New Year, New Duties

This year Pants started Kindergarten.  I have entered the realm of kids gone all day.  I do not believe this gives me any more time in my day. It just allows me to spread my time out differently and take on other responsibilities that I was not willing to do when she was still at home with me.  For instance, I have agreed to be the Key Spouse for Josh's squadron, MDOS. I am the go between from the commander and the spouses.  The military members sometimes get tunnel vision into the mission and I am the link to let everyone at home know what is going on. I will make sure needs are being met to the spouses if an issue arises. I feel it is a lot like visiting teaching among the military.  It means a lot of meetings for me though.  I meet with the commanders spouses and other Key Spouses in the Med Group, I meet with the commander of MDOS, and I attend other meetings that need a link like the Officers Spouses Club.

I am also looking at making myself a home based business for private yoga sessions.  Since Misawa Air Base is in a foreign country, the ability to work off base is difficult.  I do teach four yoga classes on base but this is half of what I taught in Las Vegas as I was able to work off base as well.  I am in the process of applying and obtaining signatures from organizations on base to approve my business, "Yoga Traveler."  In short, I am home alone but I am still never alone and I am just as busy as before.  This time I just do not have a little pal along my side. I keep waiting to be able to slow down and notice that I have no kids around.

One last wave at mom

15th Anniversary Celebration at Matsushima Bay, Japan

Josh and I had our 15th wedding Anniversary this month and since it was a big number and we live in an amazing place, we took a little overnighter.  We had the help of great neighbors to watch our kids for the night so we will be returning the favor.  We drove down to Matsushima Bay.  It is by Sendai so a four hour drive from Misawa. It was the first time we had taken a toll road in Japan and we had no idea how expensive it would be.  We realized that we did not have enough yen to make it back to Misawa.  We are still figuring out how much yen to take with us on outings.  When we arrived at our hotel (beautiful and overlooking the bay) we tried to explain that we needed more yen.  They spoke little English so we did the best we could with google translate.  One of the hotel employees drove us to a bank where we discovered that we would not be able to withdrawal yen with our American cards.  I knew this but did not know how to explain what we needed.  She then took us to a 7/11 where there was an ATM that worked with American cards. We were extremely grateful, humbled by the language barrier, and impressed by the service that we received for the hotel as we searched for a way to get yen.

The Matsushima Century Hotel was beautiful.  They provided us with robes and we had beds and cushions in case we wanted to sleep Japanese style. We had slippers at the entry for the room, slippers for the bathroom, and slippers for the veranda.  Patrons would walk around the hotel in their robes and slippers. It was a great mix of class and comfort.  We loved the view of the bay from our room and the walking distance to the sights.  We were served a seven course dinner with buffet and a buffet breakfast.  We felt very pampered.

Beautiful view outside our veranda

There was a lot to explore in the bay. We went across the Fukuurabashi bridge to Fukuurajima island.  It felt tropical and sometimes the trees were so heavy that it was dark under the canopy.

We took a ferry boat in the bay which took us around to the interesting islands (jima).  We learned that Matsushima bay is one of the three most photographed areas of Japan.

The city had a lot of sights to see in walking distance.  We went to the Matsushima Retro Gallery.  Most of the old toys meant nothing to us but we were interested in the pictures of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Matsushima in 2011.  We went to the Godaido temple, and the caves leading to the Zuiganji Temple.  We enjoyed seeing a mix of the old and the new in this interesting town.

Carvings in the rock wall leading to the temple

Josh loved this little dragon carving

Godaido Temple

Misawa Japanese LDS Branch

Today was the Misawa Air Base Air Show.  The base was open to the entire community and it was packed on the flight line with Japanese civilians.  It did not feel like a typical Sunday as Josh had to work during the day. Since our Misawa Military LDS ward is all military affiliated, they actually had a sacrament meeting at 5:30pm tonight as all the military members would be working through our normal church time.  It is hard to hold church with half of the congregation missing.  The kids and I went to the air show for a while because Bear was selling cakes with her Junior Girl Scout troop.

We are sitting in some sort of Japanese military vehicle.  It was cool to see all the military members from Navy, Air Force, and Japanese Air Defense Force out in full uniform.

I was asked by one of the LDS missionaries to sing in a quartet for the Japanese LDS Branch.  I took the kids along because Josh was working and because I thought it was cool to attend a meeting held in Japanese.  The people were few in numbers, about 15, and they were so friendly.  Many of them shook our hands and greeted us.  We picked out a few words but mostly did not know anything that was being said.  The spirit of the Sacrament meeting was the same though and I loved singing in Japanese.  Any time I am able to interact with the Japanese people, I think of my father, and I can tell how it was easy for him to grow to love them and serve them.  I wish he could have helped me with my pronunciation, but I feel grateful that I know a little of the language that became second nature to him.  I hope that my kids will come to appreciate that our church is the same all around the world, only that the language changes.

ITT Tour- Tanbo Art and Kokeshi Painting

One of the great things about living in Misawa Japan is that every time we leave the base, we are in for a great adventure in Japan.  The military ITT office at Misawa plans day and over night tours every weekend so that we can explore Japan.  We are going to try to take advantage of these tours once a month.  Today we boarded the bus and traveled to Tsugaru Kokeshi Hall in Aomori.  There we toured the museum of the Kokeshi dolls.  Each prefecture in Japan has a little different style.  Then we were able to paint our own dolls with the guidance of an accomplished artist.

I asked the professional to write my name in Katakana on my doll.  

The kids are enjoying the foot onsen at the Tsugaru Kokeshi Hall

Our next stop on the tour was to Inkadate Town to see the Tanbo Art fields.  The fields are planted with 12 different types of rice that grow into a picture.  It was pretty amazing to see.

Famous Japanese General

Godzilla

Castle in Inakadate that now serves as the City Hall.  The rice fields are to the right of the castle.

Our last stop was to Seibien to see a Japanese garden and Japanese Hybrid house.  The gardens and house inspired the animation for the Studio Ghibli film, The Secret World of Arrietty. 

Bear commented that we were looking at more green in this one garden than we saw the whole time we were in Las Vegas.  What a switch of culture, climate, language, food, and everything for us!