Redneck Baby Shower

Our friends Matt and Anna Kenkel will be having a baby girl soon. They are very funny people and did not want to have a traditional baby shower. Instead, we had a co-ed BBQ with a Redneck theme. It was a riot! Almost everyone in the squadron came out in their "trashiest" clothes - complete with mullet wigs, loud make-up and fake tattoos. It was a fun dynamic having the guys around as we celebrated our soon-to-be newest baby Samurai.

The proud parents-to-be. Those are fake powder cigarettes.

Many of the lovely Samurai ladies.

Some of the "classy" wrapping paper - tabloids and duct tape!

The boys whooped and hollered after each gift was opened!

Anna is a big Dodgers fan so we made sure they had some

proper baby fan gear!

We only played one baby shower game -

The boys had to see who could drink a baby bottle

full of cheap beer first. They were so frustrated

with how long it takes to get some liquid out of them! haha

Me with my lovely friend. =^)

MOSC Costume Party

Turns out MOSC does more than have meetings and put on bazaars. Every month we also have a fun social event hosted by one of the base organizations. This month we had a costume party and enjoyed carnival food and games for prizes. It was amazing seeing some of the costumes people came up with. Not being able to drive to a Target or Walmart and buy a costume means you have to get creative. My costume was pretty mild. James and I are going as Calvin and Hobbes for Halloween so I wore the tiger ears and tail that I ordered off of the internet. Next year, I may need to step it up!

Below: my neighbors dressed as

a Japanese rock star and a Mermaid

Bazaar Committee Appreciation Lunch

On Tuesday we had a big appreciation luncheon at the O Club for all of the bazaar committee members. It was a chance for us to relax and celebrate a job well done. I honestly wasn't sure what to expect from this event - but it was incredible! The tables were beautifully decorated and the food was delicious!

After the meal, the MOSC president, our Bazaar chair and co-chairs, as well as the Wing Commander's wife got up to speak and say thank you. Each speech was very heartfelt and dissolved into tears and hugs of gratitude. It was an emotional day for all of us. These ladies all worked SO hard and so our hostess made sure they each got a wonderful appreciation gift.

I'm proud to say that I helped inspire the thank you cards they gave to each committee member. Mary (the chairperson) and I were joking one night at Bible Study that volunteering for things like this is kind of like eating candy corn. Someone offers it to you and you think, "Ooo, candy corn! Great!" Then you bite into it and it's disgusting and you swear you're never going to eat it again. But after a year or two passes you kind of forget and decide to try it again, only to be sharply reminded of why you swore it off in the first place. So as a joke, they taped some candy corn to the front of each person's card. I'm glad I was able to lighten their day with a good laugh!

After the tears and hugs were over, the fun part of the day began. Every year, we budget for some fun appreciation gifts for the bazaar committee. I was thinking they'd be some small trinkets from the bazaar - but many of the vendors partially donated some incredible stuff for us to choose from!! If I had realized how much stuff we'd walk away with after this luncheon I think I would have complained less about how much time I devoted to this bazaar.

To pick our gifts, we played a fun raffle game. Each of the items were grouped and numbered. During lunch we had time to get up and examine them and decide what we might like. Then, when the game began, our hostess would call out a number. If we wanted that item, we wrote our name on a slip of paper and put it in a basket. Then someone's name was drawn and the winner went home with that prize. It involved some strategy, because if you waited to throw your name in the basket until the item you wanted most, you might not get it and then you'll have to settle for something less. But if you enter too soon, you might win something you were less excited about. That's what happened to me... but I'm pretty happy with my appreciation gift.

I got a set of wooden Japanese stacking boxes and 6 small glass floats. The floats are used by Japanese fishermen as small buoys attached to their nets. They range in size from the size of a lime to the size of a globe. Now most fishermen use plastic floats so the glass ones have become antique collectibles that people here in Misawa go nuts for. Sometimes you can find them washed up on the beach, but most people buy them at bazaars and fairs like this one. I considered buying some but decided against it, so I was very happy that I got a sizable collection for free! The boxes are great too because they fit inside one another and match our bar!
All of the work for this year's bazaar may have driven me crazy, but I'm thankful for the opportunity to be a part of it because of the friendships I made. These women are all incredible and I am glad that I was able to serve them. Will I fall for the lure of the candy corn again next year - most likely not. But looking back, I'd say it was mostly a positive experience and I'd definitely encourage others to do the same in the future.

