Excerpts from the boys' writing journals...

September has come to an end, and so did the first full month of school. The boys each brought home writing samples they worked on this month. I took pictures and added them here so you could enjoy:

I have no idea when this happened, but Xan obviously remembers it in detail.

This happened at Grandma Peggy's two or three summers ago.

Molly has been with us for a week at this point. Xan is working on understanding time.

Will had to write a "tall tale" as his class assignment. This is Page 1.

Page 2

Page 3 with illustration.

The boys were featured on the front page of the Iwakuni Approach, the base's weekly newspaper, last week. They were at the Kids's Day event two Saturdays ago. Xan has a terrible look on his face, and Will's back is to the camera, but they are there, with a couple of kids from their karate class.

Sorry this is on its side... it will not cooperate.

 Will is very excited about his class' garden. He brought home a couple of small green bell peppers and two small eggplants. Luckily I had a recipe in the South Beach Diet book that required those ingredients. I took pictures before and after baking the veggies, as well as a copy of the recipe and sent it to Will's teacher at Will's request. His teacher was thrilled and then shared the recipe with the rest of the school. Here are the photos. The entire family was surprised that we liked eggplant. Of course, we can;t find any at the commissary...

Many of you have expressed an interest in learning more about Molly. Here is a video of her learning to use her Wodent Wheel, a contraption that is safe than an average exercise wheel and has the added bonus of a sandpaper liner under the mesh she runs on to automatically trim her nails, which grow long and sharp very quickly.

The Gi is here!

Will's karate gi finally arrived! He is now official!




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The Glass Village

I took a tour to the Glass Village in Hiroshima Friday. Click here for the scoop.

Busy week of odds and ends...

This week was anything but dull. They kids and I got ready for Rodney's arrival home from 29 Palms (he should be home late tomorrow - Sunday - night). Will has been selected to be a reporter for the school news show on Fridays, so he has an hour-long meeting on Mondays after school. I picked Xan up form school this first Monday, even though he was eager to walk home by himself. While the base rules say that he cannot be left alone at our house by himself, he can walk home from school or be on a playground by himself for 2 hours. Something about these rules just don't add up, but that's the Marine Corps for you.

I am working with some other people on base to get an organization started for home-based business owners - everything from crafters like myself, to Pampered Chef consultants to accountants. Our first meeting is Tuesday at lunch, so I wanted to get the news out across base. I figured the best way to do that is via the base radio station and newspaper. Once we got there, the Gunnery Sergeant in charge gave us a tour of the studio, and Xan got to sit at the Armed Forces Network news desk on the sound stage.

Later that night, I brought homeMolly. If you haven't heard how we acquired her, read this blog post. The kids love her, Rodney is tolerating the idea of her, and she has made real progress with bonding with us in just a few days. In fact, she ate watermelon while she was out with us last night. Eating around us means she is feeling more comfortable with us. This is a photo Will took:

Here is a YouTube video of Molly on the move.

The kids have been busy with homework, especially Will, who seems to have atl east an hour of it every night (I wonder if they are accomplishing anything in class!). Xan's homework, so far, has been very easy for him, so he is done in a matter of minutes. He feels like he should be doing something while his brother is doing homework, I so I set him up on Khan Academy and he's been working through the math levels. Here is Will teaching Xan how to read analog clock:

Thursday, they had karate. Here is a video of them playing the "square" game.

I've also been keeping the kids busy cleaning their room and bathroom before their Dad gets home. They weren't thrilled,but they got to go to the high school's homecoming game afterward. They saw the homecoming parade yesterday after school, which went about a square mile around the base's "downtown." They collected a lot of candy and Xan really impressed the football team on one of the floats when he caught the candy they threw at him one-handed.

Side note: There are two black Explorers that I see driving around on base. It makes me miss mine. :( But it'llbe waiting for me in Grandma and Grandpa's garage when I get back.

That makes 4...

