The Spring Break Saga Conclusion: Fails
We were nailing it. We were on track, ready to complete at least 45 things off this extensive spring to-do list.
Then Justin's holidays were over. Half a week sooner than I originally thought.
Routines started back up, and we were back to keeping busy and left with only the occasional free evening, and a half a day here or there on weekends to complete our list.
Then the flu hit the Hiebert household, making playing volleyball or washing the car much less appealing than watching a movie snuggled under some blankets for about a week.
We didn't complete this list in 2 1/2 weeks.
Justin suggested we just call it quits. Close enough, he hopefully suggested.
No, I said. Not good enough.
So here we are. I don't want to count how many weeks it's been since we started (I think it's been about month, give or take), but at least we finished.
1) Go for a bike ride
We don't have bikes. However, our near-by city allows people to borrow bikes for free for a day! Kind of like a bike library. We might have never learned this had it not been on the list.
3) Garden
We planted a little garden. Our first, official, non-apartment style garden. We're pretty excited, and with the recent arrival of radish sprouts, guardedly optimistic.
We took so long to complete the list, that we can actually show you a picture of the garden's progress!
6) Fly a kite
Justin built us a beautiful kite. He told me he was going to put everything he learned from the boys in Mazatlan to the test, save us some money, and make us a kite from recycled plastic. We took it to an open area to fly it one windy evening, and after a few adjustments, the kite was ready.
But when we got out of the car to fly it, there was no wind. It was gone. The trees stood absolutely still. Justin tried and tried, but a kite with no wind is like mac and cheese with no ketchup: pointless.
The first of our fails.
11) Have a games night
The joy of living in a house occupied solely by English teachers is that you're left with a closet full of games.
Justin whupped me in Scrabble.
I beat him in chess (which may have had something to do with the fact that he was more interested in dramatically illustrating the events of the game than actually playing it).
I think we basically just laughed our way though Uno.
(Someone who lived in this house before us was a huge fan of the movie Frozen).
12) Play tennis
We live five minutes away from these tennis courts.
We played table tennis on our kitchen table.
13) Wash your car
The list just said "wash your car." Technically it didn't specify how we were to wash it.
19) Go canoeing
20) Give your house a spring cleaning
Rather than show you pictures of our entire spring-cleaned house, I've opted to simply show you the most drastic before and after. We had turned our house's bedroom into an unheated storage room over the winter. Where did we sleep? We took our Japanese futon (see previous post), and put it in the significantly warmer straw-mat (or tatami) room where people would actually traditionally sleep. But with the building of our new bed frame, it was time to move back into the bedroom!
28) Shop at a flea market
This was a happy accident. We stumbled upon this little flea market in the supermarket parking lot.
33) Take a painting class
We don't have any painting classes in our village. However, we do have about every other kind of class (such as kyudo, taiko, leather working, ballroom dancing, badminton, basketball, etc). We occasionally attend our local pottery class, and though I didn't have the presence of mind to take a picture when we were actually there a couple of weeks ago, I did take a picture of some of our successful pottery class projects.
34) Watch the sunrise
38) Do yoga
41) Attend a carnival
I don't know about carnivals, but around here there are a lot of festivals, which are kind of similar, minus the rides that make you puke and the overpriced cotton candy (as an aside, we were at a festival once with free cotton candy, which was random, but extremely exciting).
I heard about a mochi-throwing festival in the village, and we decided to check it out. Mochi, by the way, is a kind of traditional pounded rice cake. From what we could gather, this festival involved people throwing dried mochi at other people while they scrambled and tried to collect as much of it as they could. Like a piñata, without the fun of beating it with a stick first. Or like candy being thrown at a parade. Except it's rice, and there are no floats.
We're weren't sure what the significance of this festival was, but we wanted in. We like mochi.
I had heard from someone that it started at three o'clock. At least that's what I thought I heard. Enter: language barrier.
We showed up at three, only to find people leaving. I had it backwards. However, because it's Yasuoka, the lady who stopped to tell us we had missed it actually gave us her mochi as she was explaining our mistake. Another lady driving by us as we were walking the next day pulled over and handed us... a bag of mochi! It seemed word had got around that we missed it (everyone seemed to know), and the lovely people of this village wanted to make sure we got our mochi.
So, it was a fail as far as attending a festival goes. But a great story, no?
43) Play soccer
46) Fill a sketch book
This was a fun one.
Some of our favourite sketches...
Our Opt-outs (as per the original rules):
16) Play badminton
(Reason for opt-out: Justin was adamantly against wasting money on cheap rackets that wouldn't work anyway)
17) Attend a baseball game
(Reason: Too early for baseball here, and our only local team [the jr. high team] was on holidays)
21) Play volleyball
(Reason: We don't have a volleyball, or even a balloon with which to do this)
29) Start a kickball game
(Reason: Lack of available players)
36) Go horseback riding
(Reason: I haven't even seen a horse in this country so far)
Then Justin's holidays were over. Half a week sooner than I originally thought.
