Flat (Stanley) Ryan

My friend Brooke's daughter Ryan sent us her take on the classic 2nd grade project "Flat Stanley." Hers was, of course, named "Flat Ryan." She arrived to great fanfare here at the Wagoner house and we wanted to show Flat Ryan a great time so that maybe when she goes back to Brooke and Ryan's house in Charlotte, North Carolina, she will tell them what a great time she had here and the full dimensional Brooke and Ryan will come visit us!!!!  I will let Flat Ryan tell you about her visit here.

Hi everybody! I knew I was coming to visit the Wagoners in Japan, so imagine my surprise when they opened up the mail with me inside and I was at a US Post Office! How nice for our servicemembers and their families to be able to have a connection to home without any extra mailing costs!

My friend Olivia, who is in 2nd grade like Ryan, wanted to show me a little bit of the base. This is an old air plane that is at the front entrance of the base. You should have seen it at night! It had Christmas lights all over it and even a red nose like Rudolph!

Olivia goes to a really nice school called Matthew C Perry or MCPerry for short.

Her teacher's name is Mrs. Sellers and she's super nice! She said that Olivia's class is doing a "Flat Stanley" project after the holidays. I wonder if she will send her "Flat Olivia" to Charlotte!

Olivia is a Brownie and she had her "Rededication" Ceremony tonight. She bought me a friend "Flat Yoko" to bring home to Charlotte with me. Flat Yoko went on the rest of my journey around the base and Japan with me!

This was a billboard on the wall with lots of fellow flat people!

Audrey takes Japanese lessons out "in town" (code for off base/in Japan) at Kumon. There are American kids who take Japanese and math and Japanese kids who take English and math. Audrey is doing great and read a lot of signs for me when we were out and about in Japan!

These are the three Senseis (Japanese for "teachers") at Kumon. The owner is on the right, closest to Audrey and she speaks great English. The other Senseis are super, super nice and have helped Audrey so much! Olivia used to take Math and is taking some time off right now, but she is going to go back in the spring.

These are some of the Japanese students. Audrey said that one of them is on a very high level of English speaking and her current read aloud lesson is the Declaration of Independence.

There is a large library of Japanese books and a few English books. That anime' character that I am sitting by is all around Japan. Miss Sue doesn't know his name. Before I forget, let me tell you that I'm bringing back some old homework of Audrey's. It's so awesome that she is learning how to read and write Japanese!!!!

Audrey usually gets to go to 7-11 after Kumon. I was excited for a slurpee, but she says they don't sell them at 7-11's in Japan. She said there's other fun stuff though! I am bringing home some of their Christmas flyers for all of their goodies.

Audrey's favorite treat is some kind of ice cream. She says she gets something different every time. Sometimes she strikes out, but sometimes she finds a new one that she loves!

I am bringing home this gum. It is so delicious! It is like chicklets, but in different fruit flavors and it doesn't stick to your teeth. And the super funny part is that they include a small package of post-it notes so that you can wrap up your gum to throw it away. The Japanese are super big recyclers, but everything that can be burned ("combustibles) is burned, rather than put in a landfill. So they like you to wrap up your food scraps in paper so it is easier to burn.

The next day we went "Out in Japan" to see some super fun Japanese sights and interesting signs! Miss Sue tells me that the hardest thing about living in Japan is the language barrier because not only do they not speak Japanese (well, Audrey does a little), but they can't even sound out the words on the signs.

There are lots and lots of railroad crossings in Japan because so many people ride bicycles and use mass transit instead of cars. I'll show you how you can tell which way the train is coming when the bars are down later. Oh! And another thing! Even if the bars are not down, you have to stop and look both ways before crossing the train tracks.

We went to the Wagoners' favorite shop, the 100 yen, or Daiso. It was a beautiful day so Claire got to wear her favorite dress one last time! :)

There is usually a holiday display at this store right when you walk in the door. Gigi thought it was super funny to be taking pictures in a store!!!

I am bringing home those treats for everyone in Ryan's class.

Then we went for a drive. Miss Sue took this picture at a stoplight. The houses are not like American houses, but after your eyes get used to it, you see how beautiful they are. The yards are small, but perfectly landscaped. I thought Brooke, who I know was a landscape architecture major at Iowa State with Miss Sue, will really like it when she comes to visit!!! Sorry the picture was blurry, but the camera was focusing on me because I was the closest image. But I'm also so pretty, so it worked out perectly.

We came around a bend and I was able to see a glimpse of the Inland Sea. This is only about 5 minutes from base.

