November 27, 2011

Remembering my Grandmother


For some reason my thoughts lately have turned to my grandmother on my mom's side. I guess the season sometimes brings a little sadness to me because my grandmother died on Christmas Eve 16 years ago at the age of 69. That was a really sad time for me and my family. We were in Provo, Utah just about to head down to have Christmas with her. I miss her so much. I remember spending many of my Christmas's as a young child at her home in Cedar City, Utah. I remember that she had the most beautiful Christmas ornaments on her tree. There were always beautiful crystal looking ornaments and she usually had a smocked tree so it looked like it had just snowed on it. It always seemed to snow while we visited and my grandfather Don would always take us snowmobiling. I remember the hot chocolate that my grandmother would bring in her canteen so that we could warm up while we were out in the mountains.   She had bad knees so she never actually joined us on the snowmobile but she was always there.  Same thing when we went skiing.  I often wonder if my love of the outdoors stems a little from my grandparents. They built a good sized log cabin up in the Cedar City Canyon and we spent many summers up there and would go often in the winter as long as the truck could make it up the mountain in the snow. I remember one time we got there and the cabin was snowed in so we had to shovel the snow away from the door just to get in. I was pretty young so I am sure I didn't help all that much but I still remember my older brothers with the big snow shovels.


I always considered my grandmother a very classy lady. She had beautiful fake nails and she always took me to get a manicure when I would visit her. She always did her hair real nice and she spent time doing her make-up. I still remember the three fold mirror that she used when applying her makeup. It had a light on it and one of the mirrors was magnified. As a little girl I could never figure out why she would want to use the magnified mirror. Grandma always took good care of her skin. She loved to take baths and would always put on this special cream on her arms and elbows every morning and every night. I remember it came in a little short jar and it was called Pacquins. She made sure to tell me to always cream my elbows so that they wouldn't get too dry. She always had nice jewelry and I remember her jewelry box sat on the wide dresser in the room I slept in. My room was the room right next to her room. I loved that room and I always felt so special sleeping there because it was my grandmother's special room decked out in beautiful shades of mauve with white lace curtains. Many of her treasures were in that room.


My grandmother had a love of cats and had three cats that I can remember of...Chinny, Midnight, and Spooks. My brother Greg and I always used to tease Chinny because she was kind of a stinker. Most of the time Grandma was so patient with us even though we were stinkers too. Every morning she would have her coffee. I remember the smell even though I don't really like the smell of coffee. The smell now reminds me of her and I just smile. Grandma also loved to play cards and we spent many nights playing hearts around her kitchen table.  

My grandmother collected beautiful figurines that she kept in a glass case built in the wall in the front living room. We were only allowed to look and not touch those dolls. She also collected bears and she had those in the extra bedroom on the extension of the house. We were always free to play with them. She also had a nice collection of porcelain dolls, most of which she had spent time painting their faces. I guess I always knew she was talented but now I realize just how talented she was. I guess I have so many good memories of my grandmother because she spoiled me so much. With a house full of brothers I really was the prized possesion. To the detriment of my brothers I got to enjoy so much time with my grandmother. I loved our rides to St. George to go shopping. I remember sitting in the front seat of her car, chewing double mint gum which she always had in her purse. She would always give me just a half a piece of gum. When my grandma would drive she would shake her arms back and forth. I loved watching her arm fat jiggle and always liked to touch it. She was a good sport about it.  I feel so blessed to have such good memories of my grandmother.  I am comforted to know that someday I will get to be with her again.  I am grateful to her for bringing my own mother into this world for whom I would be totally lost without. 

  

November 25, 2011

10K Race for the Cure

After a kind of disappointing marathon I knew that I needed something to help me stay focused on my running.  My friend Bob told me about a 10K at the Imperial Palace and since it was a charity run it was on Saturday.  So after spending Thanksgiving up in Tokyo at the New Sanno we headed up to Tokyo once again for the 10K race.  We decided to all take the train which turned out to be a good idea.  It was so nice to have the family come cheer me on at this race.  I met up with Bob and other runners from the Nanban running group in Tokyo.   I saw a few ASIJ HS runners and many other Americans there.  I wasn't really sure how fast I was going to be able to run this race but I was aiming somewhere around 42 minutes.  I told Bob if he felt like running slow he could run with me and pace me.  Bob is fast and if it hadn't been for the fact that a few other fast male runners showed up he would have tried to race it and place to get one of the prizes.  Luck was on my side because after mile 1 I could see that I was catching up to Bob...or wait, he was slowing down to run with me.  I was so grateful he ran with me.  It was the first time in a long time that I had run with someone faster than me to pace me.  It was a nice feeling.  We were fortunate enough to run with Ueda who is a Japanese Olympic Triathlete.  She can run the 10K in 34 minutes and that is in a triathlon....WOW!  It was the coolest feeling rounding the last corner and seeing that I was going to place.  They even had a pink ribbon out for me as I crossed the finish line.  I was able to place 3rd for women with a time of 42:21 and an average pace of 6:53 min/mile.  I actually got some pretty fabulous prizes including two new pairs of shoes.  This race was just the thing I needed to push me into the winter running months!

   

November 23, 2011

Thanksgiving in Tokyo

We took the easiest and laziest option possible for Thanksgiving this year and made a reservation to do the Thanksgiving Buffet up at the New Sanno in Tokyo.  We were even able to stay 2 nights up at the Sanno which made for a much needed relaxing getaway for the holiday!  Some of our good friends met us up on Thanksgiving morning and we took them to see Meiji Shrine, Harajuku, and Shibuya crossing.  Mike and I hadn't been back to Meiji Shrine since we were there last back in 1998.  I was surprised at how much I did not remember.  The kids enjoyed having some friends to hang out with too.  While we were there we saw the cutest Japanese family with both of their girls dressed in their kimonos.  They were to die for cute so I took a couple of pictures of them.  I can hardly wait to find kimonos for me and girls so we can get dressed up like that.  As always as we were exiting the Shrine area some Japanese ladies were overwhelmed by all of our blonde headed kids and they just had to take some pictures of them.  We can't go anywhere without being stopped at least once. 

After finishing up our little Tokyo excursion we headed back to the hotel for our long awaited Thanksgiving Dinner.  It was fabulous and I didn't have to cook a thing which was even nicer.  The only thing I really missed was my homemade rolls and my sweet potatoes...I didn't care for their version of sweet potatoes.  Other than that it was perfect.  With no option of doing a Turkey here in Japan we might have to do this again next year! 

November 21, 2011

November Field Trips

After last school year I told myself that I was going to be more involved in the kids classes. I wanted to not only know more about what they were doing in the classroom but I wanted to get to know the other kids in their class and their teacher. With Abby still at home I find that it is still hard to volunteer on a regular basis so I decided to start by volunteering on field trips. Both Emma and Peter went on their field trips this month to the same place, but on different days. They went to Soleil No Oka Park. While there with Emma's class we made pizza and got to eat it. Peter's class got to work with bread and they were each able to mold their dough into various shapes to be baked. Peter made a catepillar. They also got to make butter. I remember doing that as a kid too. Both Peter and Emma had a great time with these activities but really enjoyed the other rides and attractions that the park had to offer. By far the favorite of most of the kids was hill sledding. They all called it the butt slide...nice! There was also a nice playground, a zip line, crazy bikes, a train ride, and horses to ride. We didn't ride the horses because they were a bit expensive to ride but we did most of the other things. Overall it was a super fun place for the kids to be and a fun place to be a chaperone!

Emma's Fieldtrip:



Peter's Field Trip: