December Fun

The girls and Ryan made 4 dozen cookies to donate to the single airmen on base. In addition to being a great service, they had a ton of fun.

 Alice turned 3, and we continue with the nontraditional birthday desserts. Carl had pumpkin pie, and Alice requested a flat cake (complete with hand motions).

 What is a birthday in Japan without streamers?

 Carl helped Ryan put the finishing touches on the bunk-beds he made for the kids. His favorite tools are the electric drill and the rubber mallet, both are so different yet each has its appeal.

 Here are the completed beds. Ryan did a great job and came away with all his fingers intact.

Continuing with our birthdays of unconventional desserts . . . Ryan requested a Rocky Road Pizza.

 Helen had to choose between rinsing dishes and putting the second coat of powdered sugar on the snowball cookies for her evening job this week. Can you tell which she chose?

Seoul, South Korea

I love breakfast in Korea and have been dreaming about honey bread since the last time we took the hop over. The honey bread is on the plate in the background. I gambled and lost on the white bean waffles in the front. They looked yummy, but had the consistency of shoe glue. (Note the peace sign from Helen. This is totally normal in Asia)

 We got to go to the temple while we were in Seoul - what a blessing!

 I talked Ryan into taking me back to where I got my haircut the last time we were there. The best haircuts I've had while in Asia have been in Korea, and at only 15.00 USD it really is a steal. 

 Here are the girls outside a traditional dress shop in Korea. 

 Markets are fun no matter where you are. Luckily, all the fish products were dry so it didn't smell hardly at all. 

Jeju-do, Korea

Last month we escaped the cold rainy fall weather of  Misawa for the sub-tropical island of Jeju-do off the southern coast of Korea. Carl and I were really excited to see these little pineapple plats at the botanical garden. 

 I love the colors of fall, especially when I don't have to wear a winter coat to enjoy them.

 It was tangerine season while we were there, and the whole southern half of the island was covered in citrus groves. A fun highlight of the trip was visiting the Citrus Museum. How can you go wrong at a museum with a giant orange slice in the front?

Koreans just love little kids, and would give our kids oranges and tangerines. Carl was most appreciative of the gestures and wouldn't let go once he got his hands on one.

They taught us how to pick tangerines, a foreign experience for someone from Iowa. 

Citrus trees as far as the eye could see . . . 

We had an fun experience washing cloths at a laundromat in town. I probably made 10 trips back and forth to the 7-11 across the alley to procure us lunch. I learned after the first batch of instant noodles that the kids can only handle 1/15th of the spicy Korean flavor package included with the noodles. 

 Here we are at Jeongbang waterfall, the only waterfall in Asia that falls straight into the ocean. 

 I love public transportation and so do the kids. I think three of them had a nap on this bus ride and the other one threatened to toss her cookies. 

The most awe-inspiring portion of the trip was at Seongsan Ilchulbong crater. As we did not take a helicopter ride, we thought this picture would be a great substitute. 

Here we are half way up the crater. Rest assured we were the only people with kids. We were also the only Americans, but there were plenty of people from all over Asia there. 

We went for a walk the next day along the beach to work some of the soreness out of our legs.  You can see the crater we hiked the day before off in the distance. 

Fall fun

One of the best things about fall has to be running down the hill into a giant pile of leaves.

 But Thanksgiving turkeys might be a close second. (I sure I don't know who would feed their 1-year old candy corn).

 We had some friends over to help us get rid of our least favorite Halloween candy by making gingerbread houses. Please note the Thanksgiving decorations the kids made that are hanging from the ceiling. What you can't see is the herd of 25 turkeys they colored and taped to our front door. I tried to talk them into pilgrims, candy corn, cornucopias, but all they wanted to color were turkeys.

 They did a great job making their fancy houses. There were some tears shed when we told them they couldn't eat the candy off their gingerbread houses. But we let them eat one piece of candy before we threw the rest away.

September

The girls were really excited to help Ryan move boards around. He is going to turn these beauties into bunk beds. 

 We were first introduced to the "station wagon of Japan" years ago when we first visited Tokyo. I have to admit I've wanted one ever since. It took Ryan going to Mongolia and watching a Japanese show all about the merits of Mamachari bicycles for him to jump on the wagon (wha, ha ha). Carl especially loves it and waves to everyone on our path.

 When we were in Bali in May I might have had a lapse in judgement and ordered a buffet. In my defense furniture in Japan is a. very expensive and b. odd. It made it just fine across the old seafaring routes to Akita port. The overland transport was a veritable nightmare as the officials in Akita don't speak English and our 10 Japanese phrases don't include customs, inport tax, transportation or any other number of things. Ryan was so surprised/relieved when it finally got here. I think the phrase "it will be a miracle if it gets here" passed his lips any number of times. Note protective eye wear and gloves (we tip our hat to Norm Abram).

