Valentine's Bowling Party

Valentine's Day was a little rough since James isn't here right now... But thankfully I had some important plans to help make it a special day. The catholics needed full use of the chapel Monday night for confirmation so we decided to throw a Valentine's Party for the kids at the bowling alley. The normal leaders, Kyle and Erika, were back from their vacation and made sure to have lots of chocolates on hand and wrote some valentines from God for each student to remind them of His love.

I had fun just hanging out with the kids and taking a break from the major planning I had been doing. It was really fun having the kids recognize and greet me outside of the chapel setting and to hear some of their stories about how they're trying to apply some of those Bible study methods I taught them last week. Hopefully my meager input is making a difference. =^)

I sat out the first game since bowling isn't the best thing for my back and just had fun taking some pictures. But I couldn't resist jumping in for the second game. I actually did pretty well - getting a couple of spares and one strike!! But the best part of the night was cheering on the girls in my small group (pictured below). They're awesome and I'm really enjoying getting to know them better!

All of the kids are great and I hope to get to know them better in the future so we can have some good conversations and really do some growing! Till then - I'm just glad they were willing to smile in photos. ;^)

Torii Gates & Hirosaki Lantern Festival

On Sunday I went on an 11 hour road trip with Lisa and family to see her favorite Shinto shrine on the west coast of Japan and the Hirosaki Lantern festival. I have no idea what the name of this particular shrine is or how to get there. Lisa found a picture of it in a Japanese travel magazine and talked to a co-worker who speaks the language to figure out how to get there. She has such a knack for discovering these places that are incredibly beautiful backdrops for photos. Sometimes it's because she sees the beauty in the small details that are overlooked in otherwise unremarkable places. But this one needed no enhancements or forced perspective to wow us.

Just outside of a tiny town there is a GIANT wooden torii gate leading to a parking lot in front of a large, ancient looking building that appeared to be an office building or a spiritual school. Off to the left there's a pathway lined with orange lanterns and marble sculptures. The path leads to a very tall staircase climbing up a hill, and at the top of the hill is a standard Shinto shrine. From the top of the hill there we could see the Sea of Japan! Very cool. But if we didn't know that this location offered something more, we would have stopped right there.

Turns out there is a second gigantic staircase leading back down the hill and into a small valley. There, we found a few more traditional structures, a beautiful red bridge which is so iconicly Japanese, AND...
A pathway crowned in hundreds of red torii gates winding up a small hill, leading to some sort of sacred structure. Apparently there's a very famous shrine like this down in Kyoto, but we haven't seen anything like that up here in Northern Japan. It was so beautiful. The red really popped against the pristine white snow, and the evergreen trees and frozen stream added some extra charm. I don't know much about plants but Lisa said there are tons of flowering bushes all over this hill, and there was a stone wall that is obviously a waterfall in warmer months.

We had fun climbing all over the place and taking pictures. It was a little treacherous at times... We'd be walking on what seemed to be solid snow and then all of the sudden we'd sink down to our knees. I think the valley must just be filled with huge drifts because we really had to bend down in order to walk underneath the gates in places. I was definitely wishing I'd worn my waterproof snow pants by the end of the day.

At the top of the hill we stopped and took some nice portraits with the gates in the background. It was fun getting to know Lisa's parents better. They're awesome. I look forward to showing my parents around Japan someday (HINT HINT!!!). ;^)

I wasn't so sure about this trip when we set out. Over 5 hours in the car to see 2 things? But the shrine was definitely worth it! These are my favorite travel pictures from Japan so far. =^)

After we were finished at the shrine, we piled back into the car and headed southeast to the very famous and historical Hirosaki Castle where they were holding their annual Lantern Festival. I'd heard this is one of the best local festivals and so I was excited to check it out. We got very lost on our way down there but we arrived just after dark and had plenty of time to walk around on the grounds and take pictures.

This is definitely the most peaceful festival we've been to. The pathways were lined with snow lanterns filled with candles, many of which were painted in the traditional Kabuki style with Japanese figures on them. Snow was lightly falling from the sky and the air was filled with the sound of bells playing songs like Pachelbel's Canon and Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring. We kind of felt like we were walking around in a musical snow globe all night.

