Flowers

Stevie and I got a rare treat yesterday to go on an all-day date, courtesy of Liz, who volunteered to be a "substitute teacher" for Cannon.  I had a great day planned - a day full of flower viewing: sunflowers, cherry blossoms and orchids - until the weather decided to be uncooperative and rain.  Boo weather!

But trooper that I am (Stevie would call me a slave driver) I dragged Stevie to the flowers anyways!  We started off at London's school for his awards ceremony - Teacher's Choice award - and then went on to see the sunflowers.

Now our sunflowers are giant 10 foot tall specimens, but just like the Japanese themselves, Japanese sunflowers are shorter - like 5 feet tall.  And, apparently, theirs bloom in February instead of late summer.  But they were sunny and festive even on a day that wasn't.  About 10 minutes after we got to the fields, the rain started...

Back in the car, we decided to try our luck and head north to try to see the cherry blossoms.  I've been carefully monitoring the progress of the sakura hoping to catch them at peak bloom, but it seems like I'm too early, or this time, a tad too late.  Some of the trees were already beginning to leaf out, but to me that only made them prettier to see a touch of green in with the pink.  They are quite a beautiful site and I can see why the Japanese have such a fascination with them.  Unfortunately, 10 minutes after we got there it started to rain again...

At this point, we decided to postpone any further attempts at flower watching and try again another day.  Stay tuned for part 2 - the orchids!

Colors

Often as I'm in my kitchen preparing the evening meal I suddenly realize that the cacaphony of children playing in the parking lot outside has been silenced.  I know that if I look out the window I will probably see this...

Have the children all been frozen by an alien's paralyzing ray?  No, it's only sunset and time for "Colors".  This is another part of military life that I was oblivious to before moving here, but the tradition has been going on for a long time.  Every day, the military observes the beginning and ending of the day by sounding Colors, usually loudly over a broadcast system.

All the branches observe this in a different way.  When we had soccer practice on Kadena (an Air Force base) in the fall, life stopped at 5:00pm to stand attention to the national anthem (both American and Japanese).

But here on Lester and on Foster (Marine bases), each day Colors is sounded at a different time - at sunset.  I guess because the Navy is the nation's official keeper of astronomical data, from the positions of various heavenly bodies to the exact moment the sun rises and falls, they observe the actual sunset. 

To prep you for the coming pause, there's a sounding five minutes before sunset.  And then at sunset "Retreat" plays.  During this time all people, military and civilian, are supposed to stand at attention and face the music.  If you're driving on base, you're supposed to stop and wait.  After "Retreat", "Carry On" is sounded and life goes on.

The idea is that you are supposed to pause and give thought to what it means to be in the military and an American and to remember those who sacrificed all...which is really not a bad idea for all of us to do.

Hail and Farewell

Military life is different than civilian life and that's a concept I didn't really get until we moved here and were submersed in military culture.  One of the aspects of that life is deployment.  I always felt bad for the people who got deployed and for their families.  But I have since learned that many, many soldiers/sailers/airmen/Marines want to be deployed, asked to be deployed and are upset when they are not deployed.  I'm not sure I fully understand the mentality, but it's an admirable, selfless attitude that benefits all of us.

Yes, deployments do happen and with frequency.  Since living here, six of our immediate neighbors have been deployed.  Sometimes for only three months, sometimes for a lot longer.  I say "only three months" but everyday a service member is gone it pulls at the heart strings of their family and friends, not to mention making life tough by making single parents out of moms and dads.

Yesterday, we welcomed back (hailed) one of our neighbors, Alicia, who has been in Afghanistan since September while saying goodbye (farewell) to Dima who's heading out for 3 months.  It's a bitter sweet part of being in the military...

Dima and Alicia

Don't we have a fancy setting? Love Emmy's face with the chocolate around it...

What a sunset!

Super Bowl...Monday!

Stevie's never quite gotten used to eating breakfast and drinking coffee while waching the NFL.  So why should it be any different for the Super Bowl?  Yes, while you're eating chili and chips and beer, we (in order to see the game in real time) watch it enjoying pancakes and coffee on Monday morning.  I must admit, it takes some getting used to.

