Cummings Spelling Bee

Quite a few of my readers (considering that they are Ukrainian) will probably say, “Spelling “what?””. “Spelling Bee” is a competition in which children are asked to spell words in English. I’d never heard of “Spelling Bee” competition until I got to the states. Obviously, it would quite impossible to hold the same kind of competition in Ukrainian because our language is phonetic. English—not so much-haha.

This year, Katya and Alex were both chosen by their teachers to participate in the Spelling Bee. Each class had three representatives, I believe. Then first graders were competing among themselves, second graders were doing the same. Third graders (Katya’s age) were competing among themselves and with the fourth graders. The fifth and sixth graders competed within themselves. At the end, the winner from third, fourth, fifth and sixth grades had a final contest to be Cummings Spelling Bee Champion.

I know that Alex went over 70% of his five pages of words a couple of time. Most words he knew how to spell correctly right away—he had to practice only a dozen out of each hundred of words. Katya—I have no idea. She said she’d looked over the words and knew them all already. We kept telling her she needs to go over them more, but she insisted that she knew them all.
Therefore, we did not expect much. Really.

In fact, Alex told me the night before the competition that he really would prefer me not to come to watch him because he’d be more nervous….I was sad and….I lied. I said, “Okay, I won’t come”.
Hehehe. There is no way I would not come to something like that when I had no scheduling conflicts. So I grabbed Mark and, on the way to the gym, stopped by the school. I made sure that Alex didn’t notice me when I came in. And then I found a spot between the school gym and the cafeteria (where the competition was being held), grabbed a chair and listened intently to what was going on on the stage.

I couldn’t see Alex, I could only hear his answers. Round after round, he kept getting the words’ spelling correctly, while kids who misspelled words had to be eliminated. After a while, I couldn’t stand it any longer, so I looked out on the stage and saw that he was one of the final three! Next thing I knew, Alex won the first place!

I couldn’t believe it! I was so happy that I came to “hear” that moment! I congratulated Alex, gave him a big hug and ran to the school office to call Robert to tell him that Alex got first place.
I said, “Oh man….we just have to prepare ourselves that Katya will be very jealous and sad if she doesn’t win”…That’s just life with competitive siblings.
Okay, so now, Katya’s part of the competition was in three hours. I went to the gym, actually showered and got ready for the day, curled my hair….umm…just in case I had my picture taken or something:).

This is Katya before the competition began. Although she was nervous, she was always smiling.

This time, I was able to watch all the kids go in order and spell words. The thing is that you only get one chance to spell the word correctly. If you make a mistake—you are out. Katya kept passing al the rounds and finally the word “treadmill” brought her victory! Again, I couldn’t believe it! That was amazing! And of course, I was one proud mama!

Thirty minutes after third and fourth graders determined their winners, final part of the competition began. We had Katya and three students (4th, 5th and 6th graders) on the stage. Katya was given her first word, from her list of words to know how to spell. “Squirrel”.  “Squirrel” is the word that she’ll remember how to spell now for the rest of her life because that’s the word that eliminated her from the final competition. She was a bit disappointed at that moment, but that didn’t last very long. 

Congratulations, Katya!

Good thing I curled my hair, eh?

One thing I am guilty of, I have noticed, is that I tend to underestimate how good my children are in some areas of academics or arts. I am not sure why I do that, possibly because I am afraid to come across as that I want to brag about them. In any case, I need to work on that, since apparently I have these stinking smart kids and I’ve got to start showing them off more-haha.

That night was a big celebration evening at the Watsons’ house!  Dinner at the food court (it’s very special!) and ice cream from Baskin-Robbins.

Two funny kids…

Love you, guys!

Hachimantai

One early Monday morning (6:30 am), we got up, packed our snow gear and took off for Hachimantai. It was President’s Day—perfect day for skiing since most Japanese were at work and our ski resort was empty.

Hachimantai is a wonderful ski resort, geared towards families and beginners. It’s situated about 2 hours south of Misawa, on Mt. Iwate slopes.

The plan was to put Alex into skiing lessons, while Katya and Robert ski for two hours and I hang out with Mark at the play area outside. That morning, Alex was whining and crying until we got into our car that he didn’t want to go skiing at all—our church friends were having a Wii Olympics activity and he wanted to do that instead. Anyway, we were not going to stay home just because he wanted to, so we told him he just had to give a try and see what he thinks.

When we arrived at the resort, we quickly found a place to sign up for Ski School. Because it was Monday, Alex got a private lesson for a price of a group lesson. The instructor spent two hours with him, even took him on the ski lift during the second hour. 

