Hey all!

I hope that your weekend has been going well. Kazuko and I are enjoying the weekend with my parents. Tonight we'll have sushi for dinner. That should be good, I always enjoy eating sushi!

Another piece of big news in our house is that I bought a second dance mat for "Dance Dance Revolution." Last night my wife and I had a happy time dancing together to our favorite songs. It is good exercize for the both of us.

Finally, I direct your attention to the picture at the bottom of this entry. On Friday, a group of four high school art students were gracious enough to volunteer their time and effort to work with my students to paint a mural in my classroom. The high school students spent the morning transferring the design to the wall and to paint the background. In the afternoon, I brought my elementary school kids to help paint the designs. After the little ones were finished, the high schoolers and I touched up the rough spots. It was a really fun (albeit tiring) day, and I feel that both my students and the volunteers had a nice time of it.

Now I have to get some paint out of the carpet...




Here is the mural that the kids worked together to make. I am pretty pleased with the final product.





By the way: Asashoryuu won the New Year's Sumo Tournament. I was really impressed with his match against Chiyotaikai on Saturday. The Yokozuna looked really happy after the contest. He was able to win the biggest pot of sponsor-prize money in sumo history (about 810,000 yen.) That was interesting. I am looking forward to watching the final day's matches to see whether he can have a rare "Zensho Yusho," an undefeated tournament.