Halloween Weekend

It's been a busy holiday weekend in Okinawa. The festivities started on Friday with our annual Storybook Parade at school. The Sure Start (preschool) and Kindergarten students and teachers dressed up as a favorite storybook character. This year my costume was the peddler from Caps for Sale (which was written in 1940!!). Some of my students were wondering how I grew a mustache. Guess I should have gone to that wax appointment after all....

As you can see, I have way too much fun at these school events.

Friday night we went to a Halloween-style karaoke event for the Japanese medical interns at Noa's hospital. They didn't disappoint with their enthusiasm. The interns were great - sang just as loud with us on the American songs and sang some Japanese tunes for the crowd. Oh, and their costumes were fun - they definitely embraced the idea of dressing up. Check out their fun costume ideas:

Saturday morning, Noa joined his Ultimate Frisbee buddies for a tournament on one of the local bases. Every Sunday he plays with these guys and every once and awhile a tournament comes along for them to participate in. This time, they nailed the first place spot! Nice work, guys.

Halloween night brought us to a local venue on base where some friends were hosting a Halloween party. It was a blast and I'll have more pictures to post later, but for now, here's a glimpse of some of the costume creativity. Now, I owe all the creative thanks to my sister who inspired both of our costumes: Noa was a "chick magnet" and I am dressed as Bjork. We're with our friends Tom and Tesha who are sunburned tourists. Tom was even sporting the socks with sandals look - it was classic!

Lastly on Sunday we said tearful good-byes to our beloved Pastor Dunn and his wife Connie. After serving our church here for 12 years, they have been called to ministry in a church in Sydney, Australia. It was an extremely moving and memorable service and although we'll miss them greatly, we are excited for the new things to come for our church.