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We had the annual festival (Matsuri)  this week.

We decorated the facility with some Matsuri items and the atmosphere was really nice for Matsuri.

For the education time, we had a flower arrangement(Ikebana) program.

Everyone concentrated to arrange the flowers and made their own beautiful arrangements.

After the lunch time,  we carried a portable shrine(Omikoshi) on our shoulders saying, “Wasshoi, Wasshoi”

We also danced Tanko Bushi together. 

The last part of Matsuri was a Shave Ice!!!

Everyone had been looking  forward to having this shave ice for a year!

There were 3 flavors(Strawberry, Banana and Green Tea) and the strawberry was the most popular flavor.

Many people told that they didn’t have any chance to eat a shave ice at home so they all looked so happy and the staff also enjoyed eating the shave ice.

There were so many smiles we could see through the Matsuri!!!

We’re planning to hold some more seasonal events!!

Has anyone heard of ‘Laughter Yoga’??

Sakura House was filled with lots of laughs yesterday!!

We had a special guest from Japan. Mr. Okubo who is a master trainer of Laughter Yoga came to Sakura House for our seniors.

Laughter yoga is a practice involving prolonged voluntary laughter and it does promote the use of breathing activities in-between laughter exercises as a way to relax the body and mind.

It is based on the belief that voluntary laughter provides the same physiological and psychological benefits as spontaneous laughter.

We really experienced that effect through this wonderful activity!!

It started from voluntary laugh at the beginning,

but once Mr. Okubo practiced laughter yoga with some techniques, everyone changed to real laughter!! 

Some of our seniors had been laughing all the time during the activity and everyone was able to relax through Laughter Yoga.

They really had fun and spent the rest of the day with relaxing mood.

In Japan, many care workers take a lecture for Laughter Yoga and they practice it in their own facilities.

Through Laughter Yoga, we realized again how laughing is important for our mind and body. 

We keep our motto ‘Bringing smiles to everyone ‘ in mind, and we always try to make more laughs at Sakura House.

We conducted a fire drill this week.

In the fire drill, we assume the fire coming out from the kitchen and everyone  evacuates from the large hall to the small hall.

We practiced how to transfer from the chair to the wheel chair in case of evacuating with the wheel chair.

We also reviewed how to tell the person in 911 in case of emergency.

With the calling of “Fire”, everyone started heading for the small hall covering their mouth.

After everyone achieved the evacuation, we made sure everyone was safe and then finished the fire drill.

At Sakura House, in order to evacuate as soon as possible in case of emergency, we conduct the fire drill once a month.

Thanks to everyone, Sakura House had 8th anniversary on March 16 2017. So we had the special event to celebrate our anniversary.

For the game program, we played the build-the-tree game associating cherry trees.

Our seniors were trying to pile up the cups very carefully, and after making the tree, they showed us the best smiles!

After the game session, we made the Sakura shaped cookies. 

Everyone loves cooking. They all enjoyed making Sakura shaped cookies.

While baking the cookies, we watched the slide show with the memorial pictures in 2016.

We had many events such as the summer festival, Halloween, Christmas in 2016.

After the slide show, it’s snack time! Everyone enjoyed their own cookies.

We really appreciate to have precious time with our seniors.

We continue to do our best to bring smiles to everyone!!

Japan Hawaii Culture Expo, one of the big events of Honolulu Festival, was taken place in Hawaii Convention Center on March 11 and 12.

Sakura House had a booth in 2 days and sold some our seniors’ crafts.

We had many visitors in 2 days, and also there are some people who are familiar to Sakura House.

Thank you very much everyone for coming to our booth!