Christmas 2010

We had a wonderful Christmas. On Christmas Eve, we had a nice candle-light dinner, read the Christmas story, and opened PJ's.

Christmas morning, Cassie and Jessie were awake at 6, and Jason and I heard them sneaking downstairs to take a peek. Being the mean parents that we are, we made them wait for Carston to wake up. In the meantime, we made some cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and while we were eating, Carston woke up. The kids were too excited to eat, so we went ahead and got into the stockings and opened our presents. Here are pictures:

Our tree before we opened presents.

Stockings:

Gifts for each other:

Gifts from Santa:

Other presents:

The weather was rainy all day, and we decided to spend a relaxing day inside. Jason prepared a nice steak and shrimp shish kabob dinner. This was definitely not our usual Christmas, but we had a nice day. We miss everyone at home, and hope you all had a good Christmas, as well.

Ready for Christmas

Just wanted to post some pictures of our Christmas decorations. We finally got our last package today, so we're all ready. Merry Christmas everyone!

We bought this little Christmas tree at the after Christmas sales last year. It is a bit smaller than we thought, but easier to store here than our larger tree would be.
The stockings were hung by the stairs with care... Speaking of that, we're anticipating that Santa will have to squeeze through the air vent this year, because we don't have a fire place our electric heater/air conditioner/de-humidifier units don't vent to the outside.

Santa

Santa came to visit at our Branch Christmas Party this year. Carston has been very excited about all the pictures of Santa out this year. He says, "There he is. Santa," and sometimes, "Ho, Ho." But when it came time to sit in his lap, he wasn't so sure.

White Beach

Temperatures went back up to 77 on Saturday, December 11, so we decided to go check out White Beach Naval Station. We found some cool sea shells and had a blast playing on the play ground. It was a beautiful day to be outside. I can't believe it's December!

Singing at the Food Court

Jessica's class and another Kindergarten class from her school teamed up to carol at the food court on December 8. The kids were so cute, and they did a great job. The day before the performance, Jessica said she was nervous, but you can't tell it in the pictures! There were so many cute pictures, I just couldn't decide which ones to post, so I'm posting quite a few.

Waiting to get started.


Jessica was one of the angels in the Angel Band number.


Playing her triangle in the angel band.


She's a star!

She looks like she's having a good time.

She's got moves- and she knows where the camera is.

It was so cute when all the kids were doing the twist.

What a cutie. She did great!

Thanksgiving 2010

This year was our first Thanksgiving away from our families. For the first time, I was in charge of dinner, and I realized that my resource, the Commissary, was not reliable.
It all started shortly after we returned from our summer vacation. The ladies at play group were discussing the need to stock up on baking supplies. I realized that I should probably buy some pumpkin so that I could make a pie for Thanksgiving. But the next time I went to the Commissary, they were completely out. (This is September, mind you.) I checked back everytime I went to the Commissary, and finally, early in November, they got some pumpkin in. I stocked up. But then I started wondering how early I would have to buy a turkey. My freezer is not very big, so if I were to buy a turkey early, I wouldn't have enough room for the week's groceries. On the other hand, if I didn't buy one in advance, we might be having chicken for Thanksgiving dinner.
I started to discuss my concerns with Jason, who had seen in the Air Force magazine just that day that you could order a prepared Thanksgiving dinner from the Officer's Club. He decided to ease my mind, and order our Thanksgiving dinner.
In anticipation of Thanksgiving, our family prepared our "We Are Thankful For:" poster.We left it up all week and added to it as we remembered things we were thankful for.
Since our dinner would feed so many, we invited some friends over for dinner. Jun is a co-worker of Jason's who is here without his family. We didn't want him to spend the holiday alone. We also invited John, Tammy and Natalia Rudd, our new friends. We met the Rudds at the girls' bus stop- Natalia rides the same bus. Tammy and I have become great friends. Often we find ourselves visiting at the bus stop for an hour after the bus has left! The girls have also become friends with Natalia. It's so nice to finally have a friends fairly close by. Having wonderful people around to share the holiday with made it easier to be away from family.
On Thanksgiving, we straightened the house in the morning, and then hung around until it was time for Jason to go get the dinner. We ate about 3:00. After cleaning up, we watched The Sorcerer's Apprentice. It was really good. Then we visited for a bit, and called it a night. It was not our normal Thanksgiving, but we had a wonderful time all the same. Of course, as usual, I forgot to take pictures on Thanksgiving day.
We asked our guests to contribute to our thankful poster. Here is the end result.

Among other things, we are thankful for each other and for all of you. We are thankful to have made some great friends. We are also thankful for the opportunity that we have to be here.

Beni-imo

Beni-imo is type of sweet potato that is grown in Okinawa. Jessica's class went on a field trip to a farm in Yomitan to dig up some beni-imo. Mom went along to chaperone. Eleven classes of about 20 kids each gathered to dig up sweet potatoes! It was craziness, but the kids loved it. Jessica got a huge bag full. What am I going to do with all of those sweet potatoes?

After the farm, they headed down to the Army base- Torii Station (we've posted pictures from the beach on Torii a time or two) to eat lunch and jump in the bouncy houses. Count them- three bouncy houses- for how many kids? Good thing they had a play ground and swing set, as well!

Jessica's class.

So here's what the beni-imo look like baked potato style:

Now look inside:

Can you believe the color? They taste pretty good. I still have to doctor them up a little with butter or whatever. I mashed some up and mixed them with whole milk and brown sugar to eat with our thanksgiving leftovers. They were pretty good. Even Jason like them; and he's not much of a sweet potato fan.

The Okinawans do a lot of cool things with beni-imo, including making yummy pastries and-
that's right, ice cream. And it's actually really good ice cream. The girls loved it. Jessica's teacher sent home some beni-imo recipes. We tried the cake recipe. I was disappointed that it didn't come out as bright purple as the pastries and ice cream. In fact, it was kind of a sickly putty gray. The girls didn't like the cake so much. Jason and I felt like it was okay, but since we are trying to watch what we're eating, we decided the cake wasn't worth the calories. We sent the leftovers to Jason's work. His co-workers said it was delicious.