Easter & Okuma

A few highlights of our busy, fun-filled week.

We had a great Easter weekend! We had a neighborhood egg hunt (with over 20 kids) Saturday morning, and went to a surprise 40th b-day party for our friend (and Chad's boss), Jeff Arrington.  On Sunday, we decorated eggs and enjoyed the sabbath.

Amie and I had fun hiding the eggs in the backyard of one of the duplexes. Her husband, Zach, hid the teen eggs - they were a bit harder to find. Tanner tried hanging from the stringy moss on this tree just before the egg hunt started, scraping up his back on the gnarly roots you can see.  Ouch!

Jessica - using a little ingenuity to get an egg down.

Checking out the loot

Reed surveying the scene; making sure all of the eggs had been found.

On Monday, we, and one of our neighbor's, began hosting Japanese exchange students for three days. They were the youngest students we've ever had - almost too young I'd say. Here is a picture of everyone at our "farewell" party. The girl on my lap, Savannah, and the two blonde boys, Dylan and Logan, are the children of some friends of ours who stayed with us for the week while their parents were in the states. It made for a full house, but the kids had a ball!!


Here is Chad's beloved car - the one he wanted so badly to bring home to the states . . . until it quite working; stranding him a few times on base. We finally got the car to the shop on Wed., and the love affair is now over.


On Friday, we left for Okuma.  Okuma is a military resort on the northern part of the island where we went for the weekend - to relax.   This is looking from a jetty off of the beach towards the buildings where we stayed.  As I have said many times and will continue to say - the water here is incredible.  The colors are indescribable.

Here's Tanner - full speed ahead as usual . . .

. . . and enjoying the waves

And the kids and I hunting for shells and sea glass - a favorite past time

It has been a fun and busy week.  However, the older I get, the more I realize that "mundane" is often nice.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We wanted to wish everyone a Happy St. Patrick's Day!! In keeping with the green theme, we had yummy green eggs and ham this morning, while quoting the Dr. Seuss book of the same name. Everyone loved them, except Chad - he opted for a bowl of Life. I think the green eggs were a little more than he could stomach. In addition to that, we are all wearing green, at the store we are spending something green, Tanner made a St. Patrick's Day word search, and, we're having Irish potatoes, broccoli and lime jello for dinner, with green rice crispie treats for dessert. We are even recycling, which definitely qualifies us to be "green" today. When Rachel asked what was for dinner and found out we already had the menu planned, she was very relieved. She was afraid I was going to make my "infamous" cream of broccoli soup via the vita-mix. For those who have never heard this story, it was truly my biggest cooking blunder to date, and one we laugh about quite often! Let me just say, foaming, neon green soup does little to appease the appetite :0)

MUN and Yokosuka

Chad and I had an opportunity to accompany 10 of his high school students to Yokosuka Naval Base for this years Far East MUN (Model United Nations) Conference. It was a fascinating conference, and a great experience for the students. Chad is hoping to get MUN going at Riverside when we return. We had a great time, got to see more of mainland Japan, and are very thankful for the friends who helped watch our children while we were away!!

The conference lasted 4 days and we were typically done by 3:30pm. We spent our first full afternoon in Yokohama at a fun beachside amusement park. Yokohama is a beautiful city, with amazing architecture. It is also the home of the largest ferris wheel in Japan. It takes 15 minutes to go all the way around, and is a bit un-nerving to be so high up - especially when you are hundreds of feet in the sky, in a small glass compartment and the wind starts to blow. Here are a few pictures of Yokohama . . .

Here is a picture of the ferris wheel from across the bay. . .


. . . from right underneath it.


And, Yokohama with Mt. Fuji in the background


We stayed at the TPU (Transient Personnel Units), that are used for sailors to stay in when they are between ships. It was fun to stay on Naval base, however just as were beginning to get used to the Air Force acronyms and lingo, we were faced with the language of the Navy. When we had our debriefing, before we could check-in, the man in charge introduced himself as the LPO of the TPU - huh??? We shopped at the NEX (as opposed to the BX or PX), and had to check in at the "quarter-deck" whenever we entered the building. We slept in a "rack," and our rooms were inspected each day. We received a TPU Room Inspection Report each day which let us know if our "quarters" were up to par or not. They have a great little check-list of things that need to be done, for example:

1. Floor needs swabbed/waxed
2. Rack not made
3. Locker not locked
4. Walls need scrubbed
5. No name tag on locker
6. Gear adrift

etc., etc., etc. We brought home copies of the report to show the kids and told them we were going to be making up a stack of Room Inspection Reports, and that they would be used each day to let them know what needed to be done. Needless to say they were less than thrilled :0)

We took a picture of the barber shop, because it made us laugh. They certainly don't make it easy to get a haircut in the Navy - look at the hours . . .