Christmas Program

Danielle had a really cute Christmas program last week. The third and sixth grade put on a great show with singing, dancing, and a very moving violin solo of "Silent Night", performed by a sixth grade student I know very well!

I have to admit, I was so nervous for Danielle doing her violin solo that I sat there like an idiot with my camera in my lap and my hands clenched together and didn't take a single picture of it! I know! She did wonderfully!

Mrs. Bullard's sixth grade

12!!!

Danielle turned 12 on Thursday! My oldest is growing before my eyes by leaps and bounds and the young lady she is becoming has far exceeded any expectations we had of her.

I don't know what my problem is, but throwing birthday parties is not my favorite so I tried to bribe this one out of birthday party just as I did last week with Rayce, and again it didn't work. But Danielle is pretty low maintenance, all she really wanted to do was take a bunch of friends to Shimoda Mall.

Dan came with me and we braved the mall with 6 pre-teen girls.

It wasn't bad at all, the girls went their own way and Dan and I went ours. They went in search of jewelry, and other typical girlie things, and Dan and I went for food of course!

Dan ordering lunch from a place called "Pepper Lunch".

It's hard to believe this is mall food-court food. The meat cooks on the hot skillet, it's delicious.

Lots of choices for soft serve and tapioca ball drinks.

The girls fared great, they know enough Japanese to make their purchases. Danielle got a cute panda blanket and Jewelry. We are so grateful for this girl, Happy Birthday Danielle!!!

Impromptu

Here's a few pictures from Rayce's birthday party at the base bowling alley.

I thought I had him bribed out of a birthday party with 50 dollars, but he decided last minute he would rather have a party then 50 gifts from the 100 yen store!

Avie wanted to do everything by herself, hmmm, maybe it's because she always has two siblings trying to do everything for her.

A Little Stir Crazy

Man, it's been a busy couple of weeks with birthday parties and Dental Squadron events and just the bustle of the holiday season. I start getting a little antsy to get off base and explore. I knew we wouldn't be able to go anywhere on Saturday so I took the kids Thursday for a short little outing to Shimoda park.

Every year about this time migrating swans from Siberia make a stop here in Japan and you can find many at swan park.

Well, we must have been too late, there was one swan.

He was a lovely swan and very eager for the kids' bread, and luckily the rest of the park is pretty cool. I think we were all glad to get off base for a bit.

The lookout tower was closed so we couldn't make the trek up, but it was still a great view.

Accolades

Dan and I were invited to an awards assembly at the kids' school for the student's in 3rd-6th grades and we were told that Danielle was going to receive an award. She scored three awards! She made the principal's list with straight A's, and was also recognized for service in the library as well as helping every morning with the school's news cast. She's amazing, she makes me want to be better every day! Did I mention she's about to be twelve years old! We sure love this girl!

7

My baby boy Rayce celebrated his seventh birthday today!! Words cannot express how much we love this little dude.

Rayce is truly a one-of-a-kind kid. He's so sweet and tender hearted but is into all that is boy.

He was born on a Sunday evening two weeks early and weighed just over 8 pounds. He was the most contented baby.

I can't imagine life without Rayce. He is so in tune with all of our needs all the time, he's very giving and cares about everyone. He told me the other day that he hates it when animals die. He is the peacemaker in our house, He wants everyone to get along. He's very artistically gifted and very athletic. He has girls at school trying to kiss him already, but he told me he only kisses his mom...that's right buddy.

Thanksgiving

Around the end of September I started thinking about where we were going to have Thanksgiving. I knew I wanted to invite several families, especially those like us, that were new to Misawa and didn't know a lot of people yet. We ended up renting a facility on base called the ski lodge. It worked out great.

We had about fifty people come. I was planning to take lots of pictures until my battery died. Ugg, when am I going to learn?

A couple days after Thanksgiving we got all the Christmas stuff up and then...

...we all got sick with the flu! Well everyone but Rayce, he's dodged the bullet so far, we'll see how long that lasts.