I wasn't feeling well, so I asked them to pull over when I saw this sign. It was a pediatrician's office, but after I got some fresh air, I felt better.

I wanted a drink before we got in the car and thought it was super funny that Tommy Lee Jones was on the vending machine!

We got to the Wagoners' favorite beach and I had to use the potty. Imagine my surprise when I saw what the potties looked like! The Wagoners' call them "squatty potties." Miss Sue said it's not hard once you get used to it, but the girls still like to use "Western potties" when one is available when they're out in town. They said to look for the "Handicapped" sign and that is a Western potty.

We went to the park by the beach first and there were some Japanese teenagers and the Wagoner girls asked if they would take a picture with me. They were very excited to do so!

Then Yoko and I went down the roller slide. She went faster than me!

The Wagoners' said that there are roller slides all around Japan and some are super, super long. They think that the longest one that they've been on is about a quarter mile long. This one was shorter and kind of rusted, but still fun.

WHEEEE!!!!

Audrey loves to climb trees and wanted to show me my first big view of the sea.

Here's another view. Claire took off for the beach!!!

This is Tsuzu Beach where they go and hunt for sea glass. Claire found the first pieces while we were taking pictures! Even a Japanese pottery piece!  Everyone found sea glass....well....Gigi handed Miss Sue a few rocks and sea shells. :)  I am bringing the sea glass we found that day back with me.

Yoko and I hung out on the sea wall while they hunted sea glass. It was a beautiful day!

Audrey wanted to do some jumping shots. :) Claire is jumping with me!

I'm not in this one, but Miss Sue liked the picture. I like it too!

I see why they love to go to Tsuzu (or as Claire calls it "Sea Glass") Beach. It was such a super fun day!

There's a tunnel that connects two parts of the beach. The Wagoner girls like to run through it and yell "ECHO! ECHO! ECHO!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Here's a fun sign that tells you what you can and can't do at Tsuzu Beach.

Luckily one of the "Do's" was take pictures!!!!!! :)

It was getting dark, but the girls wanted to go on the swings one last time. Gigi had Yoko and Claire had me.

But then Gigi wanted me too!!!!!!

I was hungry on the way home and saw this sign. Kentucky Fried Chicken!

Olivia took me to see "The Colonel."

So, on our way home, we were stopped by a railroad crossing.  It's hard to see, but if you click on this picture and look beneath the round light, you can see an arrow pointing to the left. That's how you tell that the train is coming from the right, traveling to the left! Funny, huh?

On our way into the gate, I was surprised to see a member of the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) as well as a Marine. Apparently they have both at the gates so that they can help translate for each other because lots of Japanese work on the base as well. They were super nice to take a picture with me!

We got back to "Home Sweet Home" and I was pleased to see the Christmas decorations (the gummy Santa and tree) on the window that I sent, along with a whole bunch of other stuff, to the Wagoner girls. I had a GREAT VISIT and I hope that I will come back again WITH Brooke and Ryan....not through the mail, but in their suitcase!!!!!

WHEW! Wow! Sue again here. That was a super fun time with Flat Ryan! Thanks so much for choosing us for your project! I will mail Flat Ryan and the stuff she told you about (and probably a little bit more) tomorrow priority mail, so it should get there in about a week. Seriously, listen to Flat Ryan!!!!!! We would LOVE for you to come visit us!!!!!!!!! Love you guys! xoxo

Olivia's Mican Field Trip

Today I was very lucky to be able to go on Olivia's field trip to pick micans! I usually can't go on the "big" girls' field trips because you can't normally bring the "littles" but this one they let me bring them!  Hooray!!!!

Micans are like clementines and sooooooooooo delicious this time of year!!!!!!  LOVE THEM!!!!!!!

Gigi was waaaaayyyyyyyy into picking the micans and filled our bag in no time! It was so fun and I want to go back as a family on Veterans' Day. It's about 40 minutes away, across the sea, on Oshima Island.

Here are a few pictures!

Gigi was a picking machine! We filled up our bag in about 5 minutes!

My best friend Amy sent me this shirt. It says "My Kids Rock!" and they do! :)

Such a pretty little orchard!

Gigi was such a crazy picker that we had to exit the orchard, but we were content to munch on our bag of micans while the more discriminating pickers finished getting theirs!

Olivia's class with her sweet as pie teacher, Mrs. Sellers!

