Slices of Life . December

December 5, 2012

One of Andrew's elective classes this year is band. His band teacher reminds me a lot of my old band teacher when I first started playing the flute in 4th grade. Andrew's band teacher, Phil Stonebarger, spent the first two weeks of school talking to the students about all of the instruments and then having them try the different mouth pieces so they could find not only what they liked but what they would be good at. Apparently Andrew has a great trumpet sound so Andrew choose to play the trombone. At first we thought to ourselves, "How is this kid going to take that big instrument back and forth between home and school?" Somehow it didn't seem to bother him and after starting to learn how to play the instrument we realized that he truly had a gift for playing this brass instrument. Today was Andrew's first band concert and it was so much fun to see how he and all the other beginning players picked up playing their instruments in only 2 months. 

December 6, 2012

Dr. Shupe, who is one of the Orthopedic Surgeons at the hospital and a good friend, went to Peter's classroom to do a cast demonstration.  Peter got to be the one to get the cast put on his arm.  He was so excited about it and was proud of his fake cast for most of the day.  Eventually it started to itch and he realized it wasn't that great afterall.  Nevertheless, he was a good sport about it and slept with it one night before getting it taken off.    

December 6, 2012

Since most of the Christmas gifts were already purchased by the beginning of December I wanted to try something new that would encourage family togetherness during the entire month.  So, a new tradition was born with the 24 Days of Gifts in a Bucket.  Of course this was not my idea and I am pretty sure I found it off of Pinterest but I did come up with my own list of items for the gifts.  We ended up starting a week late because I wasn't quite ready by the first of December and some of the items had to be rearranged but here is my list:

6.   Christmas movie - Kung Fu Panda Holiday DVD (new) 

7.   Pick names for family gift exchange

8.   Christmas book - new one

9.   New board game

10. Hot chocolate and toast before bed

11. Christmas book - old one

12. Christmas movie - Home Alone

13.  Board game

14. Make gingerbread houses

15. Playdoh

16. Christmas movie and popcorn - The Santa clause

17. Make yummy holiday rice Krispy treat balls for FHE

18. Hot chocolate and toast before bed

19. Christmas movie and popcorn - Miracle on 34th street

20. Christmas book

21. Family ice skating

22. Missionary lunch with Murata family and Hiroko

23. Sing Christmas hymns and watch movie - It's a wonderful life

24. Decorate sugar cookies and Nativity program

  



December 8, 2012

This year we attended the Festival of Trees to see the tree that our church put together.  Most of the trees were from the different military units on base so to have a tree from a religious organization was pretty spectacular.  We were so happy that we got approved to put up a tree.  Our tree's theme was, "Christmas is Family."  The Relief Society got pictures of each of the families and put them into frames to hang on the tree.  They also put together paper ornaments with written Christmas traditions from several of the families in our ward.  It was pretty awesome.   

December 17, 2012

One of our gifts in the bucket had ingredients for decorating gingerbread houses.  This year I used graham crackers to create the houses hoping that it would be easier than baking gingerbread.  It was a huge time saver but trying to cut out the peaked sides of the house proved to be challenging.  Let's just say that I went through many crackers and the ones that did end up working weren't perfect.  The kids still had fun decorating their not so perfect houses and eating some of the candy along the way.   

December 18, 2012

Andrew achieved his first rank of Tenderfoot in Boy Scouts as well as his Family Life merit badge. We are so proud of all that he has accomplished as a first year Boy Scout.  It has been fun to see Mike and Andrew working together in Scouts this year.  

December 31, 2012

Just after Christmas we all got a new surprise... the new WiiU.  Mike had wanted to get it for Christmas for everyone but the NEX was out so he waited until they had more after Christmas.  It was a huge hit as 5 people could play at one time in all new and fun Wii games. 

Ramen Museum

Mike and I went on a little date after Christmas up to Yokohama to visit the Ramuem Museum. We heard such great things about this place from our friends and knew we had to try it before leaving Japan. Inside the museum down on the lower levels is the main part of the museum. It is set up to look like a small town with a variety of different styles of Ramen restaurants. The Ramen Museum has selected renowned ramen shops from all over Japan such as Sapporo, Asahikawa, Fukushima, Tokyo, Yokohama, Wakayama, Hakata, and Kumamoto. In this museum ramen restaurants highly regarded in areas famous for local ramen have come together to create a wide variety of ramen to try. The first place we tried was the Taniguchi Syokudou Ramen Restaurant. In typical Japanese fashion you buy a ticket for what you want to eat from the vending machine and then hand it to the waiter inside. Mike and I are more fond of the milky miso or soy milk soup base with the thicker ramen noodles. This first restaurant had a soy flavored soup with was actually quite good but the noodles were way too thin for our liking. Still, it was a good ramen and we enjoyed it. We got to sit right up against the kitchen window and saw a little of the process of preparing the ramen. We really enjoyed that. We weren't quite full since we got the half portion so we headed upstairs to try one more style of ramen.   We got miso ramen at the Sumire Ramen Restaurant. This specific ramen is famous in Hokkaido and we really thought we were going to love it but we were a little disappointed with the soup base. The noodles were thicker which was nice but the soup was not what we expected. Overall it was just fun to try differet kinds of ramen and enjoy the ambiance of the place. It was especially entertaining to watch the juggler in the "town square" while eating melon ice-cream.

