{"id":90,"date":"2012-02-19T15:50:12","date_gmt":"2012-02-19T15:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/laurelraab.com\/?p=90"},"modified":"2012-02-19T15:50:32","modified_gmt":"2012-02-19T15:50:32","slug":"february-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/penniestoyennies.com\/?p=90","title":{"rendered":"February Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I didn&#8217;t mean to neglect my blog this long!  Dan and I have truly been this month!<\/p>\n<p>First off, I&#8217;d like to remind everyone to go buy Girl Scout cookies!  It supports a wonderful organization and they&#8217;re just plain delicious!  Lucky for us, Dan&#8217;s little cousin Lexi is a Brownie and said she&#8217;d be happy to ship to us!  <\/p>\n<p>Dan modeling our cookie haul<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/s26.photobucket.com\/albums\/c131\/pinkloo\/?action=view&amp;current=IMG_1344.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"90%\" src=\"http:\/\/i26.photobucket.com\/albums\/c131\/pinkloo\/IMG_1344.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\"><\/a><br \/>\nIt was fun sharing them with Dan&#8217;s coworkers and Japanese friends who have never experienced a Girl Scout cookie!<\/p>\n<p>My most exciting news has been that I started working!  I spent the past week in a training class at Berlitz headquarters learning their method of teaching, doing homework and implementing what I&#8217;ve learned in group projects with my 18 fellow class mates.  It was a lot of work but everyone was really nice and awesome and we bonded throughout the week.  <\/p>\n<p>My training class.  My class mates were from the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Austria and Ireland.  It was so interested just getting to know everyone.  I am in the front row in the white shirt.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/s26.photobucket.com\/albums\/c131\/pinkloo\/?action=view&amp;current=IMG_1372-2.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"90%\" src=\"http:\/\/i26.photobucket.com\/albums\/c131\/pinkloo\/IMG_1372-2.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And a picture of just the ladies<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/s26.photobucket.com\/albums\/c131\/pinkloo\/?action=view&amp;current=IMG_1371.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"90%\" src=\"http:\/\/i26.photobucket.com\/albums\/c131\/pinkloo\/IMG_1371.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not quite ready to teach yet though.  First I need to take an exam, then a grammar test, and finally a trial lesson plan with my first student!  They decided to have me start once I return from my trip home in March, so I won&#8217;t be working for a couple weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Dan and I returned to the Ghibli Museum to watch the February cartoon.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/s26.photobucket.com\/albums\/c131\/pinkloo\/?action=view&amp;current=IMG_1348-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i26.photobucket.com\/albums\/c131\/pinkloo\/IMG_1348-1.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\"><\/a><br \/>\nWe went with our friend Ryan again.  He gave me sakura (cherry) potato chips, a traditional gift for someone who succeeds at something or gets a job!  So sweet of him!<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/s26.photobucket.com\/albums\/c131\/pinkloo\/?action=view&amp;current=IMG_1360-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i26.photobucket.com\/albums\/c131\/pinkloo\/IMG_1360-1.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>After the museum Dan, Ryan and I went to one of our favorite sushi restaurants, Kappa Sushi.  You order your sushi from a small screen.  Here&#8217;s Ryan ordering for us<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/s26.photobucket.com\/albums\/c131\/pinkloo\/?action=view&amp;current=IMG_1366.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"90%\" src=\"http:\/\/i26.photobucket.com\/albums\/c131\/pinkloo\/IMG_1366.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Dan and I have still been dieting and exercising.  And doing quite well!  My &#8220;pounds lost&#8221; count is up to 14!  And I can now run an hour without stopping, about 5 miles!  It&#8217;s really great to see my progress.  And to keep myself on track, I signed up for a 5k in Hawaii called Run for Hops, and a 5k in Portland Oregon called the Shamrock Run.<\/p>\n<p>We aren&#8217;t perfect dieters, but we figure if we&#8217;re too strict it just makes temptation more appealing.  So we eat healthy the majority of the time but don&#8217;t deprive ourselves on cravings.  The amazing change is the dinners we crave.  In January, we really wanted to say, &#8220;forget it, let&#8217;s go to McDonald&#8217;s.&#8221;  Now we look forward to our healthy dishes.  We also cook together which is fun.  Dan will cook up the meat while I slice and dice our veggies.  We&#8217;re especially fond of our garlic chicken and chicken and veggie fried rice (butter\/ oil free!).  I will post the recipes hopefully later this week.  Candy\/ ice cream desserts have been replaced by fruit, and the occasional Girl Scout cookie. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>The other day we were checking out at the grocery store, and I told Dan I didn&#8217;t recognize our basket because our food was so healthy!<br \/>\nFresh fruits and veggies to supplement our dinner<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/s26.photobucket.com\/albums\/c131\/pinkloo\/?action=view&amp;current=IMG_0578.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i26.photobucket.com\/albums\/c131\/pinkloo\/IMG_0578.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve had some specific questions about what kind of running gear I use\/ how often and long I exercise etc, so I will post all that in a separate blog entry! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I didn&#8217;t mean to neglect my blog this long! Dan and I have truly been this month! First off, I&#8217;d like to remind everyone to go buy Girl Scout cookies! It supports a wonderful organization and they&#8217;re just plain delicious! Lucky for us, Dan&#8217;s little cousin Lexi is a Brownie and said she&#8217;d be happy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[143,5,129,144,139,145,11,130,48],"class_list":["post-90","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-berlitz","tag-dan","tag-diet","tag-exercise","tag-ghibli","tag-girl-scouts","tag-japan","tag-running","tag-tokyo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/penniestoyennies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/penniestoyennies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/penniestoyennies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/penniestoyennies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/penniestoyennies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/penniestoyennies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/penniestoyennies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/penniestoyennies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/penniestoyennies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}