Mazda Museum Field Trip with Delaney

I agreed to chaperone the 4th grade field trip to the Mazda Museum, partly because Delaney begged me to, and partly because I had never been there.  It was a neat place.  We got to tour part of the Mazda plant that makes the cars.  No photos were allowed at the most interesting place though!  We got to watch the assembly line production and it was pretty impressive.  But they wouldn't let you take pictures there.  So you will have to go see it yourself.

The Mazda Museum in hiroshima.

Delaney had to draw a picture of a car she saw.  This was her work. (She thought it was all so boring. But I loved it!)

The very first automobile build by Mazda! So cute!

Super sporty race car.

They had these interesting signs all over, but no one else wanted to read them all.

Delaney's feeling on the museum.

Although when they were finally allowed to actually touch something, she was a little more excited.

Then we went to the Hiroshima Peace Park for lunch.

My group of kids chose to sit on the steps by the river right across from this.  Fortunately, none of them actually fell in the river, although one came close and several had wet feet.

This kid!

This kid got to go to the dentist.  I thought it wouldn't be bad since it was a re-filling on a tooth.  Nope.  The filling had cracked or the tooth had cracked and it needed extensive excavating.  It was a longer and more unpleasant process than I had anticipated.  Rylee was a trooper, even though she hated the laughing gas and hated having her mouth open and hated the poking and noise.

I took her out for donuts, which she managed to eat with numb lips. And she needed a little snuggle time before she went back to school.  But I was really proud of her.

A bit later was an optometrist visit. She talked me into an ice cream date after her eye doctor appointment.  She has to patch her good eye for 2 hours each day.  Not fun.  And awkward when people get all concerned and wonder if she stabbed herself or injured it somehow.  But she has been phenomenal about doing it.  I don't even have to remind her except on weekends,

Anyway, at the eye doc appointment, he said her not-strong eye is improving!  Yay!  The problem is that her left eye is borderline legal blind.  And it is always in that way.  So her brain has tuned it out.  Now she has glasses, but her brain is so use to ignoring that eye that it doesn't use it or process info from it.  Thus the patching, to train the brain to use the left eye.  If she doesn't do this, then she will never have decent vision in that eye.  Right now I think she's at 20/60 WITH glasses!

She's a good kid and a cute one and I like her!

Beach Day!!

We decided it had been too long since we had a Mandatory Family Fun Day.  So on Memorial Day we joined all the other Americans and went to the Beach.  We went to Oshima Island to the nice beach there. Which turned out to only be mostly nice.

In the car, heading out on our grand adventure!

It is a long drive- just over an hour if you aren't lame like me and get us lost.  It is a very pretty drive, fortunately!

This is where we were suppose to go, but I sent us somewhere else first and we tacked an extra 30 minutes onto the drive.  Oops.  We did get there, just not as early as we planned.

We picked a spot to dump our stuff and the girls waded right on in.

Marian is ready to go!

So is Rylee.

Callie is in, but Delaney is realizing that the water is COLD!!

Josh opted for a nap in the shade.  I love this pop up shade tent!

Dan was brave and headed in.  I don't know if I mentioned how cold the water was!  I googled it later and it said the water temp was about 65 degrees.  It was freakishly cold!

You see that the cold did not stop the kids at all!

They had a marvelous time.

We enjoyed our gorgeous spot by the wall.  And it is fortunate we picked this spot.  The way the water was flowing, we had a nice area.  I did brave the frigid temps and went swimming out.  Further down the beach I ran into jellyfish.  There were about 3 different kinds, from the clear blobby kind to the 3 foot long scary ones.  I may have freaked out a bit and splashed like mad back to the shore.

The beach was fun as well.  And it was jellyfish-free.

Rylee got buried in the sand.

Josh only got half buried in the sand!  And by sand, I mean small rocks.

Delaney braving the cold.