This is the view of the bunny slope. Alex is on the right, then Robert to the left of him and Katya is the bright green dot on the left.

So while Katya and Robert were conquering the intermediate slopes and Alex was learning how to ski, Mark and I were having a blast! I think Mark was just happy to have me all to himself more than anything.

Here is Mark in the bouncy house (no roof, so watch out for snow).

He rode a train..

Then a street car (or “tramvai”)…

His favorite activity of all was shoveling…

The most hilarious part was that Mark just loved this gorilla and kept wanting to cover its back with snow.

Basically, I had one happy kid the entire time we were outside (more than 2 hours)!

We also went sledding on the hill next to the kids’ area, enjoying this beautiful view of the mountains around us. It  was a perfect sunny frosty day!

After Alex was finished with his lessons, we found some yummy curry, ramen and steak for lunch.  Robert and the big kids headed up the mountains again for more skiing with renewed energy.

Robert took these pictures to show you the view and how empty the ski lift was. 

Katya was skiing like a pro, daring to go on some of the harder slopes (not this one, obviously), although this is her third time skiing.

 

From about one o’clock till four o’clock Mark spent playing inside in a small area with toys and watching a movie on a portable DVD player while I was reading my book. He did such a fantastic job behaving all day!

And what could be better after a long day of skiing than a visit to an onsen?  On the way out of the Hachimantai area, we stopped by one of the onsens. Kids loved it again! Robert said that the boys’ favorite part of that onsen was a pool with cold water (crazy!). Katya and I liked the outside steaming hot pool.  In the changing room, I put some mens’ hair repair treatment on my face thinking it was a face lotion (they usually provide some toiletries at nice onsens)….I survived I also saw a gross designated place for people to clip their nails/toenails…I guess that’s better than just doing it in the washing area, but still:)

It was a perfect day for all of us—the kids loved skiing. I love seeing how they gain confidence in what they do and how they see that sports are really fun to do. This would have never happened if one of us were teaching them how to ski…something about having a teacher to show them how do that makes a huge difference.

We definitely recommend Hachimantai as your beginner ski resort especially if you have kids who are learning how to ski.

Skiing season is not going to be over probably till the end of April. I am thinking we can squeeze in one more skiing half day in the middle of March. Hopefully.

Father-Daughter Dance

It had been a very long time since I’d been asked out to a dance, but one day back in February I received a special invitation from my own little girl.  She wanted me to take her to the Father/Daughter dance held at the school.  I quickly said yes, before she had a chance to change her mind.

I think getting ready was half the fun – at least for her.  She got to wear curlers (not sure what all the fuss is with curlers, personally.  Never helped me any).

I took her out (cuz I had all the money) to Angelo’s Italian Restaurant (yup, there’s Italian in Northern Japan) and we ate lots of pasta.  And the scallops were fantastic.  We just talked and talked while we ate, and had a grand time together.

The dance was set up prom style – well, not exactly, I guess, but they did have balloons.  And a photographer, who emailed the photos out to us later. 

She’s a cutie.  I can’t believe she’s 8 years old now. 

It was tough keeping her to myself all evening.  She kept escaping to go hang out with her friends or to get another . . .  and another Oreo Rice Krispy bar (I liked them too, so I made a batch the next day – Oreos and Rice Krispy treats . . . who knew they could be so good!).  We did get a lot of good dancing in too.  “The Chicken Dance” got the whole crowd out onto the floor.  There was a huge spontaneous bunny-hop line (just the girls – and one random boy who was a bit out of place -- while the dads were sort of pushed to the perimeter of the dance floor).  Most of the time no one could even hear the music, but that didn’t matter anyhow, because no one could really dance to the beat.  We all just sort of wiggled our arms and jumped up and down all night.  The last song was a slow one, though, and it was quiet enough for us all to move to the tempo – Katya loved being twirled around and to be thrown in the air (no, not during the slow dance).  There was some swing-dancing earlier in the evening, but she didn't care if there was music.  She just wanted to make sure her friends saw her being tossed up high.

There’s my little cutie.  She may not like it, but she’ll always be my girl.

Tato

Spouses Dining In

I am an Air Force wife.  I never imagined I would be. Just like I never imagined I would be living in Japan on a military installation. So…living this military life, I have learned quite a bit of new concepts and traditions about the Air Force and military in general. I cannot say that I have been very involved in many volunteering, organizing and entertaining part of what officer spouses do, but I have been trying to support my squadron by going to occasional planning meetings and trying to make time for social get togethers.

