First Day of School First Grade

William is ready for his first day of school! The camera was having problems fogging up because it came from the air conditioning out into the real world at 6:35 a.m. William's bus arrives at 6:42. That's a pretty early start for all of us!
He catches the bus to school. It is easier than trying to drive on base when ALL of the daily workers are trying to get on at the same time. He's still sporting that CARS backpack! I tried to get him to get a new one, but he insists it works just fine.

He is in Ms. Bailey's class. We lucked out, and he is in a class with a friend! Pierce and he get along really well. I wish they'd keep the kids together more here, just like in our small schools back home, but they get re-arranged every year.
After 4:00 homework is done, William gets TV time. He is sporting his favorite position on our new couch. I love it that Tim and I can sprawl out in the 'loungers.'

We were going to buy a hide-a-bed. But then, nobody comes to visit. So, we elected for our own comfort instead! Ha!

BUTTERFLY WEATHER

The first August I was here in Japan, it rained a lot. Heavy rains. It was muggy, but it kept it cooler. This year has been very sunny! One sprinkle day, and a few rains during the night. It is so hot, that even the bugs are being brave to get water!
It's in the shade, on the lip. This 'chyo-chyo' (butterfly in Japanese) is hangin' by the pool!
Now, I don't know if there's some cosmic humor in the fact that William is wearing his 'spiderman' shirt and shorts for swimming this last day of freedom before school starts next week! -August 27,2010

Star Wars Movie Marathon

There probably aren't many people who brag about 'laying around, watching movies all day,' but that what this blog is all about!

Tim and 2 co-workers decided that they were Star Wars fans enough to do all 6 episodes in one day. They would do it in story chronological order, not the order the movies were made in. The date was decided, and the food purchased. This is the before picture, early in the morning.

People said they'd drop by for a while, and a lot stayed for a large portion of it! We had so much fun. The only problem was, our air conditioner wasn't ready to support that many hot people in the small space. We had to get out the fans! The kind that blow air, not the ones watching the movie...
William had a blast. The kids had their own playtimes going on. I bought glow sticks and bracelets. They had to 'choose' which side they were on. The empire (red), or the resistance (blue). The boys just used them as small light sabers and for sword play.

One little boy came dressed as Han Solo. Too fun! This is William and Elysa playing with his lego robot.

I had fun doing the food. We had Ewok Eggs, Bantha Bacon and Empire Strikes Flapjacks for breakfast. First break, Gungan Water World fruits. Lunch was Separatist Sandwiches, Droid Doritoes, and Clone Doritoes (the ranch flavor). Snack was Wookie Cookies (chocolate no bake drop cookies with oatmeal and coconut). Dinner was Han burgers, last break had Yoda Soda floats (melon soda and icecream). I joked, 'May the FORK be with you!'
This is the after picture. Did I tell you about the drinking game? Can you tell who played it? I know, I know, -hic- the picture is fuzzy...

Rules: Any time C3P0 lost a body part, The Wookie yelled, Hans bragged about the Millennium Falcon, or Luke yelled, "Artoo..." you were supposed to take a drink. I think next time, we'll just go for losing the body parts. It was pointed out to me that when everyone is in the trash compactor, you'll get trashed. :)

Tim did an excellent job of keeping the movies on schedule. We started at 7 (breakfast), first movie at 7:30 a.m. and wrapped about about 10:30 p.m. The breaks were only 10 minutes long.

I teased Tim, since he fell asleep the last few minutes of the last movie, that it doesn't count... we've got to do it AGAIN!

Maybe when it comes out on Bluray...

Lizard Hunt

Yesterday I needed to do some shopping and William wanted to go swimming. Thankfully, Erin (our babysitter who needs money for school clothes) was available, and she took him to the local Japanese pool.

When I came home, the house smelled like bug spray. They'd gone out into our mosquito infested world, and hunted these -not so rare- lizards.

I was sooooo happy! William needs exposure to this type of thing. I'm thinking scouts in the future, but what a creative thing to do with a babysitting charge! How cool is that? And I didn't even have to touch it! Woo hoo!

Since we live on a walking path, we have lots of plants and bugs. This provides a lot of food and shelter for these creatures. We rarely go outside without seeing some.

Earlier this spring there were 2 large ones (one wasn't camera shy). Now I see lots of smaller ones.

Occasionally you'll see a dead one on the walking path, where someone has ridden over it on their bike.

I guess the lizard they captured in the hunt escaped, and in the melee, got stepped on. So, the lizard hunt doesn't have a happy ending. I suppose karma should be to send them out without bug spray next time...