Near the entrance we ran into two other girls from the squadron who had already done the circuit. They told us it was awesome and helped reinforce our excitement to be there. I made sure to get a picture with them next to one of the dozens of snow bunnies scattered along the path. This is the year of the rabbit according to the Japanese calendar so that was a big theme.

I've seen so many pictures of Hirosaki Castle so I was excited to finally get a picture in front of it. I hope to go back this spring when all of the cherry blossoms are in bloom.

One of my favorite areas was lit with tons of purple Christmas lights and candles. There were all kinds of cute snow sculptures, including a mini version of the castle. The walkways down there were lined with little lanterns that local kids had decorated. They were so cute!

Down the hill from there was an area that seemed to be devoted to kids. There were some food booths where we bought some tasty sausages on sticks. That was a much needed way to warm up a bit. There were also some MUCH larger snow sculptures down there, as well as a big snow slide. My favorite sculpture was a big replica of one of the castle towers. Seeing that was a small compensation for missing out on the larger festival in Sapporo.

By the end of our walk we were beyond frozen. (I mean, we were out there for two and a half hours). But it was totally worth it. Thanks to Lisa for one more spectacular Japanese adventure!!

Clothes Swap Party

The most consistent piece of advice I received before moving to Misawa was: "Make sure you have all of the clothes you're going to want or need for a while because you won't be able to do much shopping there. Japanese sizes are too small and oddly shaped for Americans!"

I wasn't too worried about this myself, being a tiny person with very small feet. But it's true - shopping off base is very difficult. Even if you find something that fits and seems age-appropriate, it's probably 2-3x as expensive as it would be in a U.S. store. So most people have turned to online shopping or wait to replenish their wardrobes until they travel back to the States. (I think Target should write a thank-you letter to the U.S. military. I know dozens of people who have gone on major shopping sprees there as soon as they touch down on American soil. haha)

I'm not much of a shopper and don't care much about clothes so I figured I'd be fine waiting till we return to the States... but my lifestyle here is much different than it was in Phoenix. There are many more types of weather that you need to dress for, and we have so many parties, baby showers, and other events that require something nicer than a jeans and tee shirt. So I've been in dire need of a closet-overhaul for months.

Thankfully, my wonderful friend Kendall came up with a brilliant idea to help us in our style woes. Saturday night she hosted our first bi-annual clothes swap party! Everyone was invited to bring over some clothes and accessories that they don't wear any more and then we'd trade! It was a great way to help us clean out our closets and collect some new clothes without spending a dime! I didn't have much to offer since I only hang onto things that I wear regularly, but I figured I'd go and hang out. I am SO glad I did!

I don't know what we were expecting - probably for people to show up with 5-10 things to trade. But it turns out there are multiple people in our squadron who have shopping addictions and had a lot of hardly-used things to get rid of. We had 12-14 girls show up, some of who brought AT LEAST one huge suitcase completely packed with shirts, pants, dresses, shoes, belts, handbags, sunglasses and jewelry. Pretty soon every surface in Kendall's living room was heaped with items up for grabs. I've never seen so many clothes under one roof (outside of a store).

When we were all assembled, fed and ready - Kendall gave the signal and we all jumped in. We weren't sure what the best way to organize it was, so we decided to handle it on a first-come-first-serve basis. There were several little changing nooks throughout the house and we all came out and paraded the items, asking for our friend's opinions on how things looked. It was great because there was a good range of sizes available so I think everyone walked away with something.
I was pleased to see that it all stayed very friendly. The picture below of the two girls fighting over cashmere was a total joke. Mostly people would pick something up and say it looked like something a certain girl would like and encourage them to go try it on. Then if it didn't fit that person they'd hand it off to someone else. I am SO glad I decided to attend because many people brought things that are now too small for them, so everyone was throwing stuff at me because it probably wouldn't fit anyone else. Muahaha. I actually walked away with a lot of much needed dress clothes. I'm gonna be set for this summer's festivities with sun dresses, fancy tops, light jackets, and a few small purses.

When we were finished, there was still a lot left over and so we donated it all to the Thrift Shop. We couldn't resist taking a silly picture of a few of us buried in the left-overs, though. ;^) I think this was an AWESOME idea and something we plan on doing again in the future. I'd highly recommend it to all our friends at overseas bases!

Super Bowl Monday!

