Yesterday, while friends were over for a play date, Lizzie noticed that one of the Mexican Jumping Beans we've had since early October was different.  She thought it was dead since it looked like there were dried up moth wings sticking out of it; actually, it is the cocoon from which he (she?) emerged.  We found the lucky moth sunning itself on the window.  It is the first one to "hatch" after much skeptical anticipation.  Inside this traditional "toy" from Mexico is actually a living creature.  It is part of a seedpod from a flowering bush in Mexico in which a moth has laid its egg.  The animal spends its first 3 stages of metamorphosis in there and it eats the yummy seed from the inside.  The turning it does within the carpal is what makes the "bean" jump.  Before it spins its cacoon, it cuts a little round escape hatch so it can push itself out when it is an adult.  The moth (Laspeyresia saltitans) will only eat the leaves of the flowering shrub Euphorbiaceae-Sebantiana Pavoniana which is found in only a small area of Mexico, so he is quite harmless (and the poor guy must be hungry – we’re going to try to feed it something, just in case). 

This experiment and nature study was part of our Mexico studies this past autumn and was quite rewarding...but due to the ethical issues (the starving moths), I recommend it once, but I'm not sure we will repeat it.  The girls really enjoyed the jumping beans; we even named them (and the girls could even tell them all apart).  Corinne & Lizzie had tons of fun with jumping bean races and enjoyed making sure they were all still jumping.  Only one “fell" victim to a mishap...if they were left on a flat surface (such as a dresser) they could easily jump off; poor Jose’s body was never recovered – we surmised that he must have ventured into the dark, hot pit below (floor heating vent).  Gonzales happily (and extremely quickly) patched up his home after our Japanese teacher insisted on seeing the larva inside -- we made a very thin cut and peeked in -- he was unharmed and his silk had closed up the opening by the end of our hour-long lesson.  The girls can't wait for Jose Dos, Pippi-chan, Maria, and all of their friends to emerge...I'm not sure the survival ratio, but even if the one moth is all that made it, it was certainly a wonderful study.

I highly recommend ordering some jumping beans of your own.  We purchased ours from www.JumpingBeansRus.com -- I'm not kidding!   In conjunction with internet resesarch on the jumping bean, moth, and its habitat, we read Lucas and His Loco Jumping Beans by Ramona Moreno and did a few activities and had discussions (including ethical, environmental, and economic issues) from the Thinking Outside the Bean Unit Study which I also ordered from Jumping Beans R Us.  We ordered 60 beans...and believe it or not, they all jumped!  The girls adopted many out in conjunction with their Mexico booth at our homeschool group's countries presentation night.  I also presented them to the kids at AWANA after a bible lesson on spiritual metamorphosis.  They had to sign adoption papers to agree to take good care of them first and were given an info sheet and jumping bean race track.  :)

Viva Mexican Jumping Beans!

After studying France for a couple of weeks, we have to say Adieu!  It was fun while it lasted though!

It was like a French bistro at the Ebner abode (background music and all!).  The girls and I whipped up chocolate croissants  -- complete with whacking butter with a rolling pin and folding, folding, folding the dough.  By the way, Croissants take an entire day to create from scratch --- it was worth it though, they were too delicious!  Lizzie made French Bread; Corinne helped with the French Onion Soup, until she ran from the kitchen with tears streaming from her eyes.  Of course, we had to have Chicken Cordon Bleu -- one of Alan's favorite dishes.  We never did make it to the local French restaurant...it was closed the day we tried to go -- but there'll be another time for escargot (the girls love it!).  How could I forget about our last French meal...crepes with strawberry sauce and whipped cream.  And can you believe that we didn't even have one French Fry the whole time.

The girls also enjoyed building the Eiffel Tower (with Daddy) out of Tinker Toys.  No study of France would be complete without the many Perreult fairy tales.   We also watched what seemed like an endless string of movies -- just for fun:  Hunchback of Notre Dame (1 & 2), Cinderella, Puss In Boots (with Christopher Walkin), and Ratatouille.

Lizzie's favorite part about studying France was seeing how many different flags can be made with the French flag's 3 stripes.  Corinne's favorite was the model Eiffel tower -- I can't believe she loved that more than the food!  Just goes to show how much they love spending time with Daddy.  Alan wondered when the French maid was going to show up --- always the jokester.

On to Germany!  . . . .

Well the last couple of days have been fun.  Misawa was dumped on!  I do not know how much the official total came up to, but the snow is up to my knees (so at least 1 foot).   The girls and I tried to go on a nature walk yesterday --we didn't make it very far.  We decided that the field behind our house was a great place for a snowball fight though.  Running from the enemy is great exercise since you have to run with your knees coming up to your chest to clear the snow.  There was quite a bit of shuffling and falling.

Today we will venture out (to secretly buy a snow shovel while Alan's gone).  He is determined that since we live off-base that he will not shovel no matter what (since he doesn't HAVE to).  Well, 4 wheel drive and garage aside, if we want to have anybody over (like the Japanese teacher or the girls' friends) we'll have to create a visitor's hatch in the roof if we get much more snow.  I'm going to look into the kind that works rather like a wheel barrow...you just shove the snow as you push it along.   We'll see.  Have I mentioned the "driveway" is 4 cars wide?  Good thing it's short.

