On Friday, it was my friend, Aya’s birthday. On Saturday, We had a surprise birthday party for her.
金曜日にあやの誕生日。 だから、土曜日にサプライズのパティをした。
A small group of us went out to the cottages near the lake and prepared.
３人は準備をした。
This is Tomo.
とも！
This is Ami.
あみ！
Preparing. They decided that her birthday should have a graduation-like ceremony. Ami is making a list of the things that are going to happen during the ceremony.
卒業式見たい式した。
Here is the finished product, complete with all participants’ faces.
卒業式のリスト。皆の顔をかいた。
Here’s the “stage.” Complete with the paper flowers that are always used to decorate all Japanese graduation ceremonies.
これはスーテジ。日本の卒業式は紙の花いつもある。
After everything was ready, we had to take a few pictures.
準備の後写真を撮った。
Then Ami left to go get Aya. So we waited some more. (I had the camera set for time lapse so it could capture the whole of the ceremony, unfortunately I started it WAAAY to early).
あみはあやの家に行った。私たち待った。 （駒落した。はやすぎた。）
Then the ceremony began. Miyauchi-sensei gave a speech and a paper for Aya. I handed her the flowers that are in my hands in this shot. Apparently graduation ceremonies move quick enough that I should have had it shooting more than 4times per minute.
式ははじめた。 みやうちー先生はスピーチした。私は花をあげた。
Tomo gave a tear-filled speech. Actually, it was laughter filled, but faking tears made it less obvious she was crying.
とももスピーチした。
Be quiet Aya! Quit laughing! (Tomo was very strict)
しずかあや！笑わない！（ともはとてもきびしかった！）
The group shot.
皆の写真。
Birthday girl!
誕生日の女！
Apparently, 29 is the meat birthday. It’s a play on words, because 2 is read “ni” and 9 “ku.” Meat is “niku.” 29, isn’t read that way, but the two numbers separately are. This was dinner.
２９さいの誕生日は肉の誕生日。びっくり！
Aya with her birthday presents.
あやのプレゼンツ。
Round 2 for the meat birthday.
たくさん肉があった。
Aya and her cake.
あやの誕生日のケーキ。
The cake! It had blueberries.
ケーキ！
In the end, we stayed up until 4am playing cards. I taught them “Killer Uno,” but re-named it to “Crazy Uno” because I figured that’d be easier to remember (And how do you translate "killer" as a game name??). It was a lot of fun.
４時までUnoをした。私は「Crazy Uno」を教えた。とても楽しかった！