Then we drove to a dam and had a picnic and as an extra special treat, there was a grass slide that was sort of dangerous, so totally what we have come to expect in Japan! ;-)

No injuries on any of my kids, but there were a few on the other kids.

Such a gorgeous setting!!!!

Love spending time with my girls!

Halloween Portraits

I am a lucky, lucky girl with wonderful friends here in Japan! My fabulous friend, Kathy Goode, COMPLETELY set me up for success this Halloween. We just got cable in May, but only have Nickelodeon and had not heard of the "Monster High" dolls sensation. Kathy did, however, and she suggested to Olivia that she should look at the costumes because Julia was going to get one. It was an awesome costume (Olivia chose FrankieStein, daughter of Frankenstein, and also has the matching Barbie doll) in its own right, but then Kathy thought to book the face painter lady here on base (who is also fabulous....that word is going to be used quite a lot in this blog....sorry!) for the girls. And THEN, if that wasn't enough, Kathy is absolutely fabulous to lots of people, is soooooooooooooooooo caring and helpful, and one of the people she helps is the (say it with me) FABULOUS photographer, Danielle Caceres, and Danielle offered to take photographs of the girls and set up a mini-studio just for them and her (adorable) daughter Lala.

Have I generated enough anticipation yet????????  :) 

Here they are!!!!!!

Lots of Olivia and Julia......

(Mick handed out candy and he said that their costumes were the best of anybody's!) :)

The costume was awesome. Came with everything you see here, but the green skin and stitches and spiders on the arms.

She's going to get you!!!! (But how could you be scared when someone is still so pretty, even when they're green?)

I love this one!

Her lips were soooooooo cool too!

Aren't these pictures amazing????

I believe Julia is Lagoona Blue, but I may have to come back and edit that when the girls roll their eyes and me and say, "Maaahhhh-aahhhm!!!!! That's totally (Insert proper Monster High name here)!"

Hey, she doesn't look scary! She looks sweet! :)

There. More pensive monster pose. Beautiful! Strike the pose, Julia!

What a fabulous (there's that word again!) BFF picture!

Love the attitude!!!!!!

And then my sweet Princess Presto popped in and waved her magic wand for a few pictures!

Peas and Carrots! Carrots and Peas! Book Come Out! Please! Please! Please!

Princess Presto doesn't really have a butterfly on her face, but don't you think she should? Sooooooo cute!

Claire loves to tilt her head or drop down low when Danielle is taking her picture! Such a sweetie!

And then, my Pirate Audrey. This is a funny story. She was going to be a fun-sized M&M and then decided at the last minute (Monday morning) that she wanted to be a Fairy Princess ("Mom, do we have any fairy wings?). And I was at the Exchange not once or twice, but three times that day getting ready for our big night with the Senseis (will be another post) and found an adult angel costume. That ended up not coming with the wings that were shown on the package. (Sigh.). So I made Audrey come with me to Kathy's for the face painter to do something (ANYTHING!) and Kathy's daughter Ariele (Audrey's BFF) was with some other friends who randomly had bought the pirate costume that Audrey asked me to order last year and then didn't wear (Olivia did) at the last minute from the Thrift Store after I donated it and she tried it on at the last minute (like Audrey did last year) and decided it was too short and Audrey said, "I'll wear it with leggings!" so (stay with me) Miss Kathy ran over to get it for Audrey (because, have I mentioned that she's FABULOUS?) and Audrey put it on and looked cute as a bug and Theresa, the face painter lady added some gold and eyeliner on her eyes.....are you ready for the pictures?

And she had the nerve to say to me, "See Mom? I said it would work out!"

But it really did, didn't it? :)

Say "ARRRGHHH!"

And let me just say that Gigi is 2 and she looked cute, but I ran out of time. I got her dressed and we have a snapshot or two that I'll post someday. But you saw her WonderRed costume pics from a few weeks ago, so that should keep you going until you get actual 10/31 pictures! 

LET'S HEAR IT

FOUR THE GIRLS!!!!!

(Whew. It's a lot of work!)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!

He's Coming to America!

I think the word "Proverbial" is super fun to use and had the perfect opportunity to use it this morning

Mick walked out of the house when the taxi pulled up to take him to the shin station which would take him to the Tokyo airport which would then take him to Los Angeles and then onto Omaha, a full 35 hour trip from beginning (taxi cab) to end (my Mom and Dad's house). (Are you still wondering why we haven't come back with the kids for a visit yet?)

He came back in seconds later and said, "I need my passport."

To which I responded:
"The next time you snap at Audrey for not having her backpack ready to go in the morning, remember that the apple doesn't fall far from the proverbial tree."

