Japanese Treats

At school yesterday, a group if Japanese high school girls came to do a cultural afternoon at my school. (MEI Middle) They are part of a short term international program, and have come to MEI a few years in a row. My uncle and aunt have a student from Japan, and she was at MEI yesterday.

They set up different stations, showing Japanese culture. We were split into groups, and were given about an hour to go through, and see what their culture is like. When we first got downstairs to the Multi-Purpose Room, (The grade 7's are on the third floor of the school), they sang us a beautiful song in Japanese. Then, we went off to different stations. Some of them were: trying on kimonos, (which were very pretty, and very warm), playing with paper balloons, (more like wax paper balls, with a small hole to blow in), making origami cranes, writing our names in calligraphy, (I still have mine from last year, as well as this year), a Japanese green tea ceremony... and lots more. Also, through out the afternoon, the showered us in VERY SWEET CANDY, (Just the way I like it...), and little origami things. I got an origami butterfly, and it's now hanging in my locker. Some other things that were given was: cranes, little star-boxes, pouches, and teeny-tiny cranes, like the size of this word. They were very cute.

I hope you enjoy the rest of your wet, rainy, windy, cold day.

~Emily Friesen

Thanksgiving Get-Away

We took a little vacation yesterday and today to celebrate Thanksgiving. Julianna and I had never been, so mom and dad took us down to Seattle for a little vacation.

We stayed at a Best Western, only a few blocks away from the Space Needle. On the first day, we toured the downtown; Pikes Place Market.

Wow. I'm lucky I got out alive. On a Sunday, right around 10-10:30, it is BUSY! We went in and looked around at almost every shop, and even saw some world famous fish throwing. (Pikes Place Fish Market)

Julianna and I each got a mini beanie bag stuffed animal,(mine a lizard, and hers a turtle), a pin, and I got a postcard as well. Here are some other pictures of the market:

In the gift shop-area on the ground level of the Space Needle, we wandered around. (It was something crazy like $50 to go all the way up) All 4 of us also tried on pairs of these HIDEOUS sunglasses, and well...See for yourself.

For dinner that evening, (after finding out that the streets we wanted to take were all 1 ways), we went to Overall, the meal was nice, and the spumoni ice-cream was delicious. When we got back to the van... It was covered with atomic bird-bombs. (I just now got back inside from washing the van) Nice, eh?

We also went to the first Starbucks ever!

I hope you have all enjoyed you Thanksgiving holidays, as much as I did.

~Emily Friesen

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

So, how have your weekends been so far? It's Canada's Thanksgiving on Monday, so it's a long weekend, and I get a day off school. (Yes!)

My family celebrated Thanksgiving today, so we cooked up potatoes, yams, a chicken; we had cranberry and apple sauces, and stuffing. (Guess what we'll be eating for the next month?) Julianna and I decorated the table with homemade tea-stained place cards, paper leaves, twigs, and mini pumpkin candles. It looked really festive.

I hope your weekends are very good, and I'll post more on Tuesday.

~Emily

One day of freedom...

I'm not sure if you knew, but I have braces. So regularly, (every 4 weeks), I have to go to my orthodontist (pronounced orth-o-don-tist) to get the wires changed, or to get more elastics, or, you know. On some days, he will tell me that "next appointment you'll be getting a bracket off", or "we'll be taking x-rays next time", or something of that sort. But, on September 3, I had an orthodontist appointment, and the news was quite amazing. Dr. Dueckman told me that "Emily, on your next appointment, October 7, you will be getting your braces off." So, here I am with no braces, but I still have a mouthful of metal. How does that work? Now I'm stuck with retainers, on the top and bottom!


This is before....









....And this is after.













And here is me, biting into an apple... I haven't been able to do that in 2 years. And as you can see, the apple was cold, and my front teeth were sensitive... (I was going to show the rest of my my family on Thanksgiving dDy, but our plans changed, so I'm doing it this way, instead)

~Emily Friesen

Movie and a stitchery

Julianna, and her friends Alisha, Harpreet, Avnit, and Callum have all been reading the Harry Potter series, and the idea to watch the first movie together was floating around for awhile. So at 7:00 yesterday evening, they all came over for popcorn, a movie and a few games. Alisha's older sister, Selina, was in my class in grade 5, and we have become good friends, and I asked her to come as well. So with Julianna and her friends taking up the big couch, (and they really had to squish), Selina and I got the smaller couch all to ourselves. I had been working on a stitching project, and I asked her if she would want to as well. So (during an "intermission"), we drew out her name on a piece of muslin, and we stitched. It was Selina's first time doing a stitchery, and I was teaching her.

I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening.

~Emily Friesen

Fresh from the oven

Ok, so you all know that I am an owl nut, but there are other things I enjoy collecting and doing as well.

For example, I collect nutcrackers, and have a collection consisting of 38 wooden men. They line the top of my bookshelf, and a shelf above that, and a small (fake) tree on my windowsill. The pic that is of only one nutcracker, is one that my dad made. He copied it from a movie I got one Christmas.

Some other things I enjoy doing are drawing, painting, scrapbooking, sewing... You name it. In that group of hobbies, lives cooking.

Now I'm not much of a chef, but I do enjoy creating french toast, or muffins, or scrambled eggs once in a while. So today, (I had no school, and with that, no road run in PE!), I went over to Nanny's house and between Food Network shows, we made Mini apple turnover things. (In case you're wondering, my favorite food network shows are "Ace of Cakes", "Iron Chef America", "Food Network Challenge", and "Ricardo and friends"). The recipe is from Mennonite Girls Can Cook. Now I hope you all enjoy this post. Until next time,

~Emily S. Friesen

Another owl

Well, the time's come to post about another owl or two. So, can I have a drum roll please?....... I am here to present "Today's Owl!"

Today's Owl is not really an owl at all. It is more or less a drawing of an owl. Now, every year before school starts, Julianna and I are given $50 to spend on school clothes, or whatever is needed. So, an annual trip to Old Navy was in order.

As far as I'm concerned Old Navy makes the cutest shirts. From the words "I like doing fun stuff", to a bird saying "Don't be mean, keep the air clean", or "I want smores"... Anyway, the shirt I picked out was this:

An owl with the words: "Who loves ya?" And really, could you even imagine an owl lover like me even thinking of passing up such an adorable shirt? I know I couldn't.

So, join me next week on "Today's Owl".

~Emily S. Friesen