April's 12 on 12

Sorry. I have been missing in action for a few days now. I have been working on our taxes and trying to find a job back home. But I will try to get a few blogs posted this weekend.



As for this month's 12 on 12, I hope you enjoy.

In May, there is a holiday called "Children's Day". It is mainly for boys who are 5 this year. There are many decorations that the maternal grandparents purchase for their grandsons. This is one of them.

It is a samurai suit complete with sword and bow & arrows. Some are very colorful, like this one.

And some of them are mainly gold or silver. They are very expensive. They range $500-$1000. I would really like to get RJ one, but I am not forking out that kind of dough. Plus they are very heavy so the shipping cost would be outrageous. Mitch and I settled on a small samurai helmet the other day and I think it will be perfect for him.

Another decoration that we will begin to see many of are these flying carp. I am not sure of the reason, but you will usually see 3. One mom, one dad and one boy. I have no idea if you add more boys(carp) if you have more than one son. I like how colorful they are.

This is a picture of the typically Japanese elementary school backpack. They are all the same size, but they come in different colors. RJ scored one the other day so when we get back to America, be sure to ask him to see it. They sell for about $200-$300 in the store brand new (don't worry, we didn't pay for RJ's)

Since we are talking about school...how many greyhound size buses does it take to transport 281 students to their school trip??
apparently 7, one for each class of 40 students. The 1st graders (10th grade high school) went on a study camp trip this past weekend. I showed up at school to these buses in the parking lot waiting for the students to board them.
These are the 1st graders waiting to be told they can get on their bus.

Here is another picture of the staff room. I took this one last month before they switched desks (remember the new school year started on April 8th). I was hoping to take an after picture to show everyone how they get cleaned up, but the only clean desks are those that belong to the new hires....I guess Janelle shouldn't feel so bad now about her messy desk....

Have I mentioned spring is here...

I thought these tulips were too beautiful to pass up. I get to see these on my way to work everyday.

The other day, Sara came home from school looking like a real girl!!
Faviola (her teacher) put her hair in a pig tail. Doesn't she look cute. I went out and bought more hair ties so hopefully daddy with make her look cute in the morning!!

This was RJ fascinating find this month. At the vending machine restaurant, he received this with his dessert. It is a paper spoon.
It comes flat, so you have to fold it to make it work.
He thought it was great!

The other day, we were wondering around the 100 yen store (similar to the $1 store) and came across this.... Hey, Uncle Steve, can we get these in America?? We did not try them...maybe we will go back and get some.

I hope you enjoyed this month's 12 on 12...only 3 more of these left...got any requests?