Routines started back up, and we were back to keeping busy and left with only the occasional free evening, and a half a day here or there on weekends to complete our list.
Then the flu hit the Hiebert household, making playing volleyball or washing the car much less appealing than watching a movie snuggled under some blankets for about a week.
We didn't complete this list in 2 1/2 weeks.
Justin suggested we just call it quits. Close enough, he hopefully suggested.
No, I said. Not good enough.
So here we are. I don't want to count how many weeks it's been since we started (I think it's been about month, give or take), but at least we finished.
We don't have bikes. However, our near-by city allows people to borrow bikes for free for a day! Kind of like a bike library. We might have never learned this had it not been on the list.
We planted a little garden. Our first, official, non-apartment style garden. We're pretty excited, and with the recent arrival of radish sprouts, guardedly optimistic.
We took so long to complete the list, that we can actually show you a picture of the garden's progress!
Justin built us a beautiful kite. He told me he was going to put everything he learned from the boys in Mazatlan to the test, save us some money, and make us a kite from recycled plastic. We took it to an open area to fly it one windy evening, and after a few adjustments, the kite was ready.
But when we got out of the car to fly it, there was no wind. It was gone. The trees stood absolutely still. Justin tried and tried, but a kite with no wind is like mac and cheese with no ketchup: pointless.
The first of our fails.
The joy of living in a house occupied solely by English teachers is that you're left with a closet full of games.
Justin whupped me in Scrabble.
I beat him in chess (which may have had something to do with the fact that he was more interested in dramatically illustrating the events of the game than actually playing it).
I think we basically just laughed our way though Uno.
(Someone who lived in this house before us was a huge fan of the movie Frozen).
We live five minutes away from these tennis courts.
We played table tennis on our kitchen table.
The list just said "wash your car." Technically it didn't specify how we were to wash it.
Rather than show you pictures of our entire spring-cleaned house, I've opted to simply show you the most drastic before and after. We had turned our house's bedroom into an unheated storage room over the winter. Where did we sleep? We took our Japanese futon (see previous post), and put it in the significantly warmer straw-mat (or tatami) room where people would actually traditionally sleep. But with the building of our new bed frame, it was time to move back into the bedroom!
This was a happy accident. We stumbled upon this little flea market in the supermarket parking lot.
We don't have any painting classes in our village. However, we do have about every other kind of class (such as kyudo, taiko, leather working, ballroom dancing, badminton, basketball, etc). We occasionally attend our local pottery class, and though I didn't have the presence of mind to take a picture when we were actually there a couple of weeks ago, I did take a picture of some of our successful pottery class projects.
38) Do yoga
I don't know about carnivals, but around here there are a lot of festivals, which are kind of similar, minus the rides that make you puke and the overpriced cotton candy (as an aside, we were at a festival once with free cotton candy, which was random, but extremely exciting).
I heard about a mochi-throwing festival in the village, and we decided to check it out. Mochi, by the way, is a kind of traditional pounded rice cake. From what we could gather, this festival involved people throwing dried mochi at other people while they scrambled and tried to collect as much of it as they could. Like a piñata, without the fun of beating it with a stick first. Or like candy being thrown at a parade. Except it's rice, and there are no floats.
We're weren't sure what the significance of this festival was, but we wanted in. We like mochi.
I had heard from someone that it started at three o'clock. At least that's what I thought I heard. Enter: language barrier.
We showed up at three, only to find people leaving. I had it backwards. However, because it's Yasuoka, the lady who stopped to tell us we had missed it actually gave us her mochi as she was explaining our mistake. Another lady driving by us as we were walking the next day pulled over and handed us... a bag of mochi! It seemed word had got around that we missed it (everyone seemed to know), and the lovely people of this village wanted to make sure we got our mochi.
So, it was a fail as far as attending a festival goes. But a great story, no?
This was a fun one.
Some of our favourite sketches...
FIN.
(Hooray!)
Our Opt-outs (as per the original rules):
16) Play badminton
(Reason for opt-out: Justin was adamantly against wasting money on cheap rackets that wouldn't work anyway)
17) Attend a baseball game
(Reason: Too early for baseball here, and our only local team [the jr. high team] was on holidays)
21) Play volleyball
(Reason: We don't have a volleyball, or even a balloon with which to do this)
29) Start a kickball game
(Reason: Lack of available players)
36) Go horseback riding
(Reason: I haven't even seen a horse in this country so far)
That's quite the list to live up to! Sounds like a blast.
ReplyDeleteJust
It was good fun! Got us out of our routine, that's for sure. :)
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