See, when you live overseas, spouses are tight. Officer spouses have their own hang outs and things that they are in charge of, then, for us, we have Medical Group spouses who do and organize things together, plus I have our Dental Squadron that I am a part of.  I love our dental spouses’ get together lunches/dinners/parties out the most because we know each other the best and it’s great to talk to each other.  Also, a lot depends on the squadron’s commander’s wife, of course, and whether or not she is pleasant to be around-haha. Ours happens to be our friend from church too, and practically our neighbor, so we do enjoy spending time with her.

Anyway, this post is about a very crazy party that took place on Feb. 17th. It was advertised for months before so that all spouses could find babysitters if they needed them. The event was 1st Annual 35th Fighter Wing Spouse’s Dining In—with Once Upon a Time theme.

Each squadron/group chose a book which would become their special theme for the table and costumes. The rest of the rules were similar to the way military men do their Dining Ins—no clapping, but banging with spoons on the table, grog and all that stuff.

Our Med. Group chose “Percy Jackson” books as our theme. So we were to dress up as the Olympians and campers (if you’ve read the book you know what I am talking about). This was our table—decorated to depict three kingdoms of water, underworld and sky.

I was Hestia, goddess of domesticity, hearth, architecture and family. Here is Medusa and I

My German friend, who is Hera, and I.

Here is most of our group. That half naked guy is Zeus.

Some of my other favorite tables were “Phantom of the Opera” table.

“Alice in Wonderland” table, which one the best detail decorated table award.

This was “How to Train Your Dragon” table—I really liked their costumes too:).

Here is another picture of Medusa, Hestia, Centaur (with an actual horse bottom behind her-haha, that’s Natalie Staples, our commander’s wife!), Winnie-the-Pooh, and lady from the “Phantom of the Opera”.

The whole Dining In was decorated in “Harry Potter” theme with the head table guests dressed up as characters from the book.

Let me tell you that the idea was a very fun one—to get us all together, be creative and have fun.  We had certain rules we had to “obey” or we’d have to go drink the GROG (nasty drink prepared by mixing all sorts of different liquids that stands in the middle of the room).  The three witches were in charge of deciding who has to go drink the grog. Some people were so naughty that they WANTED to go drink the grog-haha. Their punishment was that they had to drink the non-alcoholic one.

This is not the place for me to vent or express my shock at what that evening turned out to be—it just wasn’t what I was expecting.  Let’s just say that I was very surprised at how some of the spouses acted and the language they used:).  I still was really impressed at how much creativity people have! I’d never seen so much work put into decorating tables or preparing costumes!

I wanted to blog about this so I don’t forget my first and probably last time going to something like that.  Some say this is part of being in the military, but I kind of want to skip this part.

You Can Basically “Hop” Over to South Korea

Do you know the term “Space-A”? That’s the kind of flights that we used when we went from Tokyo to Singapore—free military flights that are sort of random, sort of unreliable, sometimes frustrating—but FREE. Another term for that we can use is “a hop”. So we say, “we can take a hop to”…Greece…j/k.

Remember how we took a week long trip to Seoul and flew for free? Well, after my girls’ grip to Tokyo (and Alex’s sad begging to come with us), we decided that it would be fair if Robert took Alex on “big boy” trip to Osan, South Korea. Alex was so excited because he would also get to see his great friend, Andrew! (Andrew moved from Misawa a year ago and is moving to Germany this summer). 

The boys had only one late afternoon and evening to spend with their friends. In order to catch a free flight back, you have to turn around and fly to Misawa the next morning. Nevertheless, after a little bit of Korean shopping, Robert met up with a group of friends for dinner, spent the rest of the evening chatting and hanging out (Alex was in heaven!—they got to stay up till 10 pm), and had a breakfast with another set of friends.  All he wishes is that he could have spent more time with his friends.

Unfortunately, Robert didn’t remember to take any pictures on the first day he was there, so he didn’t get any pictures of most of the friends….maybe next time…

Thank you dear F Family, P Family and T Family for making it such a fun (although short) trip for my boys!

I am still looking for a Monday-Tuesday when I could come and see you all too:)!

The last attempt to conquer the snow

I interrupt this regularly scheduled program to bring you a post that I’ve just recently decided to share.  I know you were expecting something about Tokyo (because the last post promised that would be next).  Maybe next time.  If I want to.
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I think now I’ve finally gotten over the fact that I didn’t make it to the Hakkoda mountain cabin this year.  A group of us guys headed up on snowshoes one snowy Friday morning in February, only to turn around halfway up because the snow was so incredibly, unbelievably deep.  In the beginning, we were stoked.  Sure, there was a good fresh 2 feet of snow.  So what if the cars in the parking lot looked like gigantic, slightly squished marshmallows.