Will lost yet another tooth. That makes it 4 since we moved to Japan. He now only has four teeth in the top front followed by huge holes.



The boys have been keeping busy, mostly watching Real Steel, the movie about robot boxing. So, with the help of Lego Bionicles and a WWE wrestling ring, they were able to play out their own plot while they watched the movie.



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Good-bye, Marble...

Marble at the beginning of July, right before we headed for Illinois.

Aunt Vicky Skyped the news today: Marble Fudge passed over the Rainbow Bridge at the age of 14. It was heartbreaking leaving her behind as we embarked on the international chapter of our lives, but she was in great hands with Aunt Vic and Uncle Earl in Illinois. A huge heartfelt thank you goes out to them - especially since they just lost their own canine furkid, Toby just a couple of months ago.

My hearts breaks again at the loss of my "daughter," the puppy who loved to be inside with her people, thought turkey slices were the best thing since sliced bread, and liked to play "tag," grumbling at Rodney until he got off the couch and played. I miss you fuzzy girl. Give Slade and Ripley a lick for us.

Sparring and Scrapbooking

Here is video of Will sparring in karate class Thursday. Only the older kids in the class got to do it. Xan was bummed.
Will Sparring

I have found time in my office/scrap room this week. This was a "pending" to-do list board until it was damaged in the move. I'm doing small projects like these to warm up the creative juices for some larger projects I have planned. I have also applied through base legal for permission to have a home-based business. I'm have started a blog just for that (because I need more blogs) called Tenaciously Remembered. There won't be a lot of text, mostly pictures of projects I have available for sale.
Sidenote: This mini album below was one I started 6 years ago. I finally finished it!

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Bowling and (sort of) black eyes...

We kept busy this weekend... I had spouse events to attend, for starters. Check out the public blog for details on that. As for the home front:

Xan got an A+ on his first spelling test for the year. I hope the trend continues.

He continued the A+ effort by beating both Will and I bowling.

Video of the boys bowling

However, the A+ effort diminished a bit today during Karate class. He manged to knee himself in the eye. Fortunately, he already has a scar there, so no harm, no foul.

Video of the boys at karate today

Tonight's Karate class

Will got to lead the class in warm-up exercises today. Here he is leading the jumping jacks:


Later they played a karate version of Simon Says. Here is a video of how they did:

Sensei Says

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Damage and injuries...

If you haven;t lately, be sure to read my public blog. You can see photos of what our apartment looks like with out household goods in it:

Give me a holiday weekend...

Some items of note that were not on the public blog...

Although most of you already know from Facebook, Xan had a quick trip to the ER on base last week. He fell off the monkey bars on the playground and hurt his arm. Fortunately, it was not broken, and he was exhausted enough to fall asleep while waiting for the x-ray tech to arrive.

Those of you who know me well, know that I do not criticize grade school teachers. They have a job I could never have the patience for. However, when me child brings home a homework assignment fit for a pirate, I have a problem:

Simple quote marks before the 'All and after the 'me' would have made this much more grammatically palatable.

 I have only found a handful of items damaged by the move so far and most of the apartment is unpacked. Of course, four of these items were lamp shades, and you know what a struggle it has been for me to find some. So, I am going to claim them as damaged but I taped them up and started using them. Even if we do get full retail value to replace them, I'll never find any here.

This thick plastic glass was split down the side because the movers shoved its mate in it to stack them in the box.  Too bad this could have been easily avoided.

 In other news:

Japan seems to be great for Will's tooth loss. He lost a third tooth yesterday. That;s another 100 yen for  him.

Here is Xan enjoying WWE Smackdown while he plays with  his WWE Rumblers figures.

Will fell while playing Nerf wars two days ago and gave himself a lovely bruise/road rash injury. It's too big for a standard Band-aid and the tape won't stay on well. Daiso to the rescue! I found this elbow net in the first aid section of the daiso. It works great!