William's Swim Test

Caroline has struggled trying to get William into swim lessons on the Yokosuka base. He had been plodding along in 2nd level, where they really start to swim, before summer. We spent July in Bremerton, and when we returned, she couldn't seem to get him into the classes on base. So, she signed him up for lessons in Ikego, which is a military housing base that is 40 minutes and $7.00 in tolls away. It was more than worth while. The instructors are really good, and the classes are small. In Yokosuka, the class size is 6 to 8 students, so each kid doesn't get a whole lot of attention. In Ikego, William had two other students in his class, and neither of them showed up for most of the classes, so he essentially got private lessons!

It was just what he needed to evolve from "thrashing in a forward manner" to "swimming." Our goal was to empower him to not drown while playing in or near water. HIS goal was to pass the swim test that would qualify him to play on the slides and swim alone in the deep end. He needed to swim two laps of the pool without touching the sides or stopping and then tread water for 30 seconds. Today was his first class in level 3 after graduating from level 2 and he successfully passed the dreaded swimming test! Yes!

Pacific Beach

For our last week in the States, we took a vacation to Pacific Beach. It is a Navy owned conference center and resort 20 minutes north of Ocean Shores. They have drive on beach access with very few people out there. Much better than the WalMart of beaches at Ocean Shores (Thanks Jodi, we like that one.)

Noel and Corky came out for a couple of days and brought William's cousins Aidan and Thayer. Noel started to confuse Aidan and me on the golf course since he is nearly as tall as me now. Quite a sprout for a 13 year old... Saw this poster in the arcade and had to take a photo.
Uncle Noel knows how to have fun at the beach (and it doesn't really involve the beach...) We did a lot of the fun stuff at Ocean Shores. We rented a Surrey to run around in. The guy that rented it helped us out by recommending just a half hour. We were plenty tired by then. Noel also got covered with brush and flowers. Although the Surrey is narrow enough to ride on the sidewalks, some of the bushes were encroaching...
Bumper cars...
Slick track... We did all the rides that had a passenger seat since William was not tall enough to drive. BTW, William rode with both Uncle Noel and Dad in the slick track carts and he said that Dad was a better driver... :-)
Ocean Shores has a first class mini-golf course with 2 x 18 hole courses...
...and a ride William was tall enough to drive himself... bumper boats!
A childhood friend of mine, Jodi (Foslien) Kunkel made the trek out with her daughter Bryn to visit. It was very nice to see them since I'd not seen her for a decade or more. William and Bryn are very close in age and had a wonderful time digging in the sand...

... and playing mini golf.
William has really learned to upstage Dad. 5 seconds after I made an INCREDIBLE hole in one on the mini-golf course, William proclaimed he had just lost his first tooth... :-)

We took a few videos of the week to save and share...

William's First 5K

Let me start off by telling you how lame I am. After taking up running for my health and to run with William, I apparently didn't truly understand the extent of "Start Slowly" that I needed to heed. Apparently starting off with your first run after 20 years with a 2.5 mile run is not "Starting Slowly". After a month of this every other day and stretching to a 5k is enough to start hurting. Enough and long enough after running to cause concern. I went to the Orthopedist who took an x-ray, saw nothing interesting, then sent me to get an MRI...
Stress fracture! Dang. Since it doesn't hurt to walk on it, he didn't insist on crutches or a cane, but it takes 6 to 8 weeks to heal and then I shouldn't attempt any impact type exercising for 4 months! Ugh!

Well, William had joined me for my last couple of runs before the prognosis, and he was completing 2.5 miles in 25 minutes with energy to spare. He desperately wanted to do a 5K run which would just be another 0.6 miles. But with me not able to run till November and base rules implying that he would need to be shaproned around the course, it was looking like he would have to wait a long while. But, the Yokosuka base has 5K runs a couple times a month, it seems, and the latest one was being attended by half a dozen people from work. I found one them that volunteered to escort William. Game On!

It was a very warm day at 8:30AM with a temperature of 82F and humidity at 68%. We made sure he was hydrated and Caroline was waiting along the way to give him water to drink and douse him with water. And, he was off!
Since I didn't need it, I let William wear my GPS watch. He forgot to start it until around the first bend and stopped it long into his cooldown, but you can generally see how he did:

And, 29 minutes and 20 seconds later, William crosses the line!


So, he has beat my best, and only, 5k time of 32:02. I can't wait until November to start running again...

They had several age categories. William was in the men's 18 and under category. We felt like that was a pretty brutal group to be in, but he ended up placing 2nd in his division! Way to go William!