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Text of the page (random words):
e teacher quietly stood at the front of the room without a word waiting for every last child to settle down and stand quietly once they all did they were released to go home marin is 1 3 of the way over from the left it was a bright and rather warm day for december as we returned home the leaves on the trees were bright and colorful fall colors we just missed the peak of it though when we were in utah the leaves change in late november and early december here i don t know why this picture may not do this tree justice it is such a bright yellow and we see it from all the way down the street as we drive home i love it but soon the leaves will be gone then i ll look forward to spring when the cherry blossoms come out we even have a rose bush that blooms even in december posted by emily brandt a at 12 09 2010 1 comments tuesday december 7 2010 thanksgiving in utah marin is a veteran flier i ve lost track of how many trips she s taken since she was 3 months old several each year as always she traveled well she never asks when we ll get there unlike when we re in the car she loves to watch the tv on the plane and stays awake for hours she made it most of the way to utah about a 24 hour trip wide awake or seeming so when our second flight from lax was delayed we stopped for food at a nice mexican restaurant near our gate having just seemed wide awake marin said mom i m tired she laid her head on her arm and was deeply asleep and twitching in less than 30 seconds i have never seen her fall asleep like that before when i woke her up 15 minutes later to eat before boarding again she looked up groggy and said the same thing again mom i m tired this time she looked like she d been up the whole 24 hours she had been she s a trooper thankfully since our flight had been delayed an hour most of the passengers had found other flights leaving our flight mostly empty marin and i each laid down in our own rows and slept she s out cold we landed in slc an hour before we left tokyo lol yes we gained a whole day fortunately we only had few more hours till bed time when we got to grandma s house i slept 11 hours and got used to utah time pretty easily it was our first trip back home since moving to japan the biggest shocker was getting used to being on the right side of the road and driving so fast and oh what huge roads the us has and the lanes are big too we are so used to the tiny streets of japan which we also share with bikes scooters and pedestrians needless to say we have to drive very slow the two way roads alleys really in the residential areas are just wide enough for one car yeah it s a little tricky at times definitely humorous i ll have to do a post on driving in japan some time it took me a few days of being a passenger to feel ready to drive on the right side of the road again i was startled a few times by wipers loudly juddering across the windshield when i meant to sign a turn marin and i had a few laughs until i got used to the turn signal on the left side of the steering wheel again jeff came a week after i did just in time for thanksgiving he didn t give himself as long to get used to stateside driving as i did and made a few turns onto the left side of the road ach utah got hit with a lot of snow while we were there and the first dump of it was perfect packing snow it was exactly what marin had been longing for and me too we had a great time building a snowman in my brother s front yard then we went to a nearby park and had a fantastic snowball fight we left utah 4 years ago and have hardly seen snow since i have really missed the snow i felt like a kid again as i played with marin we stayed at jeff s parent s house where they were finishing the basement marin and i both got to help paint the walls we both love doing and creating with our hands we hadn t brought house painting clothes though so we borrowed from grandpa the anderson girls love to get pedicures so we made a date of it marin loves it too my favorite part is the really good foot rub i don t get into painting my nails though so i didn t do a typical shade of red or pink i had them do a shimmery byu blue it reminds me of ev 1 byu s electric vehicle that i worked on several years ago with the race car team i still miss my school and study we spent our time well with family bouncing between my dad s house and my in laws family on both sides of the family traveled from northern utah and colorado to gather for thanksgiving get togethers it was so good to see everyone it really hit us how much we miss being near family i long to connect with family far more than we can being so far away marin is growing up and wants so much to be near family her best friend in the world is her cousin mccord who is 10 months older than her they love and miss each other so much after 4 years away i m feeling ready to come back to utah next move if the slim possibility presents itself utah is home base i have moved in and out of utah countless times through my entire life i actually like it that way utah is great but i can only take in doses lol it s not up to us though the army sends us where they want us i had a vivid dream while in utah that the army told us that we were going to china next no choice sigh anything is possible my highlight of the trip next to building the snowman with marin was getting a night away with jeff at the castle creek inn nearby it was wonderful to simply sit and talk as time together is rare and brief we stayed in the king s lodge room a huge room that had a pool table jeff and i love bed and breakfasts we ve stayed in 4 now each one with it s unique appeal the johnson mill in midway utah is our favorite so far in our last few daylight hours in utah i had to stop by the wood connection a little store that sells wooden letters and wall hangings i think it s well known in slc but it s new to me i was looking to do marin s name to put in her room i felt like a kid in a candy store after selecting the letters i wanted they have different fonts and sizes i chose pink and brown scrapbook papers and matching paints to go on the letters i am so excited to make them i ll post them when i do these are examples they had in the store a year and a half was too long being away from utah we plan to return in the spring for another visit i would love to get two visits in next year but that may be wishful thinking i sure hope we at least move closer to home next but again we could be sent anywhere in the world which has it s appeal but home is nice too cross your fingers for us posted by emily brandt a at 12 07 2010 1 comments friday june 25 2010 parent observation day today 6 25 10 was a parent observation day at marin s school during the last class period of course marin loves it when i come to her school can you find marin in the picture waving wildly about once a quarter parents are invited to come observe the class going about their typical classroom activities it is so fun and such a rich experience to be in this foreign class environment childrens paintings line the back wall each signed by the artist in hiragana the simplest set of japanese characters on large peaces of paper hung near the front of the room next to the piano words to school songs are written for singing practice the teacher is a very good pianist as many japanese teachers are every classroom has a piano for the almost daily singing time on the board is written the study schedule of the day in