Busy Week!!

Wow!! This last week has been busy! The girls started school again this past week and so far they really seem to like it! Hannah started 4th grade and Elliot started 1st. Both girls LOVE their teachers and have made some friends already. It's really nice that all of their friends live here on base with us, so it's easy to have play dates and such. Here are the girls all dressed up and ready for their first day.

 

Another big thing that happened last week, is that Josh got promoted from Lieutenant to Lieutenant Commander! His ceremony was September 1st and we enjoyed it very much. We started out with lunch with the rest of the wardroom and then proceeded to the conference room for the ceremony. We had our great friends the Bieszke's come show their support and also had the Chaplain and his wife come to say a prayer for Josh as he takes this next step. Friday evening we celebrated by going out for sushi!! Here are a few pictures of the ceremony.

Josh taking the oath to defend our country

Me pinning on his oak leaf

   We had a busy Labor day weekend as well. Friday night was spent out with the Bieszke's eating sushi, Saturday we played cards and ate appetizers with the Brownlee family and Sunday night we had over the Soria's, a new couple in town . We cooked out and played more cards!! Monday night we had an impromptu luau with the Stone family, who is from Hawaii. We grilled out on the habachi under the gazeebo, while some friends played the ukulele and sang some hawaiian songs. The girls and their friend, Trystan, got dressed up in hawaiian dresses and danced for us too! It was a great weekend and I'm happy we've made some new friends! 

  This week promises to be as busy as last week. Today I went to a conversational Japanese class in hopes to learn enough Japanese to speak to people out in town.  This is what I learned today. "Watashi wa Abbey desu." My name is Abbey. I also learned, "O-namae wa?" What is your name? This one cracks me up cause it's so long for three words... "Watashi wa anata wo aishite imasu." This means, "I love you."  I also learned that when you are meeting someone you should also be formal in addressing them. So, if I were to meet your mother for the first time  and her name was Judy, I would call her Judy sama, or Judy san. Sama is the utmost respectful, so maybe if I met the presidents wife, or a leader in the goverment and San is for greeting people older than you or your superior at work. They  are sort of like Mr or Mrs. For girls under 12, you would use chan after their first name. So, Elliot would be Elliot chan, which means, "little" Elliot. For boys under 12 you use kun. So Joshua Kun (little Joshua) and then Joshua Chan after he turns 12, until he reachs 18. There are A LOT of rules to follow in the Japanese language! 

   I'm also volunteering at Thrifty Treasures, which is a thrift store on Main Base. I will be sorting the donations and putting them out on racks and such. I went last week and had a blast working with the other volunteers. It's actually kinda fun to see what people have donated.. The funniest thing we found last week was a fleece Elmo vest! It was an adult sized fleece vest with a very large picture of Elmo on the back that said, "Me love Elmo." Yikes!! It's all good though, as all the money we make goes to scholarships for military families and for kids going off to college.

 So, that's it.. First week of school, promotion, great weekend, Japanese classes and volunteer work!! We're busy and we're loving Japan!