Catching Up from October...

It's been a while since Emily or I last posted. Even though we have been keeping busy with school and work, we are doing well and are getting very excited for the upcoming holidays! Here are a few pictures from the past couple months.

Emily coordinated a lot of the work put into the Conflict Resolution Week at the University of Oregon in October. At one of the events, we had pizza and I was super excited to get BBQ chicken pizza. I had been craving it for months...

In the middle of October we ran the Runaway Pumpkin half marathon.

Emily did great!

I did well too. We beat our best time for a half marathon by about 23 minutes. Go us!

After the race, we went up to Portland to visit with family and went out for sushi to celebrate.

These were the shirts we got from the race. If you are wondering what's up with the beard, keep scrolling down through the pictures. :D

We had some new neighbors move in below us from Saudi Arabia and they have been so sweet to make us different foods and treats. I don't remember the names of them, but they have been amazingly good!

So I grew out my facial hair for about a month in hopes of it being long enough to braid for my pirate costume. It didn't work, so we cut some hair off of the wig that I wore for part of Halloween (keep scrolling down and you'll see what I wig I'm talking about) and then hot glued it to my beard. Crazy? Yes, but it didn't hurt until I let Garrett and Aunt Tricia try to yank them out at the end of the night. Thinking back on the experience, it was silly to let anyone try and yank out hot glued in hair. For the record, Garrett was successful with his yank and Aunt Tricia was not. :P

So yes, I was a pirate and Emily was a parrot. We had fun dressing up for Halloween but had to have a picture of my parrot on my shoulder... "Polly want a cracker???"

Here is our little cousin Carter with the wig that I wore probably about 5 minutes on Halloween for my costume. After that, I gave up and didn't want to have to bother with all that crazy hair.

Earlier this week when I got to school, there were 5 turkeys out in front of the classroom. I told them they were a few weeks early, but they didn't seem to care.

Anyways, life is good. We hope to be posted more pictures up soon. Much love.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Our 13.1

Big news from the Sinkovic household this week...we ran our first half marathon yesterday! It was the longest run James or I had ever done - like 4 or 5 miles longer than the longest run we have ever done, actually. Crazy. Our goal was to keep running the entire time, and we did it! For 2 hours and 33 flipping minutes, we ran our hearts out...and probably some other vital organs too, come to think of it. It was actually really fun, and I would totally be up for doing it again, but not for a couple months probably. (Not until my memory of the bad and the ugly parts have faded a bit).

The Good:

*Being completely pampered by cheering people with cowbells that handed us little Dixie cups of water or PowerAid every two miles or so

*Adorable running-friendly Halloween costumes that everyone except us seemed to be wearing

*Accomplishing one of our major goals for the year

*Hot chocolate after the race. I probably scared the waitress at lunch when my cousin Brady asked politely for some hot chocolate and I shouted involuntarily, "ME TOO!!!" The waitress was probably thinking, "Ok girl, don't get your panties in a bundle. There is plently of hot chocolate to go around." It just sounded so good.

*Knowing that I could do it again

*The warm shower after the race. I have never EVER appreciated warm, clean water more that I appreciated that glorious $1 public rinse with industrial hand soap at the local community pool locker room...I could say more about this, but it probably wouldn't be blog-appropriate. Let me just say that it was a somewhat scarring and very humorous experience.

*Getting home and snuggling up in bed to watch Pride and Prejudice. Even James enjoyed it.

*My AWESOME new shirt! Maybe I am just too easily pleased, but I think just the shirt and all the free stuff in the goodie bag was worth the $55 and 13.1 miles.

The Bad:

*The ravenous hunger that hit me hard at about mile 10. It almost did me in. James and I had to break out a granola bar from his backpack and eat it "on the run," literally. Then they had some really strange wasabi cheese at the end of the race that I think was probably not good on my stomach right after a long run (See "The Ugly" for more details)

*The nasty blood blister on my foot

*Sore hips and knees - I feel old. 

*Finishing one audiobook and having to start another one at about mile 3. It took a solid three miles before I could get into the new audiobook enough to really take my mind off the run.

*The cold
*The feeling that the toenail on my second toe is going to fall off in the next few weeks
*Looking down at my hands somewhere near the last third of the race and totally not recognizing those giant sausage-fingers! Good thing I didn't wear my rings.
*Soggy pants that kept threatening to fall off from so much rain. I must have looked so goofy hiking my pants up every hundred steps or so. 

The Ugly:

*Something dreadful happened to my insides while I was running - I'm sure of it. Either that or I ran with a bout of food poisoning. My stomach (and digestive track - need I say more?!) have not really been the same since about mid-race. And this is a solid 32 hours later! Anyway...

*The violent shivers that started about 10 minutes after I stopped running and lasted for about 2 hours. Ugh...Don't ever want to experience that again.

All in all, it was a phenomenal experience, and I'm really grateful I had my sweet hubby to be my running buddy and stay with me the whole time to cheer me on. He was great. Enjoy the pics!

The pre-race pic. Uncle Jeff, James, me, and cousin Brady. See any difference in our choice of clothing? Yeah, I look like I'm ready to go snow skiing or something...it was pretty chilly.

I like this picture a lot :) Three guys I love. It was good to have all of them there.

The three of us were first-timers and pretty excited to be there. Can you see some of the costumes in the background? 

My view of the race. Not a bad one :)

Yeah baby! Longest run ever!

