12:20am (actually July 25)
Uta-san and her son Koshiro came by to look at the kittens this morning, but they didn't end up taking one.
Noriko picked up Jeri and I around noon and we drove to Yuuri's birthday party which was fun; good food (spaghetti with chopsticks, whee!) and fun times. I played piano for Yuuri and her friend (Fur Elise and a bit of Turkish March). she had fun it seemed opening presents and everything; she had a little princess dress on and kept posing for everyone when she saw the cameras come out.
After we left Noriko said we should do our little sightseeing day (which we'd talked about at the meeting yesterday). We stopped by her house briefly and then drove to Yamagata, first stopping at a large electronics store (where I got a few mousepads) and then back to the same mall we went to with Noriko-mama earlier. In one beauty store the signs were hanging so low in the aisles we joked that either we're not built for Japan, or Japan's not built for us. We had blended fruit drinks downstairs (I got a pineapple/coconut one), then stopped by the old-fasioned candy store where I bought Laurel some of the ones she likes a lot, and where we also bought boyband photos (we had been talking about boy bands in the car, since Yuuri really likes the band - Arashi I think - that she got a DVD for). Strolled to the arcade where Jeri and I played the Taiko drumming game which was pretty fun and actually harder than it looks.
At that point we realized it was 5pm already so we raced back to Kaminoyama and to Uta-san's house for the BBQ where Laurel and Maureen had already been working. :S We joined up with them, cooked burgers and ate, and played "capture the flag" with the high schoolish boys in the street, and then kickball wherein Laurel booted the exercise ball (which the boys all thought was hilarious - don't think they'd seen a ball so big before!) into someone's yard. We then switched to Actionary, which went over pretty well. Maureen acted out "Ito-sensei" by pretending to take photos and then reading a Bible - and Uta-san totaly guessed it, haha! I did "apple" and "hot spring for the foot" which Moe guessed right away.
We cleaned up and went inside for Jeri's testimony. It got pretty crowded inside and it was around this time a pretty cute boy showed up who reminded me a lot of someone I couldn't quite put my finger on. After that, we sang Father I Adore you and Amazing Grace and arranged to go to karaoke tomorrow with Yumi and some of the boys ("good looking boys" as Noriko put it). We all returned outside, where darkness had fallen, and lit off sparklers - the cute boy gave me a light, heh. the husband of Toyoko-san had a blowtorch that we used to light a lot of them which was funny (I forgot he also acted out "Jesus" and "hula hoop dancing" during Actionary, haha)
Then Jeri and I hopped in Noriko's car again to finish our sightseeing day and she took us to a lookout point over Kaminoyama, then to a college campus in YAmagata where there was supposed to be a light show, but wasn't - but we had fun wandering around the nifty water-surrounded buildings anyway. On our way back (passing copious crazily-lit love hotels) we found out the ages of most everyone: Noriko is 31, Junko is 36 (!!), the other daycare lady is 27, Ito-sensei is around 54, and Ryoko-sensei is 2 years younger. We chatted a bit more about ages and TVs and etc, good conversations, good times. We got home pretty late and Laurel and Moe were a little upset but we had some good team conversation and sang a little together.
