HALLOWEEN KITTY

All four classes at O's kindergarten wore different costumes and went trick or treating the Friday before Halloween.   As the art teacher I helped the older kids make their costumes (monsters, spiders and pumpkins) but had a wonderful surprise to see my little black cat walk down the stairs.

A CANDLE FOR YOU

This one's for you E.  I know in my heart it will go well tomorrow but I am still freaking out!  Smooch.

LOLLYPOPS

I love these old ducks.  I wouldn't have picked them as lollypop fans. And why do they look so grumpy?

HEAT, HEAT, GO AWAY

So spring has begun for friends and family in NZ and there is a chill in the air for friends in the US..  SO WHEN IS MY COOL WEATHER STARTING??  We are still having record highs of 35-37 degrees and it doesn't look to be letting up.  Is it too much to ask to want to wear a cardi?
I can't even remember the last time it rained..  I thought it was on its way when O and I spent the morning at the pool, but the clouds soon past.

Oh, and I found out from the doctor today that I have a bad form of tonsillitis that could turn into scarlet fever!  It is highly contagious which does not bode well for me working with children.  Oh dear.

MY MORNING WALK

I have decided to get off my butt and go walking every morning.  I drop O off at Kindy and head out from there.  It is still crazy hot in Hiroshima with the average high this week being 37 degrees but there are a few good routes to walk either by the river, through the peace park or through the city.  Lets hope I stick to it!

FACES

PEACE

OH HAPPY DAY

SUMMER PROJECTS

Here are a few of my latest projects.

Making a stretchy cover for our new beanbag:  It was difficult to find a beanbag in Japan in the first place and even worse trying to find a fun, cute and practical cover so voila!  The original cover for this had little to no stretch which really took the fun out of melting into the bag when you sat down so I wanted something comfy and flexible.  I used thickish t-shirting fabric and sewed all the seams with bias tape as my machines don't work well with stretch fabric.  It worked a treat so I highly recommend this method.

Making a duck themed congratulatory sign for the lovely Shinos surprise baby shower:  Baby showers are not a Japanese custom (and only fairly recently a Kiwi custom) so it was wonderful to see her Japanese friends enjoying the games prepared by Erin the professional Canadian.  I had no clue either and had to look up tutorials on how to make a diaper cake.

Stripey art piece: what to do with long pieces of old wood and a large empty wall space??  I penciled the stripes on the wood so they lined up along the 3 boards, painted each plank individually but so the correct colours were aligned, left them plain for months while I got busy doing other things then recently painted the window detail on to finish the piece.  I copied the picture from a Japanese childrens book a few years ago but cannot find the book title or author anywhere.  Please let me know if you recognize it.

Note: if I were to do this again I would leave a few stripes unpainted to show the wood.  Unfortunately I had already used a white primer when I thought of this.  Bummer.

A TRIP TO THE ZOO

I'm not a fan of zoos but was interested to see how O liked it on his second trip and with Grandma and Granddad visiting from NZ.  The first time we went he was more interested in the road cones and pebbles on the paths than actual animals.  As far as I went the crocodile still freaked me out and I may have B's fear of snakes now too..

UJINA FIREWORKS

Ma and Pa are in town so we ventured to the humongous fireworks display at Ujina Port, Hiroshima.  We carried our picnic through the crowds (420,000 people) to find a spot by the sea..

WAITING ON THE LANDING

AHH, KIDS

Quote of the day goes to a 5 year old Japanese girl who I ate lunch with.  We were discussing in English the differences in our french fries.  She was happy to get extra long fries while mine were very short.  She then exclaimed without a hint of sarcasm "And mine are fat.. like my Mom!". 

Shot of O this morning with his breakfast (banana skin) on his head..

WALK HOME

I actually paid money to see Sex And The City II on Saturday.  I don't have much to say about the movie (although it produced the best bad reviews I have ever read and if you are a bit delicate don't click on the link) but I did have a great night out with the girls.  I ended up having to walk home from the train station with heels in hand as they had locked my bike in for the night.