Undeterred, we ventured forward.  As soon as we got on the trail, however, we realized we were in for a long hike. Because there was so much fresh powder, the trail was nonexistent, which means that there was no snowpack to walk which means WE WERE BLAZING OUR OWN TRAIL!!  And if you’ve ever snowshoed before, you understand that snowshoes do not make you float on powder—you still sink a few feet.  At first we did pretty well.  We immediately got into a system of where we would rotate line leaders, exchanging every 5 to 10 minutes.  As we got further up the mountain, however, we had to switch leaders more frequently, eventually trading places every 5 to 10 STEPS, when we were shoveling (yes, we brought little shovels) through chest deep snow.  That’s when we turned around.  It was getting darker and we were only halfway up the mountain.  It had taken longer to get halfway up the mountain this year than it did to get all the way up last year. 

Here, this will give you a better idea of how much more snow we had this year.  Last year I took this picture at the trailhead.  Beautiful clear day.  that mountain peak in the background is just up from where the cabin was.

This year I took this picture.  Same vantage point.  Notice something missing?  1) the mountain is missing.  Not the same clear day, is it?  And 2) the Torii gate is gone.  No, they didn’t move it—it was completely buried in snow this year.  And if there was that much more snow just at the base of the mountain.  Imagine how much more there was further up. 

So, as I mentioned, we made the collective decision to turn around (and not just because we were a little bit off track).  Because of that, you can imagine my disappointment.  After all, I had arranged the trip and convinced the other guys to go up there with me.  We were supposed to get to the cabin before dark.  Roll out the sleeping bags.  Eat lots of junk food.  Play games.  Do guy stuff.  Try to sleep on wooden planks and hope the residual heat from the kerosene heaters keeps us alive  warm till morning.  Then hike back down with stories to tell (or not to tell). 

So I came up with a few reasons why I shouldn’t be so hard on myself that we didn’t make it to the top.
1) Even professional trekkers, who have spent thousands of dollars, don’t make it to the top of Mt. Everest
2) We went to Coco’s Curry restaurant before going home that night and nothing tastes better than spicy Japanese curry and rice after spending the day trailblazing on snowshoes, carrying 40 to 60 pound backpacks.  True comfort food in every meaning of the word.
Okay, just two reasons, really.  As my kids would say, “’Few’ means three!”, so I should correct myself.

So perhaps someday I may have the chance to try again.  Until then, I have great memories of the times I succeeded and the one time I didn’t.  Sometimes life’s just like that.
And now I have to go clean up the stuff by the stairs.
Rob

On Misawa, Moving and Attitude

Today, while picking out some books for a birthday gift, I overheard this conversation:
“How are you doing?”, a guy standing next to me asked a woman (obviously someone he knew) passing by.
“Terrible!”, she answered without skipping a beat.
“Oh…..I hope it gets better soon”, I am sure he regretted that he even asked. 
“It won’t…we live here”, she said quite depressingly.

This is no news to me—some people absolutely hate Misawa. They hate being in such a remote rural location, hate living on base in small houses, hate not being able to read the signs on the street, hate the fact that the commissary or our BX (store for everything else) doesn’t carry a great variety of food/clothes/toys/stuff, hate that it snows a ton and we have to shovel….I could keep going and going. Can I be blunt? I get tired of listening to those people.  We are all in the same boat—I go to the same stores, drive on the same roads, live on that same base…and I am enjoying my life here. I hear people say that they really like Japanese people and their culture but they really cannot stand this base. 

I cannot pin point what exactly that makes me have a different attitude about Misawa. Is it the fact that my husband has a good job with a schedule that allows him be home for dinner most nights?  Is it all the great friends that I found here?  Is it the fact that we are not afraid to just get out of our house and go places, that we research where to travel and take daytrips on weekends? Maybe it’s the acceptance that life IS different, simple and not always comfortable here.  Maybe it’s because we always only try to look at the positives when we discuss Misawa and are good examples to our kids when we talk about things we like about where we live (you cannot even imagine what our kids hear from other kids about how much their parents wish they were in the states)?