Callie wanted to jump off the wall behind her.  She did not though.  I think she warmed up and didn't want to freeze again.

This was the beautiful stretch of beach.  An at the far end the sand had a few jellyfish carcasses along it.  Super funny-- April and I walked all the way to the end.  There was a group of Japanese boys playing with the washed up jellyfish, the big brown kind with the long danglers. The boys were throwing pieces at each other.  We asked them if the jellyfish was poisonous.  They looked at us and one of them said, "poisonous, yes!"  And then he grabbed and threw the jellyfish at another kid. Okay then.

This kind was hard to see in the water. Fortunately, it is either not poisonous or not a full jelly.

Close up.

I'm sad the picture does not show the true beauty of the beach.  The water was a gorgeous color.

Another jellyblob.  It looked like a giant contact lens.

Rylee had a good time.

It was a good day and they had a lot of fun.  It was a quiet ride home!

Yanai FlowerLand and the Sweets Factory

 I was feeling like I needed to do more cultural stuff, and they had a trip to Yanai FlowerLand and a sweets shop tour.  My friend April talked me into signing up for it with her.   I really just wanted to do the sweets factory, but I signed up.

It took me way too long to realize my camera was blurry because the surface was smudgy.  Oops.

It wasn't the season for the best blooms, but the flowers blooming were gorgeous! 

So beautiful. 

The roses were prettier before re noticed all the large bees! 

We had our picnic lunch by the roller slide. 

We hiked through the woods and saw this little guy. 

Then we made a "Moss Ball".  This is my buddy Abel, Aprils boy.  And I know you are wondering what a Moss Ball is! 

This is a Moss Ball. We took the plants out of their container, then wrapped them in muddy soil, squishing it into a circular shape, then covered it in moss.  We wrapped thread all around the moss till it all stayed put, and viola... a moss ball!  You put it on a plate to enjoy, and when it gets dry you soak it in water for 30 minutes and then put it back on your display plate.

 Photobomb by my next door neighbor Andrew.

Selfie with my Moss Ball.  I just like to say Moss Ball.  It makes me feel like I have a lisp. 

A pretty cake at the sweets factory.   

Watching chocolate logs go through.  (I bought some of these after and they were rich and yummy!)

It was fun to hear the tour guide explain how they make candy with seasonal themes.  Since it is coming  up on summer, they will make candies that encourage a feeling of lightness and embrace images like water, and things that make you feel cooler.  The candies were really pretty and I have no idea what they were made of! 

Pancakes are not really a thing people make for breakfast in Japan, but they are very popular in prepackaged form.  These are the little pancakes before they put fillings in the middle and make a pancake sandwich. Fillings in the middle might be cream or bean paste or other odd stuff. 

Free samples at the end.  And then I bought way too many goodies and indulged in them!

Tidbits

 Random photos on my phone that may or may not be worth noting!

The gorgeous sunset one evening.  And this picture does it no justice!

The beautiful new stove I got!  Yes, it is my second new stove.  The last "new" stove wasn't really new, and it was wonky from the beginning.  I finally realized that the top coil never heated, so everything took longer to cook and it took 30 minutes to just preheat.  I felt bad complaining about it, so I never did.  When Housing came to do our pre-move inspection, I mentioned it, and the next week, they brought me this!  So that's great..... but now I have to keep it clean for another 3 weeks!   

We doggie-sat this little cutie.  Marshmallow's family left for the long weekend and Callie was in charge of him.

 

Levi had a great time playing with him, but was exceedingly jealous that Marshmallow got to get on the couch, where Levi is not allowed.

Fun by Delaney.

And this is my end of year teacher gifts for a couple of the teachers.  Made out of kimonos! 

A different version.And I have to figure out how to finish it off.  I tried framing one, but it only works (easily!) if they fit, and I'm not good enough to make the size right!  I like quilting it better.  It works best of I iron lightweight pelon on the back of it first to hold the slippery kimono fabric in place.