hiragana the date and month are posted in english so the children can learn a few english words this is a hiragana chart today s visit happened to be during math time it was interesting to watch the teacher teach math to all these cute little 6 year olds using big yellow magnetic blocks on the chalk board suckers in her hands that she would add and subtract and writing basic arithmetic equations on the board i couldn t understand much of what she was saying except for the numbers which are some of the few japanese words i know i was surprised how well the kids focused on listening and doing their math assignment while parents quietly lined the back of the room it was really fun to watch marin follow along well enough even though she doesn t understand a whole lot of japanese yet it s a really good thing that they are teaching with the regular numbers that we know and not their character numbers or worse numbers in kanji yes they have kanji for numbers click image to see better after class marin showed me her wish on the bamboo tree there is a bamboo tree in the hall way where the children each hung a colorful piece of paper on which they wrote a wish of what they want to be marin wants to be a pegasus she wrote it in katakana on the yellow strip of paper left yellow paper this activity is a traditional thing that the japanese do at this time every year marin loves her japanese school she does very well i am so glad that she takes such interest in learning she picks things up so quickly and she has the perfect personality to send to a foreign school and to thrive posted by emily brandt a at 6 25 2010 1 comments sunday june 20 2010 school lunch japanese style i recently had the pleasure of eating lunch at marin s school to get an idea of what marin experiences every day many mothers came to enjoy the same each wearing an apron a face mask a scarf on their head and indoor shoes i took this picture off the internet to show you how marin and her class do lunch every day the white attire is their lunch uniform the children serve each other lunch from two short slender tables that are brought into the classroom just for lunch one table pulls out from under the other the japanese really have their own unique way of doing pretty much everything lunch was served in a classroom in the same way it is every day for the kids and it was very much like what is pictured above i really enjoyed it i was surrounded by japanese mothers and i couldn t understand anything that they said it is such a different experience being in the minority i sat next to another mother i met recently who is brazilian she has lived here in japan for 10 years and has picked up some of the language other than that she speaks only portuguese we sat together and had as much of a conversation as we could it was quite amusing since there wasn t much overlap in the words in any language that both of us know between my few words of japanese and a few more words in spanish which is close enough to portuguese and her limited japanese we could communicate a few basic things she s cool lady and i enjoyed her company at the end of lunch a survey was collected i couldn t write much about the food except in romanji oishii kata it was delicious i had to laugh to myself when i had to look at my name tag to remember how to write my name it looks like this エミリー アンダーソン how often as an adult do you have to think really hard about how to write your own name it s funny but very humbling posted by emily brandt a at 6 20 2010 6 comments saturday may 22 2010 missionary marin i know it s been forever since i last posted anything so many wonderful and amazing things have happened that i wanted to post but never got around to it life is busy i keep thinking it will slow down but then it gets busier i hope to catch up on some big things soon cross your fingers but for now i have to write about one of the most awesome thing that has happened this one i definitely can t miss this afternoon i was sitting in the dining room and overheard marin in the front room talking to her friend who is not a member of our church and doesn t go to any church right now i wish i could have recorded what she said it was so precious she said to her friend in her sweet little voice looking at a picture of jesus that she had cut out of the friend magazine and mounted on colored paper do you know who this is this is jesus he died for us he died on the cross for our sins do you know what sins are it s when we make wrong choices he died for you and for your family i couldn t believe my ears i couldn t have said it better myself what an awesome little missionary a couple months ago we were having dinner at a restaurant and marin leaned over to tell me a secret she whispered in my ear do you know what i want to do when i grow up i want to teach people about heavenly father and jesus i had no idea she would say that it was really hard to hold back the tears i was so touched and proud tonight i told her that she doesn t have to be grown up to teach people about the gospel because she is already a missionary a 6 year old missionary she got a big grin on her face realizing what she had done it obviously came easy to her i am soooo proud there is nothing more uplifting and fulfilling to me than sharing the good news and watching it change lives like nothing else can autn reference http scriptures lds org 3_jn 1 4 4 3 john 1 4 i have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth posted by emily brandt a at 5 22 2010 2 comments friday november 6 2009 halloween in japan halloween this year was pretty cool marin dressed up in the same beautiful afghani dress that jeff sent home last year is it bad that i like to reuse our super cute costumes if they still fit marin loved the whole evening we went around our little military housing neighborhood and found some pretty cute halloween displays and lots of candy even the fire station down the street handed out candy marin had fun with all that and then when her halloween bag was full she was excited to go home and hand out candy to trick or treaters she enjoyed that even more we were surprised to find that most of the trick or treaters that came by were japanese they were brought on post by their american friends below is marin with a large group of kids that came to the door one mom wanted some pictures of her kids with marin so they all jumped in the picture it was a lot of fun one of marin s classmates from her japanese kindergarten came by too and was excited to see her when she saw her she excitedly ran up to marin saying her japanese name that basically sounds like maylin chan it was fun to meet shiun and her family but the language barrier kept us from communicating much costume contest photo taken at the commissary sponge bob marin handing out candy on our porch spur of the moment photo of a mob of trick or treaters what a treat for everyone the japanese kids love halloween since japan doesn t celebrate halloween i wonder where they got such great costumes marin was in heaven the girl in the white dress is shiun from marin s class i m guessing the other girl is her younger sister the best part about halloween was that jeff was with us he travels a lot halloween happened to fall right between two back to back trips jeff had to make to virginia and hawaii the military wanted to send him straight from one to the other but he pushed to come home in the middle of them for one day halloween and then he was able to get home a day earlier so we got hi...