I have been so busy for my last 2 months here! I will try to write a brief summary now of events, and when I get back to Canada and have some time, I will try to write them in more detail.
But where to start?

Eric ordered some paints for me, as I had a quick lesson on etegami (picture postcards) and I really enjoyed it. We ordered the paints from our local stationary store, where the owner of the store is a really sweet lady. She called my cell phone when they came in a couple days later and made sure to speak slowly for me and that I understood that it was for the paints, so I walked to the store to pick them up. I bought them, and some nice postcards to paint on. After, I was talking to the lady for a bit, saying we are gonna go home soon but that we had a great time in Japan, then she was looking for an origami book but didn't have any (she wanted to give me a present) so she gave me my money back for the paints and the postcards and gave them to me as a gift from her! So I made her a postcard saying thank you, but I still need to drop it off.

On Saturday the 5th Saito and his family had a roof raising party, it is a very old tradition in Japan that not a lot of people do anymore, so a radio company came out to interview his family which is 4 generations living in one house (which is becoming more uncommon here). Of course, because we are foreign we also got interviewed, well not really interviewed as it was just a quick hello my name is.... but still they wanted us to be on the radio! Eric and I arrived about 9am and helped with stuff. I helped with packing the gift bags with the other ladies, and Eric did something with the men. It was a lot of fun. Saito's granddaughter, Uika, was there of course and she is speaking a little more clearly now, and was quite comfortable with Eric and me this time. We spent a lot of time playing with her.
It was so hot that day! In the afternoon Saito's brother in law took us for ice cream and to pick up the dinner stuff. At around 4pm was the ceremony of the roof. People stood on the roof and threw down mochi, money, and snacks! All the neighbourhood kids showed up with a bag to catch the goodies! One of the kids was a really funny outgoing guy and wanted to talk to us, he just came up and started speaking Japanese and trying to use all the English he knew. Luckily for him, Eric speaks great Japanese and he had a great time telling us everything about himself. At one point we ran/danced away shouting he made two new friends today! It was great! We didn't stay for supper, as I was not feeling too well, probably too much sun we figured. So we said congratulations and biked home. But what a fun day!

On Saturday the 12th Eric and I went on a day outing with one of my good friends in Japan, Meg and her family. They took us to Iwate-ken which is the prefecture right above Miyagi-ken. They took us to one of the famous temples there, Chusonji. It was great. Not just the sites but hanging out with Meg and her husband and their daughter. The temple was a big park area with lots of smaller temples, shrines and older buildings. After walking, talking and enjoying all the sites we decided to go to lunch. We all wanted sushi, so thought that a kaiten sushi place would be best (conveyor belt sushi)
We spent about an hour trying to find the place. Once we did find it it was about 2pm and we were all very hungry, and quite amazed at the quality of the place. It was an inexpensive sushi place so we were a little worried about the quality of it, but it was great! Also so much fun!

On Monday the 14th Eric and I went out for dinner with Chizuko and her friend. She took us to this really cool fancy Italian restaurant that sorta looks like a house just because it is almost in a subdivision area. It was really good. We got a lot of food! It was great to hang out with Chizuko again. She was on the international exchanges committee last year, but got transfered to another area, but! the mayor liked her and she is now a secretary for the mayor in Natori. We are kinda glad she is still in Natori, but I think she is a little bored at her new job.

Thats all for now. I will try to post some pictures to go along with these stories but today I need to get ready to go to a friends!