11.28.12
I had the joy of babysitting one of our neighbor babies for a couple hours! And then that night, I made red velvet cheesecake cookies. They were delicious! I'm thinking that is my new favorite cookie. After making the dough and filling and chilling both for 2 hours, I had to flatten the dough and put the cheesecake filling in the middle, wrap it, and then bake it.
11.30.12
We took the lower grades from my school to a local theater to see the Japanese stage version of Puss N Boots! I was pretty excited to experience my first off base field trip. Overall, the kids were so well behaved and we had a fun time watching the show even though we couldn't understand it. I was confused when a few strange animals showed up, but it was such a cool cultural thing for me to experience (for free too!) That night, we put up our Christmas tree! We wanted the kitties to get used to it before we put the ornaments on. Our first big Christmas tree in our own home!
12.1.12
For the whole day Saturday, our base had "Tinsel Town" going on, but most of the activities were kid centered, so we showed up that night for the Trace Adkins concert. Sadly, it was a pretty rainy concert, so we only stayed for a few songs. We also got to see the tree lighting! That night, we finished decorating our tree with our ornaments. :) So pretty!
12.5.12
On a random Wednesday night, we went to the theater to watch the MEF Band (Marine Expeditionary Force) concert. They started with a jazz portion, and then had the full concert band, a rock band, a little tuba ensemble, and a brass ensemble I think. They were all so good! It took me back to my concert band days a few years ago. The most entertaining part had to be the rock band's version of Gangnam style though. :)
12.6.12
I finally got my hair cut for the first time on this island. It was driving me crazy, so I called the salon at the BX and made an appointment! It was interesting communicating with her, but I think it turned out alright. :) Also that day, I came home after school to find the crockpot cooking with a whole meal planned out! That was a first and so very exciting! There was also a bouquet of flowers and a cactus that Dan bought for me. So maybe he was trying to apologize for something, but I still appreciated it all!!
12.7.12
We decorated the rest of our house, and took our Christmas pictures. I'd say there were a few that turned out pretty well!
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| Just to remind me of our first Okinawa Christmas :) |
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| Dan's little snowmen and figurines from his childhood |
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| This was our tree last year! hah! |
12.8.12
Saturday night was the Deployed Spouses Dinner, and it was our squadron's turn to host. We volunteered to bring two trays of pasta and salad dressing. After we dropped the stuff off at the school (and might I add that the whole gym was full of delicious looking food), we met up with Sean and Claire at Chili's Too for dinner. Then, they came over and we played a game of Phase Ten and enjoyed some Dunkaroo Dip (Cool whip, yogurt, and funfetti cake mix) and animal crackers.
12.9.12
After an early service at church, Dan was called into work to be briefed on the new restrictions. As you already know, a new curfew was put into effect a while ago after a few incidents with the locals. Well this weekend, a few people decided to drink off base after curfew and resist arrest, so they went over the new policies and the new liberty buddy programs. I spent the afternoon baking over 7 dozen cookies for the annual cookie drive where every single Airman in the dorms gets a dozen cookies. We had our monthly AMMO social that afternoon, so I stopped by for the White Elephant gift exchange where I received a pretty scarf! That night, Dan and I ventured out to find a shopping area that we had heard about but never found. I'm glad we did because I found new boots!
12.10.12
After work, Dan informed me of the lockdown specifics. While it only applies to the military members, I feel like I am on lockdown too since I'm not going to leave my poor hubby at home while I go explore alone... so they are not allowed in off base houses, in shopping areas, beaches, etc. But fortunately, restaurants and churches and everything on bases are okay still! We are hoping this won't last long...
12.13.12
Since we were still on lockdown, our small group was flexible for us and the original host cooked her meal and brought it to our house so we could be with the group! I really appreciated that! I made my red velvet cheesecake cookies again but they sort of looked more like small pancakes than cookies! Whoops...guess I need to work on the size next time!
12.14.12
Friday night, we went to another Hail and Farewell at a restaurant, Jack's Place, on base. It was perfect outside for it because we were on the top terrace part outside. After that, the squadron had an All Call at 7 pm, so I went with Claire to another lady's house and we enjoyed good conversation, hot cocoa, and "The Holiday". Good night out of the house. :)
12.15.12
Dan received a phone call at 4 am saying the whole squadron would have mandatory PT at 7 am so that was a nice start to his Saturday! We had a feeling that might happen because of this lock down thing. If the squadron is able to prove they took measures to enforce the lockdown and improve behaviors, then the ones in charge might be able to cancel the lockdown. Hopefully that makes sense...I'm trying not to use too much military lingo. We went to the BX before lunch to pick up some Christmas movies, ordered an epic dinner box of pizza, and watched movies for the afternoon/evening! It was wonderful just to relax and hang out together since we only have a few more weekends before Dan leaves for Texas on January 5th. That night, we drove by a football game at the junior high, so we stopped to check that out for a bit just to get some fresh air.
I decided to make my own strawberry popcorn Saturday night. The recipe used Jello to flavor it, and it turned out pretty good! The only problem was how sticky the corn syrup made it when I was trying to transfer it to the cookie sheet to bake.
We were pretty surprised that Dan didn't get another phone call in the middle of the morning, so we were able to go to the late service at church and then watch more Christmas movies that afternoon! For dinner, we went to "Yakiniku Viking Try" to celebrate our small group leader's birthday! It was a Korean BBQ buffet so we were able to choose whatever raw meats and veggies we wanted and then grilled it all at our table. I also tried some odd hot banana drink... you just never know what is going to come out of a Japanese drink machine!
To sum up, I want to show you some of the small signs of love the kitties have been showing us lately.
Top row: They love stealing our kitchen sponges. I have no idea why! They did this a while ago, so I started keeping the sponge in a plastic container with the lid on top so the sponge could still air out. Well now, we have to keep the lid on tight so they don't destroy them anymore. The sad part is I had my Mom send me these sponges from the States because I can't find them here and they are the best... haha I know that sounds ridiculous, but I was sad they destroyed my last one.Middle row 1: That used to be a vase full of candy cane pieces and ribbon to look a little festive and different. Then we kept finding pieces of candy canes throughout the house including in the kitties' food bowls! And the ribbon has also disappeared...
Middle row 2: A piece of foil we left on the table started to get shredded but maybe we stopped them when we got home before it was completely destroyed.
Middle row 3: What was once a cute Christmas penguin stocking with two straps now has one strap and two dangly pieces....
Middle row 4: A felt Christmas sack now has holes and a chewed up top
Bottom row 1: They love to destroy cords! My camera cord and case look awful now.
Bottom row 2-4: They decided to start sinking their little teeth in our dining room chairs leaving little marks EVERYWHERE. Every one of our six chairs probably has between 30-50 marks. So there you see two of the chairs in the laundry room, and the rest have been moved upstairs in the extra room where they are safe...
So yeah, our kitties must be going through some sort of destructive phase leaving me anxious to come downstairs in the morning or get home from school or even be out for 10 minutes. I just never know what I'm going to find! Although most of this is little unimportant stuff, the chairs made me pretty sad. It's going to be a challenge to be a single mother without Dan to keep me calm when they destroy things!
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| Sophie was also concerned about the recent event in Connecticut... |
8 Days until Christmas!!!!
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