One of the problematic things about the extreme time difference between Misawa and the States is the crazy time sporting events come on TV. Thankfully, AFN plays a good amount of sports, award shows, and other significant broadcasts. You just have to set an alarm clock in order to see them live.

This really hit home this past weekend when we realized that the Super Bowl was going to begin at 8 am Monday morning. =^O Thankfully, the base gave everyone (except the school kids!) the day off to support the morale of our troops. So we all gathered at a friend's house off base and watched the game while eating our way through an awesome breakfast buffet.

Another major draw-back to watching the Super Bowl overseas is that AFN doesn't play normal commercials! We were seriously bummed about missing out on the best part of the whole broadcast. But thankfully one of our friends has a sling-box and we were able to hook up his computer to our host's TV. Basically a sling-box is a device you hook up to a TV back in the States, and it gives you the ability to access all of those cable channels from a computer anywhere in the world. That way you can watch cable shows through streaming video over the internet. The quality is not great, but it was good enough to see the commercials. So we would switch back and forth between the higher-quality broadcast of the game on TV and the computer input for the commercials. It was awesome!

I may end up doing something similar in a couple of weeks for the Oscars. We're a bit out of touch with current movies, but just like the Super Bowl, the Academy Awards are a big deal in our household and I'm gonna watch them - even if I have to get up early on a Monday to do so!

Cross Training

The main thing that has been keeping me so busy over the last month has been the youth group at the base chapel - also known as Cross Training. One of my new year's resolutions was to stop wasting time on random volunteer opportunities and instead pour myself into my true passion of mentoring young believers.

The Cross Training meetings are every Monday night from 6:30 to 8 pm. We provide dinner for the kids and they have time to socialize and eat at the beginning. Then we do a game or ice-breaker, worship, and have a lesson and discussion. It's a lot of fun and we've got a great group of kids - about 30 on average, ranging from 6th to 12th grade.

After two weeks of simply showing up and helping out, I was asked to step up and take charge while the usual leaders went on vacation for 3 weeks. It was a bit abrupt but I was excited to really step it up and flex my leadership muscles again. Thanks to a lot of prayer, the meetings went pretty well and the kids responded very positively. It was A LOT of work - planning a meal to feed 30 teenagers, plus picking relevant worship songs, coming up with a game, and writing a 25 minute talk each week. But it was totally worth it.

In the past they've just watched a 10-15 minute video and had a short discussion afterward. But my computer doesn't work with the chapel's old projector so I had the freedom to teach the kids anything I wanted. The videos are entertaining, but I felt like the lessons were lacking depth - so I took this opportunity to really challenge the kids. Amazingly, they listened, spoke up when I asked questions, and were clearly hungry for more. It's been SO exciting seeing the wheels turning in their heads and catching a glimpse of what God's doing in their lives.

When I stepped up to lead, they had just finished a series on friendship. So my first lesson took that one step further and we talked about loving unlovable people. We discussed how it's not easy, but we need to do it because Jesus loves us in spite of our own unlovable, sinful actions and attitudes. The next week we went back to the basics and took a deeper look at God's incredible love and why He is worthy of all the sacrifice we'd talked about. I kept emphasizing that night how all of that info can be found in the Bible, and that we can discover those promises and encouragement if we just read it. But it struck me later that too often we tell kids to read their Bibles but never help teach them HOW to study the Word. So last night I devoted the entire night to equipping them to get the most out of their personal Bible studies and quiet times. That was a particularly fun night to prepare for. I created a hand-out that describes four separate Bible study methods that I've learned from the various youth groups I've been involved with. It was fun to see them trying new things and beginning to understand that the Bible is not just a rule or history book but something that can speak to them about what they're going through RIGHT NOW. =^D

The normal leaders are coming back this week so I'll be returning to my support role next week, but I'm going to talk to them about ways we can make sure we're continuing to give them lots of depth and are challenging them each week. We now have 6 regular youth leathers - 3 men and 3 women - so I'm thinking that maybe breaking up into small discussion groups after the video might be a great way to get them talking and processing, while giving us a way to get to know them better.