There was so much snow that Casey decided that it was not worth the trouble to make yellow snow where grass usually is...there's plenty of snow to yellow right on the patio. 

There is a nice ski hill on base that is mostly used for sledding; we may give it a whirl in the next few days.  The pictures are of our little sledding adventure a couple of weeks ago on a small hill near our house.  Everybody had a great time...and the hill was the perfect size for the girls.

Oh, and Alan should feel right at home in San Diego.  The heat in his room isn't working so they gave him a space heater...now his room is a nice toasty 66 degrees (just like here!!).  I tried to tell him to bring his slippers and robe. 

This new year, more than in years past, has brought with it the urge for decluttering, cleaning, and organizing.  I have often wondered what other people do for general housecleaning.  Many people think that because we homeschool we have more time for chores...yes and no...while technically we're here more, we're busy doing school and our house just gets dirtier since we're in it all day and preparing and eating most of our meals here.  I'd love to hear from other homeschoolers on their cleaning regimens or philosophies.  If you are brave enough to post your "routine" please also rate your home on a cleanliness scale of 1 - 5 (1 being equivalent to if company comes, hopefully they've pottied before their visit , to 5 meaning that your house is sparkly clean any given day of the week).

Here in Japan, many Americans have a mamasan (nice lady who comes in and cleans for you), but the only help that would do me is to motivate me to clean up the entire house before she got here.  I figure I can use the 5000 yen a week for bigger and better things if instead I would just get into a more orderly habit.  As much as I'd love to stick to our "routine" that I have nicely laid out, I'm just not consistent.  So far, I'm getting better with laundry since my "Laundry King" is deployed so much.  While I consider myself spoiled that my husband helped so much in this area, he only did the laundry one day a week and didn’t attend to sheets or rugs or anything other than clothes or towels (and diapers when we were in that stage).  Now that I’m taking over this area since he’s usually gone, I try and throw in a load while the coffee brews every morning and if we're lucky, we get to the folding and putting away part in the afternoon.  But it seems to get out of hand very quickly if not attended to daily with either a large pile of dirty clothes waiting their turn or worse...a huge mountain of clean and quickly wrinkling clothes to rifle through.  Now that the girls are older, they have been a big help, but I usually feel guilty since they are slower than they need to be and it feels like I’m stealing fun time away from them.  Lizzie’s pretty good with bathroom sinks and folds laundry.  Corinne, though ever-so-pokey, can make large dents in the daunting task of dishes.  Since our sinks are too low for Cinderfella (have I mentioned he's gone a lot anyway?) to comfortably wash dishes as he's done for most of our 12 yrs of marriage (his idea, not mine), I often struggle with keeping up.  It is worth mentioning that everything must be hand washed since we don't have a dishwasher here...they're rather a luxury off-base (and honestly, I've always been partial to hand washing -- just not every day).  Corinne does a great job (when she’s finally done) but I would feel badly asking her to do them on a daily basis, plus I still have to do the harder items.  Admittedly, part of our problem is our schedule, we are gone most afternoons...and after dinner everything seems busy moving toward reading aloud and bedtime (and it is novel to just sit sometimes).   Ultimately, I know my issue is lack of habit and consistency which is what I hope to improve upon, but thought it would be nice to peek at others' routines.

SO...my question is when do you do your chores…like dishes?  As they get dirty?  Every meal?  Once daily?  When you're out of clean plates and are contemplating buying new ones?  One book I've read says to always have a sink full of soapy water.  Another more relaxed approach suggests stashing the dishes in the oven when company comes.   How 'bout laundry?  One of my homeschooling mentors, Adrienne, suggested one load a day.  I like that, and it is very easy to initiate, it's the follow through that is sometimes rough.  Then of course there are the really fun jobs like bathrooms and dusting.  Can't wait to hear from you!!!

Well, this is my first ever blog!  After purchasing lovely Christmas cards, and not getting to the writing them out part; after deciding to write one of those terrible annual form letters to family and friends and mailing them as a Happy New Year greeting (and not getting to that either):  I have decided to try blogging.  I can post pictures instead of emailing them as huge attachments, I can keep people (even Daddy) updated on what's happening in school and life here in Misawa with the Ebner family.  Of course I know next to nothing about all of this...like how to get rid of the rocking chair up in the corner or how to add music or pretty font...but I guess with a little research and time that will come.

Right now, we're preparing for Alan's next departure which will be next weekend until hopefully only the end of February.  We were so grateful to spend most of the holidays with Daddy.  It will be hard to say goodbye, but I've been "promised" that this year he will be home more.    I won't hold my breath, but I'm still hopeful.

It was a difficult year last year for so many reasons.  It was the first year without Alan's Dad.  We moved so far from friends and family.  We experienced the unexpected loss of our wonderful 3yr old Samoyed, Beamer, as well as the end of Jasmine Kitty's battle, and now the recent discovery that Casey, who we got when we were here 12 years ago, has Lymphoma Cancer.  Alan was gone for about 6 months of the 9 months we were here.  BUT... we still count our blessings:  friends and family, lots of things to do here in Japan, two new kitties (Sapporo and Jack-o-kitty), our health, a new appreciation for quality time with family, and a nice home in a safe place (with 4 seasons!), and Alan loves his job!   We're looking forward to a less stressful year (one can dream!)

We would love to have visitors, but if you, like us, can't afford the airfare, then please visit and post on this site!