 Have you ever seen such a fancy diaper and book holder?

 Here is a closeup of the banana trees and tropical bird.

 Now if you were to ask the kids, they would say that the crate is way better than the buffet. Our neighbor took it off the curb and converted it into the best clubhouse ever!

 Homework is so much more fun when you're doing it in a clubhouse. 

Poor Carl has been missing his dad's loving protection from the ministrations of his sisters. Although he loves the feel of the green tulle in his mouth as much as the next baby, so relaxing.

Mongolia

This month the Air Force sent me to Mongolia with a large group of doctors, dentists, optometrists, and engineers to do a little service and build friendships with the Mongolian doctors, dentists, etc.   Here are a few photos from our trip (none taken by me, as the Hackett camera was traveling in Okinawa, as you may have recently seen).

If you are a grazing animal (sheep, goat, cow, horse) then life doesn't get any better than Mongolia in the summer: green grass for thousands of miles, no fences, few roads/cars.  A large part of my trip was spent in a bus driving to our work sites in northern Mongolia, and this was the view for hour after hour.

+

Here's part of our team at a school where we set up a clinic for a few days.

Shhh, can you hear that heart beating?

We had a large turnout where ever we went.

Here are a few likes to some videos the USAF made from our trip if you're interested:

http://vimeo.com/104099644

http://vimeo.com/104092967

Here's a close-up of a yurt (or "Ger" as they call them), the movable homes of the nomadic herdsmen.  

Two little Mongolian girls in their Ger.

A few straw camels up from the Gobi dessert region of Southen Mongolia.

Beautiful scenery.

  

Lest you think Mongolia is all fields, here's a view of a small town we visited.  Don't misunderstand though; Mongolia is the #1 least densely populated country, with average 4 people/sq mile.

We entered and left the country through the capital, Ulaan Bataar, and here I am paying homage to Mongolia's favorite figure, Genghis Khan.

 The traditional instrument of Mongolia is the Horse Fiddle, a cello-like 2-stringed instrument with a horse-head scroll.  We had multiple opportunities to hear it at many closing ceremonies at each site we worked at.

Finally, here's what a true Mongolian Barbecue looks like: fermented mare's mild, home-made cheese, and then beef, beef, more beef, lamb, goat, and more beef.

Okinawa or bust

While Ryan went on a humanitarian mission to Mongolia this month, the kids and I weren't going to just sit around and miss him in Misawa.  So to have our own adventure we decided to take a trip down to Okinawa on Space A flights. Here we are in Yokota AFB after making a successful hop from Misawa to Tokyo. The kids were really concerned about the car coming out of the wall at this 50's style restaurant on base.

Your travel plans are unpredictable when you're flying Space Available on military planes.  This is how you feel after waking up at 3:30 am, checking out of your hotel, showing up at the flight line for a flight at 4 am and not getting on the flight because there were too many people on it already.

We ended up enjoying 5 days waiting in Tokyo because all the flights were cancelled to Okinawa because of a typhoon blowing through the area. We cut our losses and went bowling, to the library, visited a huge water play land and enjoyed all the parks we could walk to.

When we ran out of things to do we played games in our hotel room in the air conditioning, an amenity we don't enjoy in Misawa. 

 Here we are on our flight to Okinawa on a sweet cargo plane (KC-135). We only had to show up at 5 am for this flight. Do you know how many times I had to put everyone's ear plugs back in over the course of a 2.25 hour flight? I don't think that 50x would be an exaggeration.

 I rented a little Japanese car once we made it down to Okinawa. The three youngest were in the back and Helen was in the front with me helping me use our Japanese navigation device. We drove 4-5 hours to the north of Okinawa island to Okuma Beach where we spent most of our time. Every morning we would go for a hike up the cliffs along the beach.

One afternoon it rained and the kids had a great time playing in the puddles. It took me back to my childhood fun.

The next day we went out on the glass bottom boat for a short tour along the coast. Alice and Jane were convinced that the boat was going to tip us right into the water. We got to see a lot of neat fish and coral just like at an aquarium with the added excitement of waves and pleas for bathroom breaks. 

The girls finally talked me in to taking them to the beach once I realized that we could borrow these life jackets. Four little kids are a lot to keep alive without flotation devices. 

One of the highlights of our trip was visiting the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium. I was tickled pink to see the perfect number of spaces available for our kids to take their picture. Carl sure is getting big.

These white sharks were awesome!

Lest we think that sharks couldn't eat the girls in one gulp... I love this hermit crab! 

We had a great time with the help of tons of people all over Japan watching over this crazy "single" mom with her little crew. The best part was catching up with one of the ladies in my old MTC district that I discovered at church!