Japanese Piano Teacher

The piano teacher comes to our house! Wow! Saito-san is a very nice lady who has travelled a bit in the states. She's a lot of fun.
At the end of lessons, there is a time for learning without music. Wm has to sing the note names she's playing, and echo her rythms. It's different, but I think there's value in it.

William loves piano. He occasionally doesn't want to practice the full 15 minutes, as he's already perfected the songs, and can rip right through them.

On one of his finger power exercises, she has him do it normal, staccato and with a particular rhythm. It's funny hearing her say, 'Staccat.' Usually in Japanese, you have to have a vowel ender, and thus it should be 'sta-caw-TOE'. Funny

NEW (to You) BIKE

My Japanese teacher was PCSing out and asked if I would like a bike. I said, 'Yes!' So, we went by and picked it up. William was so excited because it has GEARS!!! He was so funny. He would open windows in our house and peer out to look at it because it was so cool.

It also has a couple of lights, one with a charger, and it still has a basket!

It had a flat tire, so mom pumped it up. It worked for a few hours, then dad had to help fix the tube. The second time it went flat, Tim had William fix his own tube! It was so heart-warming to see the dad/son bond, and how patient Tim is with William while he learns skills that are useful in this life.
The wheels are much larger than his last one, but he sits low enough to easily put his feet down to balance.
This is his old bike. Not only is it small...
but the tread was GONE he'd ridden it so much! It was most definitely time for a new bike!

Last bit of School

When we got back to Japan, we had only a few weeks of school left. William's teacher, Ms. Bailey took the option of staying in the US, so her children could stay and finish the year with one less disturbance.

Our 3rd teacher of the year was Ms. Fryday. What a fun lady!

I thought this little egg as a planter thing was funny. William only made one of the eggs have a face.
"Know Your Life Cycles" may never hit Broadway, but it was a very cute play. Some of the kids got to ham it up and it was pretty funny. I came braced to endure an evening of mediocre performance, and was truly impressed!

They did it with Ms. Davidson's class. My friend's son is on the left as Master of Ceremonies!
William got to be a plant (notice the morning glories around him for a costume). Alexandra, the neighbor girl is in orange and is a butterfly.
And William's other role was as a fish. I got to help with these. I love glue, paper and cardboard! William made his, as did Anthony and Carl. I wish you could see the scales on the goldfish. They are backwards!
Then, we had the music presentation for the year. William loves performing!
Usually these things are pretty long, but with other teachers not coming back from the evacuation, it was only their class and short. Whew.
Ms. Fryday's class.
They had a bowling field trip. I went along to punch in the names and get kids started. Some of the kids were pretty good! But they cheat (with the 'bumpers' those guard rails for the gutters).
The very last day, they sang their classroom songs to us. William was star pupil for the day, thus in the rocking chair up front.

We're looking forward to second grade next year!

Pressurized Pancakes

Eno Brad found this at the Safeway. Pressurized Pancakes! We were a little concerned about what might happen.
Tim figures this means that if you make a mess, there's no clean-up required!
So, we took all protections against the can blowing up and causing casualties.
You just can't be careful enough when there's a breakfast food involved!
Looks like a funnel cake.
But still tastes like a pancake.

We love trying new things, whether on the other side of the Pacific or at home!

All people involved in the pancake making evolution survived with all limbs intact. We'll see how we fare on the Fourth of July.