Ok, I had to put this up because I thought it was so funny. I found probably five of these pictures of the view from inside my pocket...not sure what went wrong there...

Still the longest run ever...

I was finisher #500! Kinda cool...kinda pathetic. Whatever.

Post-race pic. We are still all intact. We should have gotten some pictures of us trying to get up on the trailer...our knees/hips/calves were all pretty stiff.

The reward. Oh yeah. Except I couldn't really eat it until later. Tummy not so happy with me. 

James, on the other hand, had no problems finishing this monster burger.

Food. So exciting! I love this face.

So who's up for the next one in DISNEYLAND?!!!

Pumpkins, Turkeys, and Everything in Between

Happy November everyone! Time is flying by; it's hard to believe that we have already been here for three months. There are definitely still things we miss about the States, but between our two amazing moms (one who sends us American movies and one who sends us American treats), we are still able to enjoy the luxuries of "home" while experiencing all that Japan has to offer. Below are some of the highlights of our week. 

Halloween party at Odaka Kogyou, the smallest school I work at. This witch is actually one of my favorite teachers that I work with. Her name is Miki. She is really enthusiastic and the students love her. How could you help it, really? Check out her hair. She is so festive.

We carved Japanese pumpkins. A little bit harder to carve than American pumpkins, but it worked out.

Bobbing for apples

This is the Halloween party with the English club at my main school. We decorated sugar cookies to look like ghosts. These girls love sweets! No wonder we get along so well :)

Our creation. This was the first time most of them (including the teacher) had ever carved a pumpkin.

Happy November! Can you tell what it is? It's a turkey! All of the teachers at school thought it was a chicken. No one here eats turkey, so they don't really recognize a giant cartoon version of one when it stares them down in the hall. And virtually no one knows about American Thanksgiving, so people were walking past while I was working on this bulletin board, making comments like, "Oh Halloween! Cool!" or "Christmastime, right?" No, no, no! Thanksgiving!

We took another trip to Tokyo this week with our branch to visit the Tokyo temple. It was a great trip. We ate lunch in this beautiful park.

We went hiking in the mountains with one of the members of our branch. We were so happy that we didn't miss all of the fall colors.

Amazing views from the top, above the clouds.

My favorite shot - doesn't the fog make it look so mystical?

Other than that, I have been plodding along on my grad school list. We are so blessed to have so many options (at least, I think it is a blessing - sometimes it doesn't feel like it!). Decisions are so hard for me, but I am proud to say that I have narrowed the list down to about eight schools, which range from Ireland to Oregon to Florida. If anyone out there has any insights about how to choose between eight good things, give me a call! Luckily, James has been really sympathetic and tough at the same time - exactly what I need in this kind of situation.


In the meantime, here is a talk that we shared in visiting teaching today. Hope you enjoy! Have a wonderful week everyone!

3 Weeks and No Longer

This week was pretty busy for us. On top of our normal teaching responsibilities at our schools, there were a few other events that we were involved with like Halloween Eikaiwa, shaving my beard, the International Festival, and District Conference.  I’ll try to let the pictures do the talking!

This is what the missionaries looked like when we went to Eikaiwa this last week. Pretty awesome! From left to right, we had a duck, monkey, funny face?, and ninja.

This is Emily teaching everyone at Eikaiwa how to carve a pumpkin minus the pumpkin. We actually used some other weird vegetable that was green because orange pumpkins over here are way too expensive!

First, cutting the top opening of the "pumpkin."

Next, scooping out in innards.

After drawing the face, cutting out the eyes, nose, and mouth.

Wiping the "pumpkin" clean.

Put in the candle and turn off the lights and... walah!

Aren't we so cute! Well, it was a little sad that we never really had costumes this year, but at least we carved a pumpkin... sort of...

This is the whole Eikaiwa gang that showed up for our festivities.

This was the look that I gave when I knew I was going to be shaving later that day.  This is the longest I have ever let my facial hair grow out... 3 weeks and no longer...

This was me after I shaved... lol. Actually, this is what I would look like if I had a fu manchu. Pretty awesome, huh? Jealous? It's ok, Emily wouldn't let me keep it.

We got to help at the International Festival in Aizu on Friday night and Saturday morning. Friday was just set up. Saturday we got to help in the "kid's corner." I know it doesn't look like I'm doing anything there... Actually, I wasn't doing anything there, but most of the time I was playing card games like slap-jack and old maid. It was a ton of fun!

This is Emily playing Jenga with one of the kids and his parents.

We were also supposed to help with the American booth with activities but spent all our time at the kid's corner instead. But this is what it looked like... all decked out in Halloweenness.

We had masks at the American booth that kids colored and then got to wear around everywhere. There were tons of booths for both food and activities from a bunch of other countries like Ireland, Scotland, South Korea, China, Canada, Sri Lanka, South Africa, and some others that I can't recall at the moment.

We didn’t take any pictures at District Conference but one of the things I really enjoyed about it was during the Priesthood training. We talked about ways that we can better know and get closer to Christ. An analogy was given in regards to friends and family. If you want to get to know a friend or family member better, what do you do? You try to talk more with them, spend time with them, and serve them. Just like we develop relationships with those around us, we can strengthen our relationships with Christ by talking with him more (praying), spending more time with him (studying the scriptures, going to church, etc.), and serving him (“when ye are in the service of your brethren, you are only in the service of your God”).

Anyways, we love you all very much and you are always in our prayers!