Culture Exchange

At church, we are in one of six branches within the military district on Okinawa. The building our branch meets in is also the stake center for the Gushikawa Stake, which is all Japanese members. Last weekend our Relief Societies had a Cultural Exchange, with classes taught by Japanese women in the morning and American women in the afternoon. 

There were lots of things we could rotate through, but there was only time for everyone to choose three classes. I decided to start the morning off making some sushi. Layering everything was super easy- the tricky part was rolling it all up!

 Giving it my best shot. The secret was in the "smoosh." 

 I wasn't smooshing it very well, my imitation crab and avocados were falling out all over the place. Thankfully, I got plenty of help from the experts!

 Not too shabby, eh?

My next class was learning to make a pork, egg, and rice dish called Katsudon. We got to taste some of that too, so with that and the sushi, I'd pretty much had a full meal by 10am.

My last class was my favorite: Kimono. It was all in the Relief Society room, with a hair station in one corner, a big section where they were dressing people up, and another corner set up with a backdrop for pictures. I've never worn a legit corset, but I think this is about the closest I've come. The obi (worn around the waist) had some serious reinforcements under it. There was certainly no slouching (or deep breathing!) with that thing on.

I had to laugh that taking pictures in front of the backdrop felt a lot like getting senior pictures done. My friend taking the pictures was giving me instructions on how she wanted me to sit and hold the umbrella, it was all cracking me up.

 A classy "look over your shoulder" pose to show off the obi tie in the back.

After they took off my kimono, I had fun sitting in there watching the other girls get dressed up. There were about a billion kimonos too, the fabrics all so different from one another.

Elvia getting dressed up, holding her arms like that for about 10 minutes while they wrap and tie the obi!

 Heather & Brenda. I was pretty jealous I didn't get to wear that hat.

Katie & Dawn

I ditched out after lunch, but I'm so glad I got to meet more Okinawan women and have fun learning more about their culture. And I'm not gonna lie, it was nice to have three whole hours sans kids :) Plus, I came home to find that Spencer had cleaned the kitchen and cleaned and folded several loads of laundry. Maybe I should do this kind of thing more often! 

Last Week

Between 5:30 and 6pm every day, Spencer looks out our kitchen window and says something along the lines of, "It looks like we're going to have an awesome sunset. Should I get out the camera?" Since we're still learning the ropes of taking good pictures with our camera, they always just turn out ok. But on one particular evening he also intermittently took these cute ones of Sydney walking in the ditch, a popular play spot for the kids on "the hill."

The weather here can turn on a dime. I'll check the forecast at night, then it will be totally different in the morning. More often than not, a sunny day will all of a sudden turn into a rainy one, but we've also had several days that were supposed to be stormy that ended up being totally beautiful.

We took another trip to the zoo, enjoying the flowers and eating lunch under a pavilion while it rained a bit.

Then we headed into the Wonder Museum for some lessons on perspective,

 

and water play, among other things.

We cleared out when a daycare arrived and a bunch of unruly kids took over all the stations. Bummer.

Luckily by then the sun had come out, so we got to cover some areas of the zoo we'd missed the last time we were there. There was a long bridge that cut across a giant pond, and they had vending machines with food for 100 yen at each end. 

Boy did those fish clamor over those little food pellets! The birds followed Sydney around too, snitching everything she accidentally dropped.

Then it was on to see more animals.

When it was time to leave, all clouds were gone and the sun was BRIGHT. Sydney was whining about the sun being in her eyes, but I didn't have her sunglasses. I asked her if she wanted mine, and she said "yes."

She thought she was pretty silly.

On Wednesday we took a trip to the Kurashiki Dam, which I'd heard was a fun place for kids to play. The day started off pretty warm and sunny, but it had gotten more cloudy and windy by the time we got there.

We walked back and forth through the water several times, but it just wasn't hot enough outside to warrant a full on swim. We had a picnic lunch, and Sydney filled up and emptied a squeeze bottle about 50 times, spraying the big rocks with water while I fed Shawn some baby food.

There were tons of paths all around the area, with beautiful views of the dam. Since it's located just east of Kadena, we also got to see some fighter jets take off just over the water. It looked pretty cool, but Sydney isn't into loud noises (and they are sooo loud!!) so she plugged her ears while they flew overhead.

They also had music playing over loud speakers near the visitors' center. Sydney has been kind of obsessed with The Sound of Music lately (the VonTrapp's have become her imaginary children that go everywhere with her), so I had to laugh when they started playing an instrumental version of "Do Re Mi." What are the odds?

