Hi, girls!
Lindsey was fine, although a little bit maybe tired & relieved at the same time, as she had her 84-year old and extremely 元気 mother staying with her for 6 long days!
Emily brought in a brand-new electronic dictionary, bought just 30 minutes ago (well, not 30 minutes anymore!). She did lot's of research before buying and pulled off a great deal! 
Sabrina told us a touching story. However, as it was a little too difficult for her (don't forget - she is our newest!), all  in Japanese. So I promised her to put it into English, and here it is (It's written from her standpoint, so "I" or "me" stands for Sabrina, okay?):

One day, I found a big dog-doo in front of my house. Of course, I felt angry and annoyed. How could somebody NOT clean up after their dog? I was really upset, but things changed when my mother-in-law showed me how to look at the matter positively. She said: "Somebody dropped his or her "ウン”, luck. Now I picked up this "luck"." She picked it up with some tissue paper and flushed it down the toilet. 
Since then, the front of my house was "attacked" for a couple of times again, but I could just pick it up, and it didn't feel bad, since I was picking up "luck", right? To top it all off, my neighbour, who had just happened to be washing his car, pointed his water hose at the spot where the dog-doo had been, at squirted it clean. This was a really nice experience! I was glad to realize that I'm spoiled with a kind neighbour, and that there are still people out there helping each other.
Most of all, I'm thanking my mother-in-law for making me realize that it is possible to look at all things from the bright side!
I hope I didn't "ad-lib" too much! 
 
Our cake is seen here under a new lamp, which happens to be for sale, by the way. It's not cheap, should be around ¥8000. It's hand-made glass art. Interested people give me a shout!




And for today's study material, we did some really serious (and one stupid one!) quotes about life:




Please take a look at the picture here, I think it's really touching and says sooo much about our society.......

 


Have a nice rest of the evening (or day, still?)

Thanks, 

the "Master"