Okay, so our time in Misawa is almost up. Looking back at our first few months here I do remember me adjusting my mind to how our life would be different (especially in this three bedroom townhome with three kids:). And now….I am trying to prepare myself to something completely new…..
Another conversation with a British guy who works at the library on base: “Guess what! We are going to England!”, that’s me telling him excitedly that we’ll be moving to where he is from. “To where? Lakenheath? Mildenhall? (two big bases in the UK)”, his eyes light up. “No….Alconbury!”, I say with a smile. “Oh….”, he said, without hiding his disappointment, “There is nothing out there”, talk about being blunt, eh?  “Well, we are still very excited”, I said. End of conversation. Buzzkill. Seriously? Yes, I know, Alconbury will be similar to Misawa because we’ll be in the middle of farmlands and forests and not much excitement according to many.  And true, I have no idea how difficult our adjustment will be—living OFF base (amongst regular British people with no kids) might be a new life for us. All I know, our little family, is great at making any place a great place to live. Attitude….it’s all about our attitude.  After all, didn’t we LOVE Minnesota (people still cannot believe me when I tell them), and we LOVED panhandle of FL, and we LOVE Misawa. Therefore, I am prepared to at least like Alconbury (even if our paycheck will be smaller there-haha).

So we are six months away from our move. Another overseas move. Cannot say exactly that I am stressed yet—that will come in May and June, months when we are getting ready to have our house packed again and stuff shipped to the new place. Only those who have done it before can understand all the work that comes with moving overseas—dozens of lists of what to pack, ship, store, mail, throw away, give away. But that’s just the organizational part. The whole “inconvenience” of being up in the air and living out of suitcases for two-three months with three kids doesn’t really appeal to me. And then looking for a house, cars, school once you arrive—that gets really stressful. Not to mention dealing with your own sadness that you are leaving friends behind AND comforting your children who understand now that they might not see most of their friends ever again. Unless you have done a military overseas move like this, it is hard to grasp all the reality that comes with it…..together with excitement of course (and we do try to remind ourselves all the time that we are indeed excited and it’s our own choice to be staying in the military this time).

Ah….sorry…just lots of thinking today.  For now—life is still calm. Misawa is snowy and cold, probably six more weeks till we start going out on some daytrips again. Now time is starting to go faster and faster, and we are just trying to slow it down a bit to enjoy our last months here.
Still taking suggestions for our new blog name:) And taking “reservations” for when you would like to come visit us in England. I know many of you want to, so let’s plan early!

Plan B: Towada Winter Festival

One snowy morning…….I could start almost every blog post like that this winter…….we were planning to go to Hirosaki—a famous place two and a half hours away form Misawa where we went several times to view sakura and leaf foliage.

We had planned for months to go to Hirosaki Lantern Festival on Feb. 11th, it was one thing on our checklist that we were missing. After much deliberation and discussion with all our friends who were hoping to go, we decided against driving that far to a winter festival. We weren’t only concerned about driving conditions through the mountains, although via a tollway (but that meant $45 round trip). We were mostly worried that our little guys will get frozen from the wind chill after half an hour and no one would be having fun then. The whole point is to stay at the Hirosaki castle grounds after the sun goes down so we could see the lanterns.

Instead of going to Hirosaki, we decided to go with our Plan B—going to Towada Winter Festival by lake Towada. The drive was about an hour and forty minutes, part of it through Oirase Gorge, a very windy road through the mountains that lead to the lake.

Sometimes we saw signs like that:

I guess avalanches can happen, especially if the earth shakes, right?:)

We saw several of these beautiful frozen waterfalls. The kids were amazed that even such fast flowing water somehow froze.

This was our second time going to Towada Winter Festival, so we knew what to expect. This year, it was extra snowy!

The main attraction for the kids was sledding. They had two hills and a ton of kids—no one fighting or yelling.

Katya, Alex, Mark and their friends, minus the babies. I think this heart is a staple structure for the festival because it was here even the first year when were here.

All right, after an hour of playing, we were cold and hungry. We had a great variety of Japanese to choose from. There were several tents and spots to eat with heaters around. We got a whole bunch of unknown foods and a turkey leg (Mark wanted one).  You’d think that in almost three years that we’d been here I’d memorize the names of the foods, but I haven’t. Still only know by their looks whether or not I like them.

Here is picture of me looking scary-haha and trying to get the gross insides out of the shell. In fact, they were quite delicious! Warm and juicy, cooked in some sort of broth, they tasted just like typical food form Mutsu Bay area.

After dinner and a little more sledding we decided it was time to go home. Who wants to stay up in the dark and in the cold till 8 pm to see the fireworks? We might have to come back in July when they do Towada Summer Festival with fireworks.

People advertise this Winter Festival as “why go to Sapporo if you have ice sculptures right here”. Well, this festival doesn’t live up to all the hype for the second time for us. Yeah, it’s a nice half day trip when it’s too cold to go further out, but otherwise, you can skip it:).

Apparently, we also need to learn how to use our camera in the dark-haha. That’s the only semi decent picture after dark. 

OR maybe we should save up for a new fancy camera!

Sayonara for now.