Vacation!

I am leaving in about 5 hours to start the journey to Australia! I can't believe it is actually here. It still doesn't even seem real. We will take a bus to Tokyo (about 5-6 hours), find our way to the subway, head to the airport, get on a plane (about 8 hours) and we will be in Cairns! I am so excited and need a vacation so much right now.

Summer camp and summer school both went pretty well. It was a little overwhelming since I was the only new teacher that didn't really know what was going on. Camp was a blast. I didn't realize how much I actually missed my kids until I saw them all again. I had really missed them! At camp we made three crafts- bottle art, fans, and t-shirts. It was so cute, the kids loved it. Then we made these hats that looked like a campfire. We stuck sticks in the middle of the "flames" and put marshmallows on the ends of the sticks. So the hats looked like we were roasting marshmallows, cute. We wore these hats at night for our real campfire when we sang songs.

We had water play which was so much fun. The kids (okay, I did a little too) got to use finger paint to paint their bodies. I may have started a few "paint your friends" fights. :) For snacks afer water play we made ice cream sundaes. Yummy! Then we had challenges for all of the kids to do (ring toss, walk on stilts, those kinds of games) all over the campus. The kids were in groups and were given maps to follow. It was so cute to see them all stop and look at the map together to figure out where to go next. At the end of the challenges we went on a treasure hunt. The kids had previously made treasure boxes, so we used those to fill up with candy and toys and put them all inside of a big treasure box that we hid.

At night we had the campfire and s'mores, and then we went across the street to watch fireworks. This school goes all out on fireworks for camps. They were awesome! After that the teachers did a skit (Bear Hunt) and then we put all the kids to bed in tents inside of the gym. My kids loved playing in the tents, they thought it was so cool. I ended up sleeping with my girls. I started out in one spot but one of my girls kept rolling over and kicking me, so..I moved. Haha. She thought it was hilarious the next day when I told her that. I definitely didn't sleep very well though. Every little sound was keeping me awake. Some of these kids, this was the first time they had spent the night away from their parents so I was a little worried. They all did so great though. Two of my girls were up at 5:30 so I had to convince them to lay quietly until we were supposed to wake the kids (6:45).

That next morning we had breakfast, watched a video, then played some games in the gym. All in all I think it was a very successful camp and the kids really had fun. So did I, really. I was exhausted at the end, but it really was worth it.

Summer school went well. Just longer days and some special things everyday. It was hard saying goodbye to my kids this time. It will be 21 days until I see them all again. But, at least this time I will be thinking about them while laying on a beach. :)

All of the craziness lately has thrown my back out of whack. I've gone to the chiropractor off and on since I've been in Japan, but lately it was just been really bad. I ended up going two times this week and really should have gone again. I actually went by myself this week, without a translator. My chiropractor actually knew English, who knew! I mean, not a ton, but enough to tell me what to do and to ask me simple questions. I've decided the difference between chiropractors in America and ones here. In America (as is everything else) it's all about speed. You are in, cracked, rubbed a little maybe, and then you are done. It is all so fast and so forceful. Here, however, they are all about slowly moving things back into place. At first, I thought it was weird and unnecessary. I am there for at least a half hour sometimes more, and the entire time he is working on me. I think I am starting to prefer the chiropractor here..less shock to my body, I think.

Anyway, this was a very choppy blog. It is 2:35am and I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. So, I thought I would get stuff about summer camp down before I go to Australia and forget everything around me. I can not wait to relax on the beach. This will probably be the last post until I am back from Cairns and back in the swing of things. Thank the Lord for vacations!!