And the Monday part does cause some logistical problems for all those who work (at least normal hours).  The military's answer to this?  Give all the Marines the day off.  Really.  As one Marine explained to me, the Commanding General thought it would be safer for the guys to have the day off to watch the game instead of having some Marine have one eye on fixing an aircraft and the other on the TV!  Of course, the Navy doesn't give the day off but Stevie avoided this downfall by scheduling himself as post-call this day.  Smart man!

Here's the spread at Dima's Super Bowl Party...

Waffles, egg casserole or cinnamon rolls?

And a yummy cup o' joe to go with it...

Nonetheless, it's still fun to watch the game with friends...

Little Zachariah's first Super Bowl!

Even if they are confused on what team they're cheering for!

Joe's favorite team is the Packers...

...and his second favorite team is the Steelers.  He came prepared!

Science Fair

Seems like it's been Cannon's week for big events this week!  Today was his science fair at the elementary school. 

Even though he is homeschooled, he still got to participate and if you see the blog entry "Mad Scientist" you can see how he did his experiment. To continue from there, the third time we went in the experiment was finally successful!  E-coli grew on one side of the petri dish, but not on the side exposed to UVC light. 

If you're interested, his hypothesis was that 100% of the E-coli would die after 1 minute of exposure, but he actually got these results at only 15 seconds! I was really proud of what an awesome job he did with the research and write up, and especially how well he performed in the lab.

Explaining his project to the principal.

All his hard work paid off today as he won a spot in the district science fair! 

Proud of our boy!

That will be held on Kadena Air Base here on Okinawa.  I was really hoping there would be an "all-Japan" fair after that, but I guess the school district saves their money to send entire football teams to Korea to play a single game instead of sending budding scientists to Tokyo to showcase their work.  Can you tell I have some feelings about this????

Way to go Cannon!

Setsubun

Setsubun is a holiday celebrated in Japan whose date is determined by the Chinese calendar.  In this calendar there are four seasons and setsubun means the end of a season and the beginning of the next.  Technically, that means there are four setsubun a year, but the most celebrated one is the one marking the end of winter.  This year that event falls on today, February 3rd!

Setsubun is known as the "bean-throwing festival" since Japanese people celebrate by throwing handfuls of mame (soybeans) out the front door of their house calling out "Oni-wa soto!" or "devils out".  Then they step outside the house, turn around, throw another handful of beans into the house and yell, "Fuku-wa uchi!" or "good luck into the house".

Throwing out the beans.

Throwing the beans in.

These were the packets of mame I bought from the Japanese store.  There were soybean and peanut ones.  Came with the mask and all!



Japanese kids supposedly run around with "oni" (devil masks) on pretending to be the evil spirits.  London made one in culture class so he could participate.

Cannon modeling London's mask.

Emmy

London

After you throw all the beans, you're supposed to eat one bean for every year of your life, plus one extra for the coming year.  I figured out that we would need 104 beans in our house!

The next part of the tradition we won't be participating in: to keep the devils out families will hang heads of grilled sardines outside their front door.  Think I'll just stick with the soybeans...

Sakura

We've been keeping an eye on these sakura (cherry blossoms) waiting for them to come into full bloom and they are taking their time!  My plan was to go up island on Saturday to see them, but reports from people who had been up there were that the blossoms were still not out.

Even so, after Cannon's recital on Sunday I thought we could "explore" around the Onna area where the Renaissance Hotel is to see what we could find.  With Liz egging me on (Stevie was in back with the kids and had no control!) we started up this road and that and then out of the blue came what I was looking for...a small roadside parking lot with steps leading up a hill!  So decked out in high heel boots and sparkly skirt, I along with Liz, Lydia and Emmy, headed up the steps into the great unknown (Stevie's knees wouldn't let him go).  What we found were cherry blossom trees (some blooming) and at the top of these steep steps... an awesome 360 degree view of Okinawa!  It was well worth the climb, even in heels!

Heading up the steps into the great unknown.

A lone blossom.

View from above

You can actually see water on both sides of the picture.  This must be a really skinny part of the island to see the East China Sea and the Pacific.

Beautiful sakura.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained - right?