Let's play catch up!

I know. I'm bad.  No updates in awhile.  I'm so spoiled with facebook.

So today marks my 5 month mark for living in Iiyama! Time has flown by oh so fast...In less than 2 months I'm going to have to decide if I'm going to stay another year! And it hasn't even really started to snow!

So much has happened since my last entry....

11/5 The welcome party was a hit! So much fun drinking with old men and my buddies! This is a picture of Kim, my supervisor Fujiki-san, me and Elissa! 

November-I enjoyed a nature walk with Alaina to see the 紅葉(kouyou), the leaves changing colors in the fall.  

November also meant my bi-annual urine sample health check.   I had to pee in that paper "cup" (more like an envelope), suck it up into the little tube (compare size to AAA battery) and drop it in a little box placed on the floor in the middle of the teacher's room. Weird.

11/11-Got invited to watch the middle school English demo lesson, as well as the after party! Here I am with my idol, Yumoto-sensei, Miyazaki-sensei, and Elissa!  Elissa had a really good time!!!!  

Thanksgiving--I made stove top green bean casserole! It was super yummy!!!!  

11/28--Karaoke for 6 hours...in the stage room!!!

My Christmas card photo shoot. lol Thanks, Mitzi!!!  This is the picture I sent out before I cropped it.

12/6-12/10--my favorite lesson i've done so far...the shopping lesson!

12/17--Iiyama gang dinner @ Trois Cinq (Surge was closed...again) before Kim left for the waaarrrm islands.  

12/19--Christmas caroling in Nagano, here is a link of us on the news!!!  We sang at the station twice and then once at a nursing home.  Patty did a great job organizing it!!!

Christmas at school entailed lots of hand trees and enough ornaments to make it look like Christmas threw up, ate it up, and threw up again...

Christmas eve potluck dinner with the girls sans Kim plus Mitzi' s neighbor Yuriko-san.

Christmas day--fishing!!!!!!!!  Crazy cool!!!! We went out to Nojiriko (lake) and fished inside a boat that had holes in the floor.

Lots of other things in between, but these are all things that  I can look back on and smile about!  Starting tomorrow I'm going back to Kanagawa to spend time with the mom and family for New Years and meet up with bff Masami!!!! 

Happy New Year, everyone!