Sean's school was invited to participate at a kindergarten festival yesterday. Sean's school was one of three to play in the opening Eisa dances. Sean is up on the stage in the back corner, so the second from the left.

Well, we survived another Sports Day with Sean’s school, just barely. Sean had a great time, his class did an awesome eisa set

Catie got to do a little race, here she is lined up at the starting line, I couldn’t take pictures and yell at her to run though…

Sean was in a relay race

There was a gymnastics routine, that’s the best I can describe it,

he was very excited that he was paired with his friend Evenie and got to lift her legs up onto his shoulders.
And here’s more

And the highlight-that’s Sean balancing up on top

This last performance was Sean’s least favorite, and if you look at that blurred face of the girl down the line, she wasn’t to happy either. It was a series of songs from the Sound of Music. The accompaniment by the snare drums made it sound like a rifle range though.

There was also a huge tug of war for all the parents, and a fun race with the parents and Sean’s class, that a parent and student were paired up in a set of rubber tubes, and had to run under a net, get out of the tubes, go through a ladder (or over) , run to a tray of candy in rice flour, that you had to get a piece out with your teeth, and then run to the finish. Catie ran along behind us, and broke into tears when we couldn’t do it again (she wanted more candy). Unfortunately, the tears didn’t really stop after that, and continued through the final dance that I was supposed to do with Sean. Unfortunately, this alway seems to be the case and I can see that Sean get’s disapointed when Catie interferes with what’s supposed to be individual parent/child time for him. I just never know which functions will have that at the end… But overall, it was a pretty good time, the weather was perfect, not too hot with a nice breeze, and Catie and Sean held up until almost the end.

I know it’s been awhile for a post, and since sports day is tomorrow (ugh) I better post something now. The job was worse this week than the week before, so this will be the deal breaker week, if they can’t agree to make some changes I’ll have to quit. The extra paycheck is nice, but not worth the stress, frustration and anger it’s giving me. So here are some pictures from last week. Friday I let Sean play hookey from school and we went to Aviva’s house so she could show us all the pictures on her big screen tv. The kids had a great time playing there, basically being monkeys climbing all over the furniture and me, and playing in her daughters room. Then we went to dolphin park, which was right in her neighborhood. Sean and Catie loved it….There was a zip line

a roller slide that was just the right size

slides

a pedal power merry go round

and some interesting swings.

After the park, I took the kids to a neighborhood restaurant that had gotten rave reviews. Unfortunately, we got there after a table of four had order two plates of food each, so the food took a very long time to come. Sean begged me to promise that I’d never take him there again. Then it was back to the car, via a stop at the playground for icecream from the vending machine. So at least Aviva’s house and the park were a hit for the day.

That was the comment I got from Catie on Sunday. Sunday we did two special things. Sunday morning we went to the children’s museum inside the zoo. Of course they both had a good time…

They spent so much time in the museum, that they only had time for lunch, no petting zoo, before we had to head home for Catie’s nap.

That afternoon, after Catie’s nap, we headed up to Ishikawa for the annual island wide ShiShi-mae festival. Remember them, I’ve written about them before, how Sean and Catie are scared to death of them. Sean has decided that since they are only people in costumes, they aren’t scary. So after much discussion, Catie agreed that they are people in costumes and you don’t need to be scared of them. Well, I had my timing wrong, and we got there long before the festival started. I guess I was excited that we actually got to go this year. So we walked around the park, and the kids were very excited to find some somewhat friendly stray cats

then we moved along to the stadium where there was a baseball game going on. Sean was interested in the game for a few minutes as I explained what was going on, but Catie just had a grand time singing and dancing in the stands, as you can see…

We got to see the people and costumes as they were waiting for the festival to get underway

There were some really beautiful ShiShimae. The group with this one were amused how Sean and Catie each walked up to carefully touch this one. Then one of the teenage boys put the head on and jumped towards Catie and Sean. Sean was terrified and ran, and Catie shrieked and grabbed on to my leg!
Once the festival started, Sean repeatedly asked to go home because he was scared, but Catie was perfectly fine. She intermittently was dancing, trying to imitate some of the karate demonstrations,

and singing her own songs. Unfortunately, it was a school night, so we only got to stay for a few performances, but it really was a good time, and maybe next year there will be two parents to put children to bed, so we can stay a little later.

Life and the new job is really hectic and somewhat stressful right now, with no training regarding what I’m supposed to be doing. I was told to go back and look at the previous provider’s charts to see what to do. As you can guess, I am really thrilled with that kind of training. Hopefully I can find some better guidance to help with the training issue, and hopefully I will get better at making sure everyone has what they need for the day before we go out the door. Today, Catie was without her pink blankets at daycare, which meant no nap (she was talking to the blanket that Talonda tried to substitute, saying’You’re not pink blanket’ as she was trying to fall asleep) and I forgot Sean’s piano bag with his books for the second week in a row. I know it will get better, it’s just really hectic right now….