I've also started up a small girl's core group with three 8th graders from the youth group on Wednesday afternoons. They're all very spiritually mature for their age and I look forward to our discussions and watching them grow over the next couple of years! It's so great to be serving and inspiring young people again. I'm praying for big things to begin happening on this base! =^D

Lake Towada Winter Festival

On Saturday night we decided to join Derick, Lisa, and Lisa's parents on a nighttime excursion to the Lake Towada Winter Festival. Many of our friends are going up to the gigantic snow festival in Sapporo this week, and James and I figured this would be a way to get a small taste of the lights and sculptures. Obviously, this local festival was much smaller and not nearly as impressive, but we had fun. I just wish we would have realized how extremely cold it was going to be. They had a full night of entertainment planned, including traditional Japanese music performances on a stage carved out of a snow bank as well as a fireworks display over the lake. But we were so frozen by the time the program started that we gave up and drove home. If we go again in the future, we will get the timing right. At least we got some great travel photos (which is all I really care about...) Enjoy!

The tunnel of lights leading into the festival

Traditional Japanese festival food - fried meat on a stick
and fruit dipped in chocolate on a stick. (Really, anything on a stick...)

Eww. Salted fish on a stick. I have no idea how to even eat that!

The entertainment inside the food pavilion was - of course - karaoke!

Nebuta float on display (another Japanese festival)

They had two snow slides set up so little kids could do some night sledding

Snow lanterns lighting the pathways

We got to go inside of some real igloos!

Hangin' out inside an igloo

Ice sculptures!

Church made of snow!

Group photo in front of a waterfall of lights

Only in Japan...

Early Valentine's Dinner

James is going to be away on Valentine's Day, so we decided to celebrate early. We went out to dinner at a nice local restaurant called Aburi-An. It's a Yakiniku place with a grill in the center of the the table. It's basically the Japanese version of Korean BBQ in that you order the meat, veggies and side dishes you want and can cook them however you'd like to. I like it better though because the Japanese side dishes are hot and marinated in soy sauce rather than cold and pickled. There are several restaurants like this in Misawa, but I love this one because the atmosphere inside the restaurant is remarkably nice and up-scale. (The Japanese are normally not big on aesthetics so it's unique to find a place where you won't feel out of place if you want to get a little dressed up.)

The food was fantastic. We started out with a plate of spring rolls (pictured below). They were not what we expected, but it was better in many ways. They were flavorful AND healthy with a beautiful presentation. After that we ordered some pieces of marinated sirloin steak and chicken to grill, as well as some asparagus, rice, and edamame (salted soy beans). Edamame is my favorite Japanese snack and I can't pass them up whenever they're on the menu.

At the end, we splurged on dessert. All we ordered was a chocolate sundae, but what they brought us was this vision of sugary goodness. It was more than enough for us to share, and the little heart-shaped wafer made it extra festive! What a fun date night!

Changing Command

I've had several opportunities over the last couple of months to take photos for friends whose husbands are being promoted or shifting their command from one job to another. The most significant ceremony I attended was on January 31st. Our squadron's DO (second in command), Col. Jantz, was taking command of the 35th Operations Support Squadron - a HUGE promotion. It was a big deal and many people attended the ceremony, held in one of the largest hangars on base. However, it was exciting on a personal level because his wife, Becky, has been a dear friend and mentor to me since we arrived and I love their whole family. It was great being there to support them during this significant transition!

At the start of the ceremony, the oldest daughters of the former commander and the new commander sang the Japanese and American national anthems - a great way for the families of both men to be involved in the festivities. They did a great job. I got a little emotional as I snapped photos of both pairs of grandparents as they saluted the flag and watched their son (in-law) be honored for his outstanding career.


After a couple of speeches were made by the current Wing leadership and the former OSS commander, they performed the official change-of-command by passing the flag from one man to the other. Then Col. Jantz got up there and said a few words. We were all impressed as he made it clear that everything he does is for God, and that the main reason he was taking over this position is because of Him, and that they are excited to see what God's got in store for them over the next couple of years. He also got very choked up as he thanked his parents, kids, and especially his wife for all they do. It's always touching to see a strong man of God share what's on his heart in a very public way. =^)

At the end of the ceremony, they gave flowers to the ladies of both families, and then we all went over to the Officer's Club for a nice reception. They had lots of food and cake set out for guests, and we all enjoyed celebrating with friends. I couldn't stay long but made sure to get a good family picture of everyone decked out in blue - their new squadron's color. There is not a more deserving family for this job and I'm so happy for them!