To which he responded:

"I have seen the err of my ways and am trying to help her to be more like her smart Mother than her dumb Dad."

To which I responded:

"You're such a smart, smart man!"

Enjoy him ,Omaha! He'll be there in 24 hours!!!!!

Cormorant Fishing - July 2011

For my Mom's birthday (this last Saturday, October 1st), I'm going to try and get some pictures up from their visit this last summer! We had such a wonderful, wonderful time and the time went so fast! We did lots of stuff, saw a great deal of Japan, and just soaked up our Grandma and Grandpa time!

My friend Kathy Goode kept all of the girls one Saturday so we could go to the Kintai Bridge and go on a Cormorant Fishing trip.

We boarded the boat and went out about 50 feet from shore and sat there for about 45 minutes. We were so puzzled.

But we laughed and talked and rejoiced that the girls weren't with us and took some pictures and enjoyed the beautiful scenery!

Did I mention how glad we were that the girls weren't with us? THANK YOU Kathy!!!

Then the boat came back in and we thought "That was it????" but luckily there was an American on the boat who was married to a Japanese woman and he told us that it was just a break and we would go out again.

Mick was no dummy.....he jumped off and bought a few Asahi beers and we were ready for round two!

There was still a great deal of sitting and wonderment and more beautiful picture taking.

Look at how long that fishing pole is!

And then FINALLY, we were rowed over to another part of the river and we saw some smoke and then a few boats came around the bend and lo and behold....there were the cormorants!!!!

One of the comorants caught a fish right away and here is a picture of the fisherman when he pulled the leash around his neck to stop it from going down its throat and then he grabbed it out of his mouth and threw it on our boat.

I know it's strange. Just go with it. It's an anchient fishing method.

There was a whole explanation about how the older cormorants are in the lead (very hierarchial) and when a cormorant dies it has to be reported to the Department of Whatever of Japan. Very interesting!

There's a fish being thrown by the cormorant fisherman to the tour boat behind us.

Quite picturesque and very Japanese!

And IN YOU GO cormorant bird! Back to your basket!

Interesting day and have I mentioned that I'm glad the girls weren't with us? :)

It was fun to see this centuries old practice though!

Father Daughter Dance

Mick took Audrey and Olivia to his 4th Father Daughter Dance on Saturday. Two in Charlottesville when Audrey was in 1st and 2nd grade and one in January of this year for the Girl Scouts with Audrey. This was Olivia's second Father Daughter Dance. I'm not sure how I almost forgot the "Me and My Guy" Girl Scout Dance in Spring 2010 with the Girl Scouts and the fabulous Disco Ball Daddy and gorgeous 70's girl pictures! Well, with all of that experience, it was still a very exciting "getting ready" time!

One of my best friends "Miss Mary" Mahoney, who was a hairdresser in her life before kids, came over and did the girls' hair.

As you can see, the end result was positively BEAUTIFUL!!!!

Our GREAT friends, the Goodes (Get it? Ha!) went with our handsome Daddy and beautiful girls, so we had a photo shoot at their house.

And as you can see by the little blonde head at the bottom, there was a little girl that wished she could be in the photo too!

A backstory on this outfit is really sweet and funny! When we got here, I bought these cute jeans at the Thrift Store for Gigi. Kathy, (the GREAT Goode Mom) saw them and said, "I had a pair of jeans like that for Ariele and I held onto them for the longest time and when we got here, I finally decided to give them to the Thrift Store. :) 

And now look at Ariele, Audrey's beautiful, GREAT best friend!!!

Brad, GREAT, proud Goode Dad!

Julia is Olivia's GREAT best friend. :)

And finally, here's our handsome Daddy!

What a lucky Dad! And lucky daughters!!!!

We think, by Audrey's pose here, that she may want to wear heels to the next one! :)

Olivia and Mick won the Dance Contest! I called my friend Megan, who was there at the dance, and she said, "Like Mother, Like Daughter! Olivia is out there cutting a rug!"  There were a bunch of Moms there who took pictures and over the next week or so, they're planning on posting them to a shared web album, so we can order some. I'll post the link when we get it!

The littles weren't dressed for the formal picture, but who could resist to take it anyway? What a lucky guy to have four such beautiful, sweet girls!

And they're lucky too!

We LOVE Father Daughter Dances

and hope that we have

many, many more to come!

Thanks to my friends Nicci Aikey and Megan Coletta for organizing this for our unit!!!