december in japan!

hello! hope everyone had a nice christmas! sorry its been a while since we posted, seems like we have been going non-stop since ben got home - he has been busy working everyday, and i had my first week of full-time teaching last week! (crazy!)

i was like a little kid on christmas morning, waking up before ben and trying to get him to get up to go open presents with me. haha. 2 of my favorite things that ben got me: 1. a really amazing teacher bag that i can take all my school stuff around in! =) and 2. a "sun jar" - its a mason jar with a little solar panel in it, you put it in front of a window during the day to collect the sunlight, then when it gets dark at night, it glows with the sun that it collected! so you can have sun all day long! isn't that neat? he is amazing, and so sweet. =)
here is the bag:


and here is the sun jar:


ben got his license at the end of last week, and we have been both driving to get more comfortable. on christmas day we took a treck out to the other housing - called "hario" where some of our friends live, (20 minute drive each way) and spent a few hours cooking, talking and hanging out with some of the people from ben's ship. =)

also, its been unusually warm here this week... so much so that we were actually able to go to the zoo the other day! we walked there, the sun was shining, and it was in the 60s! sure didnt feel like decemeber! the ishdake zoo and botanical gardens is only 2km (a little over a mile) from our apartment, so it took about 20 minutes to walk there - and even less to walk back when ben found us a shortcut! =) so here are some pictures i took... (ben has more pictures on his flickr)














well, that ended up being kind of long! oops! all-in-all, we are doing well... constantly reminded of God's goodness and faithful provision, enjoying this time we get to actually be in Japan at the same time, and missing all of our wonderful friends and family back home. hope you all have a blessed start to the new year! =D