MOSC Far East Bazaar

This fall I served as the volunteer chairperson for the Misawa Officer Spouses Club's Far East Bazaar. The bazaar is MOSC's big annual fund raiser, as well as the primary shopping event for the base. This year we had 32 vendors from all over Asia come and sell everything from furniture to pottery, rugs, cutlery, kimonos, jewelry, photography and other Asian crafts.

For weeks the committee has been meeting to plan and work out the logistics. I have a new appreciation for how much work goes into events like this. In addition to setting up the hangar where the event took place, we had to work out how to handle the money, security, cleaning crews, transportation for the vendors to and from their hotels, food for all of us throughout the weekend, as well as finding and organizing all of the volunteers who would make the event possible.

That last job fell to me and my co-chair Annette. Originally when I was asked to be on the committee and take charge of finding volunteers I didn't think it would be too difficult. Little did I realize that we needed upwards of 250 volunteers to make this thing run smoothly, and it fell to me to advertise, organize, and answer the questions of all of these people and make sure they were in the right place at the right time. It became a full time job as I spent hours every day writing and answering emails and phone calls, and organizing all of their personal info into a massive spreadsheet. The people who had this position before me were very unorganized so I kind of had to rewrite the book when it came to pulling this off. It felt good to hear people say at the end of the weekend that I did a great job and they were very impressed with the system we came up with. Hopefully all of my notes will help the next person's job be much easier than mine was.

Thankfully, all of the hard work paid off. We had plenty of volunteers for each of the shifts throughout the weekend, and there were no major fires to put out. It was a long and rough weekend because I came down with a nasty cold right beforehand, but we still managed to have a lot of fun. James even came down to help out for a while, and we picked out a few nice pieces for our home during the time we had to shop.

James and I decided to invest in a Korean bar. It's dark cherry wood carved with cherry blossoms, bamboo and other Asian plants. The top folds out into a bar/counter surface and is inlaid with grey marble. The doors swing open to reveal a lot of storage for glasses, bottles, etc. We don't drink much but it's a beautiful piece and will make it fun to entertain in the future! James also insisted on buying one of the decorative Samurai swords they had, and I bought some fun Christmas presents that some of you may be getting in the mail in December!!

Steffens Twins

Our squadron commander and his wife Jenn welcomed twin baby boys to their family this summer. As a baby shower gift, I gave them a gift certificate for a portrait shoot. We will do the full family when we get back from New Zealand, but for now we tried to get some good shots of just the guys. They may be babies, but they are definitely boys and did not want to sit still for the strange lady with the black flashing box. So we had to get kind of creative about the posing. But I think we got some precious shots of them. You can see more on my photography blog, if you'd like. =^)

Above is Christian, the more laid back of the two.
Below is his bigger, more squirmy brother Daniel.

Fall Explorations

Columbus may not have made it all the way to Japan, but we decided to honor his holiday weekend with some exploration of our own. First, we went on an hour-long road trip with 5 other couples down south to Nanbu Town to go apple picking. There are all kinds of farms and orchards down there where you can pick seasonal fruit. The orchard we went to has over 20 different varieties of apples, but unfortunately only 3 of them were ripe for the picking when we went. Even so, we had a great time. You pay for an hour of all-you-can-eat harvesting, and then you can buy some to take home. Some of the apples were HUGE! Others had a very unique taste that reminded us of bananas. We bought several and I have enjoyed baking with them over the last week.

Even the babies wanted to get in on the eating! SO cute!

All of the ladies and kids in the back of the truck
that took us back up the hill to our cars.

Afterward, we found a shop where they sell cherry ice cream!

On Columbus Day James and I went out to one of the black sand beaches north of us and went for a walk, took some pictures, and collected lots of sea shells. We also checked out one of the Shinto Shrines there along the coast on our way back. It was a short trip, but we enjoyed getting out of the house and walking around in the sunshine. In a few weeks it's probably going to start snowing so we need to take advantage of the weather while we've got it!!

The "bouquet" of sea shells I put together.

Air Force Ball

This year's Air Force Ball just happened to fall on James' Birthday. The event consists of a 3 course dinner at the club with some musical entertainment, a speech by our distinguished guest, and dancing. Normally we wouldn't attend something like this, but James figured it would be a great excuse to get dressed up for his birthday. Thankfully, several of our friends were going too so we had a great time. I always enjoy people watching at events like this and seeing what everyone is wearing. All of our friends looked great in their finery.

We made sure to get a picture of everyone in attendance from our squadron. A good lookin' group, if I do say so myself!

The boys didn't particularly want to dance to the crazy hip hop music they were playing so we girls went out on the dance floor and pretended we knew what we were doing. Here are just a few of the crazy pictures we took. All of the other people were probably pretty annoyed with us but hey - it was fun!