Christmas

Christmas Eve

This year we spent Christmas Eve at the Shupe's home with all of the families in the Bishopric. Mike has been so blessed to have such great counselors working with him in our church. We had a non traditional Christmas Eve style dinner of Ribs and Corn Casserole and some fun traditional side dishes prepared by Katherine.  I made the rolls and the apple pie which are usually big hits in our house for holiday dinners.  Mike was happy to relax on Christmas Eve while still recovering from his big surgery the week prior.  The kids acted out the nativity and then the kids performed Christmas songs on the piano. Afterwards we were visited by the Shupe's secret little Elf who brought a big bag of silly toys for everyone. There were a variety of fun things like crazy Japanese socks, food shaped erasers, super long and super short screwdrivers, a back scratcher...etc. It was a lot of fun to be with some great families on Christmas Eve. When we got home the kids got to open up their Christmas pajamas present. This year the kids decided that they all wanted to sleep in the same room so we pushed the girl's beds together and made one big bed. I think this might be a new tradition in our family!

Christmas Morning

I absolutely LOVE Christmas morning.  I never sleep well the night before and it's not usually because I am up wrapping presents but because of the anticipation of the following morning. This year both the boys asked for the Nintendo 3DS and some 3DS games. The girls both asked for American Girl Doll items. Emma wanted the white dreamy daybed and Abby wanted Kit's kitchen. They must have all been on the Nice list because everyone was happy to see that Santa got them what they asked for. The stocking stuffers were a huge hit this year. There were things in there such as Nutella on the Go packs, Sigg Waterbottles, Ear Muffs, Clip on Bed Lights, Mini Simon Games, Polly Pockets, and our favorite chocolates like Kit Kats and Reeses Peanut Butter Cup Trees. It wasn't too long before they were asking to open up the rest of the gifts under the tree. It didn't take long for an explosion of goodies to unfold on our living room floor. There were Minecraft T-shirts, new pajamas, legos of all sorts, American Girl Doll clothes and pajamas to match, BOSE noise canceling headphones, new sleeping bags for the boys, a vintage fender lunch box for Mike, new reading books, and fun gift cards. The coolest gift, though, was the pink violin that Abby asked for 2 weeks before Christmas. With literally no time to find something and order it online I got really lucky and found her pink violin lying on the middle of a shelf at a second hand shop for 300 yen ($4). I couldn't believe my luck. It didn't play any music even with new batteries but she was still happy to get her beloved pink violin.

 

I was really excited to exchange gifts with Mike this year. He always gives me the most thoughtful gifts and I really wanted to step it up this year to do the same for him. Aside from getting him things on his list I tried to think of something else that he would not know about but would love. So, I enlisted the help of a friend in our church who knows a lot about guitars. He found me a great used guitar and helped me by putting new steel strings on it, putting in a bone bridge to enhance the sound, and filed down the sides of the frets that were a bit sharp. This Fender Acoustic guitar was built by the Morris Guitar Company in Japan and sold only in the US back in the 70s. Somehow this guitar found its way back to Japan. Apparently most steel string acoustic dreadnought guitars are copies of either a Martin D28 or Martin D18. This Fender F65 is a very good copy of the Martin D28. The sides and the back of this guitar are made of Solid East Indian Rosewood and the soundboard is made of Solid Spruce. Most good quality guitars are made with soundboards of either Solid Spruce or Cedar as those soft woods vibrate easier. Soundboards that are solid tend to get better with age which makes this guitar even better that it is almost 30 years old. There are some other great features to this guitar such as the beautiful abalone binding all the way around it and also around the rosette surrounding the sound hole. There are also abalone snowflakes along the fret board as position markers and a solid mahogany neck. I knew this would be a great guitar for Mike. As for me, it was a bit big for me to play and the steel strings were really hard on my fingers so I started with a Classical Guitar with nylon strings that I borrowed from a friend and then I praticed on both Mike's electric and this new guitar. He was shocked that I had learned how to play the guitar and that I kept it hidden from him. It was a great surprise!

 

As for Mike, he never ceases to amaze me with something unexpected. The only things I really asked for this year were photography equipment and a new pair of grey UGG slippers since mine from last year were badly beaten. Alongside the kid's Santa gifts were two camera backpacks for me. One was for shorter excursions and the other bigger one was for longer trips. I absolutely LOVED them. As I sat on the couch admiring the bags Mike told me to open up the smaller one. As I did I found the body of the new Nikon D800 inside. I couldn't believe it. I didn't even ask for it. I just started to cry (caught on video but no photos). It wasn't that I really needed the camera at this point but it was something I talked about upgrading to in the future. I really do have a thoughtful husband. I guess that is what gift giving is all about. It isn't really about the expensive gifts, although his gift to me ended up being expensive, but it was the pure thought that went into the gifts. It is fun to give gifts to each other, especially when we have spent time thinking of what the other person would absolutely love.