Newest Project

For the past few days, I've been working with some ladies at church to build a "set" on the stage for the season of Lent. We're pretty pleased with how it turned out. And, we got it done just in time for the Ash Wednesday services. Phew!

Lovely Valentine's Weekend

Friday was "Valentine's Day" at school and the kiddos participated in valentine-themed centers, "mailed" their valentine cards, and enjoyed my special snack for them: heart-shaped biscuits and jelly. Unfortunately, the snack ended up looking like regular ol'biscuits after baking them.

Oh, well, I guess it's the thought that counts. I loved receiving all their little cards and notes of affection. They make me feel so loved!

Cute, right? On Saturday, our church hosted a murder mystery dinner at Macaroni Grill on base. It was a blast! The setting was a cruise ship dinner and I played an 18-year-old passenger who recently graduated from high school. The cruise was a graduation gift from my single dad (played by Noa - yeah, that was a little weird). During the dinner, there's a murder, in addition to a love triangle, the revelation of who my mother's identity, and other crazy side stories. We didn't guess the true identity of the "murdered" but had a blast playing the parts.

Here we are, Noa as Jeffery James and me, Liza James, his daughter!

Our friends, Tesha and Tom with their new baby, TJ, and Pastor Brian and his lovely wife, Julie. Brian just became Keystone's pastor this year and we have really enjoyed getting to know him and his family.

This is Shane and Alysa. Shane won the prize for best character. He played the part of the cop on board and was hilarious. Aly played one of the pageant contestants. Aren't they adorable?!

Here's a close-up of my hair. I had my hair done up since I didn't have a gown to wear to the event. I loved the curls!!

Noa got me to finally get with the times and see Avatar on Valentine's Day. I loved the movie, but even better than simply seeing the flick, was seeing it in a Japanese theater. They had an interesting variety of goodies at the snack counter, like popcorn with M&Ms mixed in:

Or I could have chosen a banana split on a hot dog bun.

Instead, I decided to chow on taco rice during the movie since I hadn't had dinner. I loved it and the Japanese theater was great. Oh, and yes, it was in English with Japanese subtitles.

On President's Day, we went to a barbecue and hung out with some friends in addition to doing some jobs around the house. It's been a great weekend together. And - mom, you'd be proud - I DIDN'T go into work. For those of you that know me well, you know that I have a tendency towards workaholism, especially on the weekend. I actually had a real 3-day weekend. It's been fun and over way too soon.

100 Yen Fun

With about 6 months left on this lovely island, I thought that I really needed to highlight some of the things that make this place so great. One of those things is the 100 Yen store. The 100 Yen store is basically a dollar store. Now, I know what you're thinking: What? The dollar store is not that great. But, oh wait, my friend. The 100 Yen store is not like your typical Dollar General. Oh, no...it's so much better. First of all, most 100 Yen stores carry A LOT OF STUFF. Pretty much everything you need minus the kitchen sink. Seriously - they have it all. And everyone goes there - you'll find both Japanese locals and American military families shopping side-by-side at the 100 Yen store. It really is a great place and there's a pretty sweet one two blocks away from our place.

So, in honor of this shopping locale, I bring you "100 Yen Fun." Each week I'll highlight something that can be found at the 100 Yen store. It may be something useful, odd, and downright crazy, but you can be sure that whatever it is, you'll only pay around a buck for it.*

This week, I'm going with something cute. Japan is always making the ordinary adorable. Schoolchildren need to learn a lot of kanji characters and keeping stacks of flashcards are necessary for study purposes. Well, why bother carrying a boring stack of standard white, ruled index cards when you can be carrying these cuties in your pocket??

The smaller bear is actually a cell phone charm. I won't be putting him on my cell phone, but he's still cute. I think if I had had little word cards like this in high school, I might be somewhat fluent in French to this day.

*Okay, those of you familiar with 100 Yen store know that there are some things that are more than 100 Yen. However, you also know that the majority of items of 100 Yen and I've been in many "dollar" stores that also carry items that are more than a dollar.

Big 7!

Happy birthday to two of my favorite 7-year-olds!

We attended Kai and Aden's 7th birthday party, despite the cold, wind, and rain. In order to be outside, we had to bundle up, but it was a good time to catch up with some of our friends. Here's Noa with Kent, Shawn, and Dustin.

The kids spent most of the time in the bounce house. It even had a slide!

The weather didn't damper this party! Kent showed Kai how to enjoy his new bike.

Even some 4-legged friends joined in the celebration. Meet Suki!

Happy 7th boys! Great party!

Cherry Blossom Festival

It's cherry blossom season in Okinawa and I finally got to experience one of the local cherry blossom festivals. Last Saturday I joined Sara and Gabe for a drive up to Nago to check out what all the hype was about.

It was a beautiful day, so everyone was out. First, you have to walk through the crowds to get to the base of Mt. Yaedake. It felt so festive and I immediately got excited when I saw the big bags of cotton candy and other fair food.

Of course, Sara and I began shooting pictures immediately.

So, it really was worth all the hype. We began climbing the stairs and cherry blossoms were in full bloom all around us.

Thanks for the camera bag, mom and dad! It came in handy!

So, here they are...absolutely beautiful!

We only climbed partway up the mountain since the cherry blossoms didn't go all the way up. We decided to try to find a good lookout. On the way, we took pictures of more than just cherry blossoms, like...

...random shrines...

...the foliage (thanks for the pic, Gabe!)...

...my shoes (aren't they cute?? I got them in NH over Christmas break)...

...the waffle walls (at least that's what I call them)...

...and more cherry blossoms, of course!

We also had fun taking pictures of each other. This trip was kind of like a "last hurrah" for us, since Sara and Gabe recently moved to the US. So, we just had to get lots and lots of photos to remember each other.

First, Sara and Gabe with the rest of the mountain scenery. Aside from the pink petals, the rest of the mountain was extremely lush.

Buddies! I'm really going to miss having Sara around. She worked at school with me, so I got to see her every weekday.

Fun with the traffic mirror!

We laughed a lot!

The three amigos! Poor Gabe was outnumbered by the crazy girls.

We finally made it to a lookout point - okay, so it wasn't the original lookout point we were going for - but it was a fun place and we had a nice, albeit hazy, view.

A cool map of the area. I've been to a lot of the places on here, like the pineapple park and the aquarium. I'm sure there are still a few more nooks and crannies to explore though.

Here is a close-up of the ornate railing.

On the way back, we resisted the delicious looking fair food...

...okay, we most of it. The cotton candy was just too alluring! Pink and yellow!

Afterwards we went back into town and Noa joined us for dinner (he was on call and had to stay local, so he couldn't join us earlier).

Mmmm...okonomiyaki!