Happy March!

I can't believe it's March already, yay! The weather has been beautiful which I am very thankful for. It actually started getting humid the last few days. Hopefully the rain and cold are gone for good (or for a while at least). I was able to make it to the beach a few times during the week and actually brought my camera this time.

This is Sunset beach, the area where I go running. I usually park by the hotel (near the windmill) and run around to the area where I took the picture.

As always, a beautiful sunset.

On Saturday I went with Rocky, Lori and her kids to Nago for a flower festival. I was told there are a few gardens near the aquarium that have tropical Okinawan flowers. Rocky took the kids into the aquarium and Lori and I walked around the flower gardens for a few hours. I didn't take any pictures because I didn't see any unique flowers. I enjoyed the nice, relaxing walk though =)

After the flower festival, Rocky took us to a Ryukyu event where Okinawan singers and dancers performed. They usually charge $75 a ticket for the show but since tourism is down this year, the show was free. Rocky still had to reserve tickets for us, it was packed! The show was two hours and was authentic as it can get! There were traditional Okinawan singers, Eisa drummers and a karate performance.

I was able to get a picture with some of the performers after the show.

I would have never found this show without Rocky, I am so thankful for him being my tour guide! It's definitely nice having someone who grew up in Okinawa show me things that nobody else knows about.

Today was the birthday of Dr. Seuss and my class celebrated with reading Dr. Seuss books and playing games. My students didn't recognize the name "Dr. Seuss" but most of them were familiar with his books. We made Dr. Seuss hats in which students filled in Dr. Seuss words that end in at. They all looked so cute!

I filled out and sent in my 3rd quarter progress reports. I had three students with D's and F's. All three received progress reports for their Bible grades and one of them for both Bible and language. They are my three lowest students, two to of which are boys and have really gone downhill since the beginning of the year. Luckily, one of the boys has parents who speak English, so he can get extra help at home. I'm trying to find ways to help them improve as soon as possible!

Paul John is on his plane ride to Okinawa right now. He arrives tomorrow (Wednesday) morning at 11:30 am. He will be here until March 14th, hopefully the weather stays nice. Oh, Philip just booked his ticket to see me too! He will arrive on my birthday, March 16th and be here until March 23rd. Fun month full of visitors =)

My cough has continued to get worse over the past week, for some reason it's really bad in the morning and at night. The past few days though, I had to quit reading to students for a few minutes because of cough attacks. I got directions to the doctors office, now I just have to go, UGH!

Happy March! XOXO

Kristen