After being at home sick for the past two days with laryngitis, I came back to school today. Although my voice still cracks more than a pubescent boy and sounds like an eighty-year-old smoker, I decided that it was over the worst and came to school. As soon as I arrived at school, I was bombarded with the “Are you okay?” questions and “We were worried about you!” statements. Then, since it’s Valentine’s Day, I also was bombarded with something else…..chocolate! Upon arriving at school, I had teachers handing me chocolate right and left. Of course since Valentine’s Day fell ONE DAY after the start of Lent this year, I won’t be enjoying any chocolate since I gave up sweets for Lent. 
Which leads me to my next point…..every year I try to give up sweets for Lent, but every year I somehow fail. I’ve only successfully made it through Lent without sweets once or twice. However, this year, I’m going to try my hardest and make it all forty day. I have a plan….for every sweet that I receive during Lent, I’m going to put it in a secret stash pile. Then once Easter comes…..HELLO pile of sweet treats! If the sweet is unable to be saved, example: homemade treats, I’ll simply give it away. Plus, this year I have support. Ian is also giving up sweets, which will make it A LOT easier. This way no sweets will be in the house, (except for my hidden secret stash) which will remove the temptation. Hurray!
Since it’s Valentine’s Day, I’m sure that many of you have plans with your sweetie. 
Ian and I have the most romantic Valentine’s Day planned…..NOT! I’m actually not even going to SEE Ian at all today. He left EARLY this morning to go to Kumamoto City for work. For the next two days he’s running an extensive two day English class. We actually said that we’d move our Valentine’s Day celebration to this weekend. Ian wanted me to drive up to the city on Friday night so that we could have a nice night out. I said that it was going to be too expensive to take BOTH cars to the city. However, Mollee said that she was already planning on going to the city on Friday night, so she’s giving me a lift up there. Then Ian and I can have our romantic night out on the town and stay the night. I suggested that we get all dressed up and go out to eat. Ian burst my bubble pretty quickly on that idea. “So we’re going to get all dressed up and go out for……fish?” I had forgotten that it would be Friday…..during Lent. CURSE YOU, LENT!!!!
Anyway…..let’s take a step back and talk about a few things that happened this past weekend. Since the girls had ladies night on Friday, the boys had guys night on Saturday. Ian left the house around 3 PM on Saturday and didn’t come home until about 3 PM the following day. While all of the details of what happened are a mystery to me, I do know that they played videos games and BBQ’d meat. On Sunday afternoon when Ian got home, we both laid down to take a nap. Ian was exhausted from the night before, so he slept longer than me. I decided to go for a bike ride since the weather was nice. I took the main road through town, the 219, and rode away from town. It doesn’t require me to ride very far out of town before the road makes a steep grade up into the mountains and civilization ceases to exist. It’s a beautiful ride, and I’m sure it’ll be amazing once things start to bloom and bud. My goal was to ride to the bordering prefecture, Miyazaki. However, the mountain grade was just too steep, and I was losing sun light, so I decided to turn around. While going up the mountain proved to be rough, going down the mountain was a different story. I was going so fast that the wind blowing across my face was actually making it numb! Good times. 
Last weekend was a three day weekend for us since Monday was National Foundation Day. Since it was a three day weekend, several of our friends traveled. Melissa went to Tokyo with some of her co-workers, and Sara, Shara, Devin, and Margo went to Kagoshima. Originally we were also going to Kagoshima with them, but since we bought the new car, we decided that it wouldn’t go. Both of us have been to Kagoshima twice, and while it’s a great place to visit, we decided that we’d save the money we would have spent and apply that to the car. Instead we made other plans.
Mollee came over and stayed the night on Sunday so that we could go hiking on Monday. We decided to take a trail that none of us have tried before but have heard that it’s really nice. It’s deep in the mountains of neighboring Mizukami, so we knew that we’d have to drive a bit. The drive was gorgeous! We had to take the road that borders the reservoir and followed the mountains all the way up. We kept driving and kept driving, knowing that we were getting closer until we saw a mysterious sign. The road was halfway blocked, and we hesitated for a moment. None of us could read the kanji on the sign, but Mollee said that it could possibly say something about ice on the road and to be careful because whenever she went skiing a few weeks back, she encountered several signs like that. We didn’t argue with that rational because we were indeed high enough in elevation for that to make sense. So we continued on the road, winding back and forth higher up until we were just TWO kilometers from the trail head. It was there that we ran into construction. The road was COMPLETELY blocked off, and no way was a car sliding by the behemoth back hoe perched precariously on the tiny mountain road.
Even though our plans for hiking fell through, we still made the most of it. On our way down the mountain, we stopped at a waterfall and played in it. The water was ridiculously cold, and my feet were soaking wet by the time we left, but it was well worth it! 
Our next stop was at the reservoir. We found a place to stop and have lunch. It was right out over the water….literally! Mizukami has a jet fountain that shoots water hundreds of feet into the air almost every hour on the hour. Beside the fountain is a floating dock that guests can walk out to, complete with picnic tables. Although it was a bit cold sitting out on the water, the views were incredible from that angle.
And…….that’s all of that! Happy Valentine’s Day, folks! Go enjoy some cuddle time with your sweetie or a box of chocolates…..or both.
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