Catie on the go: the wheels on the bus...

Today we joined the annual FIK parent-student field trip. We took a bus about an hour and a half out of town to Kuzumaki Kogen Ranch. There the children made ice cream, saw some cows, and ran around…a lot.

It was a gorgeous day and turned out to be pretty fun. Andy was the only dad there and quickly became the kids’ best friend. It was hysterical to watch my “not-that-into-children” husband be chased around by 23 squealing 3-5 year olds. On the way home, 4 of them were absolutely enthralled watching Andy knit. By the number of questions they were asking him about knitting, I think he may have started a new preschool hobby! There may be an entire generation of boys knitting in Morioka in 10 years :-)

While Andy was the hero of the day, I made yet another cultural faux pas. I swear that my role in FIK is to make the other moms look good, because I screw up 2 or 3 times every week! Really. The teachers send notes home with Catie all the time and I get asked to stay after school and talk to the principal to be scolded at least once a week. It’s sad. I did not get scolded today, but it was pretty embarrassing. I failed to pack snacks for the class. Apparently every family is supposed to bring enough little packages of snacks/sweets (think, Halloween candy) for the entire class. During the group picnic the children go from picnic sheet to picnic sheet passing them out to all their classmates. How was I supposed to know this? Was it on the handout the school sent home with a list of “things to bring”? NO. Living in a society that is so culturally uniform is tough sometimes. Everyone else knows the rules without having to be told, so they don’t think to tell you. The “gaijin halo” gives you some leeway, but I’d really like to start getting it right one of these days!

Everybody lining up for the group photo, because it is physically impossible to have any kind of event without a group photo. Catie finally got a uniform, so she fits right in (well, minus the nose picking)

For the main event, the kids made ice cream by hand.

Everyone got a turn stirring the ice cream.

Then the FIK kids got to eat it!

We had a group picnic lunch in one of the pastures.

After lunch, the kids ran around to burn off the sugar they consumed after being given 22 pieces of candy!

Andy was quickly recruited into their game of chase/tag

Catie got a little worried about all these kids chasing her daddy.

Once they caught Andy, some of the kids were not planning on letting him go. I was getting a little worried we were going to have to take Juju home with us!