The visitor's center was small, but there was a section made to look like a cave with several small interactive stations inside. You could easily pass through in about 2 minutes, but we were there for at least 15 since Sydney was having a blast pushing the buttons over and over again.

Happy Easter!

We had a really nice Easter holiday. Shawn woke me up at the crack of dawn, but Sydney actually slept in until around 7:45 am! That gave me time to make us a bonafide breakfast. When Sydney came downstairs we all searched for our Easter baskets, which the Easter bunny hid around our house. I really had a lot of fun being the Easter bunny this year.

Sydney finding her basket under the pillows.

Not sure why this picture orientation is skewed, but Shawn got a book, and toy giraffe, and some finger paints in his basket.

Sydney got lots of goodies, but the pink bubble gum and chapstick were her clear favorites.

As for church, General Conference was last Sunday in the states, but since the time difference made us miss it, the broadcast was delayed here until Easter Sunday. It was nice to just get to lounge around in our pj's while we watched Conference on TV and ate breakfast. The messages were so uplifting; I always come away feeling more gratitude for the blessings that the gospel of Jesus Christ has brought to my life.

After the first session, we got ready for the day. Sydney was itchin' to wear her Easter dress, and Shawn had a little Easter outfit too. It was really beautiful outside, so we thought we might as well all just get dressed up and try to do a family picture. We enlisted the help of our neighbor Krimp to take some photos. These were my favorites:

We had Cameron over for dinner, then headed to the sea wall to go for a walk and watch the sunset. The sunset was hidden by the clouds, but we still enjoyed walking around. We even got a few more family pictures.

I especially love Shawn's windblown hair in this one.

And how the kids are looking at each other in this one.

It was a great day!

Easter Egg Hunt

Sometimes I really drop the ball on holiday celebrations. We totally didn't dye eggs this year, but I didn't feel too bad about it since I did do the scripture-and-correlating-item in plastic eggs to count down the days until Easter. After all, that is the more important part, and Sydney was none the wiser. I was excited to find that our neighbors do an annual Easter egg hunt on "the hill." We all took turns filling up eggs, then delivered them to the Coat's for hiding.

This is pretty much the worst group picture ever taken, but it's the best we've got. I don't think a single child is looking.

Sydney's a big time fan of necklaces. She likes to wear every single one she owns at the same time, and her new thing is to wear one of them as a headband.

Totally makes her look like a (very cute) hippie. She was so excited to hunt for eggs.

Shawn had a little help finding this one on the swing set.

It was just the right height.

Is it just me, or is Sydney's stance reminiscent of Katniss Everdeen in a Hunger Games poster?

When it was all said and done, she had quite the stash of eggs. She immediately asked if she could eat some of the candy, and I told her she could have 2 pieces. We started talking to some neighbors, and she wandered off. I saw all the other kids emptying their candy in their baskets and returning the eggs back into Louise's giant stash of them, but Sydney was nowhere to be found. I told Spencer I bet she was hiding somewhere and just downing candy.

Sure enough, that's exactly what she was doing.

And this was her face when she got caught! Haha.

Sydney and her cutie pie friend Claire showing off their loot.

Some of the eggs were filled with stickers, and they quickly got to work decorating themselves.

Shawn thought all the neighbors and dogs were pretty entertaining.

Sushi-Go-Round

A few weeks ago, we finally ventured out to the Sushi-Go-Round in American Village. We sat in a booth and checked out all the different items going by on the little conveyor belt, grabbing whatever looked yummy. There was a menu so we could special order items that we didn't see going around, which we did several times. Plus, you never can quite tell how long something has been sitting out. I'm not quite sure how they monitor that.

Spencer (as usual) was much more daring than me. I pretty much held back and let him choose the plates he thought looked good, then if he liked it I would taste it too. Not being much of a fisher eater, I have to say that I really like raw tuna. The texture is so incredible... just melts in your mouth. Who knew? But there were some things he chose that I just couldn't bring myself to try.

Like this one (insert heaving noises here).

While we packed down the sushi, Shawn enjoyed eating peas in his car seat.

Sydney has yet to try sushi. That night she stuck to some plain old chicken and rice.

At the end of the meal, we stacked up our plates and our waitress came over and scanned them to total everything up.

Overall I'd say the whole sushi-go-round thing was fun to try, but I don't think we'll be going back any time soon.