, one at university and one working.  Not a young mother at all!

weather,eye doctors and brass bands

The weather here has been interesting. It really can't decide if it is spring or not!  Two week ago Sunday was so beautiful, sunny, bit of wind and perfect temperatures!  Mikey managed to trim the trees outside and I gave the bathroom a good scrub.  I started to plan spring cleaning.  It felt good to be able to move around the house with freezing. Japanese houses don't have central heating so we only warm the room we are using, so going room to room is rather unpleasant when it gets cold!  But the weather that Sunday was a false start to spring, two days later it snowed!  Not a lot and it didn't stick but felt like winter had returned.  Since then it has warmed up until yesterday was up 22C.  but from today it will be cool again!

Magpies in the snow, they are building a nest in one of our trees
 

I finally went back to the eye doctor.  I kept putting it off but no choice.  I will have the operation on April 23rd.  One thing that I was very worried about was the local anesthetic.  I know for teeth you get an awful injection but for eyes?  I was having nightmares about this!  Turns out that my worry was for nothing, the doctor uses eye drops.  Now I need to learn the Japanese for numb!  Always learning something new! 

Last Sunday Mikey, Christopher, David and I went to a concert by one of the local high school's brass band club.  My student was playing the part of Jasmin from Aladdin.  There were three parts to the concert, first was classic music, the Aladdin, then "It's only Rock and Roll".  The whole thing was very professional, the teacher really got into the spirit of things dressing up and dancing with the kids!
I really enjoyed the afternoon!

This time of the year there are a lot of beginnings and endings.  Kids are graduating and going onto the next phase of their lives.  One of the first students we had here has graduated high and moves to go to university this April.  We prepared a little gift for her.  She loves "Jackie Tea", the way I have my tea, milk and sugar.  So I bought a basket and put in a couple of cups, some tea and cocoa and a gift coupon for books!  She was really pleased with it!

Saying Goodbye

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our New Car

New to us that is!  We finally got a good deal on a used car.  My husband's friend introduced us to somebody who had a car shop, he is semi retired but still knows about cars! He showed Mikey an auction site and recommended 3 or 4 cars, Mikey went and chose a car but this guy did the bidding and got us a car under our budget!  He took the car to his place and replaced a couple of things, for free. All in all a very good deal and a very nice car!

Nice, new and shiny car!

Hannah is very busy at school. This is her last month at elementary school, so getting ready for graduation and junior high school.  Today's homework was math that she will be doing in junior high school.  She seems to know what she is doing, I hope so because math is the one thing I really struggle with!  She made a nice bag for me in her home economics class the other week!

Hannah with  the bag she made

Hannah has a very interesting way of explaining things!  Yesterday she was very tired and actually fell asleep after school for about half an hour!  Later in the evening she asked to watch one of her DVDs.  I said I thought  she was too tired to watch anything.  Her answer was rather unique.  She said it's like when you eat dinner and too full but then there is cake you can eat!!  Clever answer, so of course she got to watch her DVD!