Hang in there baby!

 
 
Grace E V hangs on to a rope slide of what she calls "Statue of Liderty Park". Her technique on riding the rope slide is called the Fly. 

Orioles Baseball

 
 
Brock gets warmed up for the plate at his second kids pitch baseball game. He played catcher and threw a kid out trying to steal third and had walk to first. I will try and get a picture of him in his catcher gear for the next game.
MSV 

Want some fries with that Shake?

 
Grace E V worked up a powerfull hunger at Brock's baseball game making mudpies.
MSV 

The Pink Ladies

 
The weather is warm and the ladies are out on the roost. Ms Hanna, Grace, Burke, LeLaunie, & Connie hold court on the passers by. If you dont find them on the steps then they are usually picking daisies or busy doing the double swing on their playground.
Later,
MSV 

Statue of Liberty Park

 
 
 
Here are some shots on our Northern Japan tour in Momoishi at Statue of Liberty Park. The scaled down version faces her sister in NYC. Does anyone know their Roman numerals good enough to confirm that it says July 4 1776 on her book?
MSV 

Bottom Tingler Slide

 
 
 
Uncle Matt V came to visit and took Brock and Grace to Statue of Liberty Park in Momoishi Japan. They have a long winding roller slide that makes your parts tingle. We had fun going down in different ways. Brock went frontwards, backwards & almost hurt his jiggywatt.
MSV 

Roadside Garden Sculptures

 
 
We stopped along the road to see some sculptures. They were very big and intricate.
They had everything from Godzirra & Pokemon to life size tigers and other animals. My favorite was the sumos. Grace posed on a bench with some bunnies.
Later,
MSV 

T-ball!

 
 
Gracie is modeling her new Blue Jay t-ball uniform. Although it is neither purple nor pink, she likes the fact that there is a bird on her hat!

T-ball coaches Mike and Mary Beth are enjoying the 11 member fightin' and fierce Blue Jay team. We were rained out this weekend, but are looking forward to our first game next weekend!

America's past time at it's best!

Love,

4Vs 

America Day Parade

 
 
 
Brock's Cub Scout troop got to march in the America Day parade at the beginning of June. Misawa City and the base have America Day weekend each June and Japan Day celebrations in the early spring. The purpose of each weekend is to offer a chance to see things unique to each culture.

America Day is held in the neighborhood just outside the base. There are booths for each state, American food, American music and such. The wives group on base has a booth to show items from Western weddings- very popular with the Japanese!

Brock enjoyed the chance to march in the parade. Check out the pictures- the parade also had icons from American culture such as Star Wars characters and Marilyn Monroe-yes, she was freezing!

The closeup is of Brock and his best buddies the Mansberger boys!

Love,

4Vs 

Gracie and Kia

 
Gracie loves Kia! Kia is terrified of Gracie. Gracie loves Kia! Kia is too small to get away from Gracie. Gracie loves Kia!

(Kia belongs to our good friends the Mansbergers. They graciously bring Kia to visit often and let Gracie play with her. Gracie loves this about them, Kia probaly does not!)

Love,

4Vs 

Misawa Aviation & Science Museum

 
 
 
Misawa has a surprisingly nice Aviation and Science museum. I visited the first time earlier this year with Brock's class on a field trip. There are all kinds of hands on experiment areas for the kids...they can pretend to fly a plane, stand in a wind tunnel, ride in a pneumatic tube, experiment with gravity and lots of other really neat things.

Brock and I had visited once, but took the opportunity of a rainy Saturday morning to take Mike and Grace. It seemed like a perfect idea, but we forgot about Japanese Saturday school. There must have been around eight busloads of Japanese elementary schools there for a field trip. There were tons and tons of little kids everywhere!

We still had a good time, but will have to go back some time when there is a smaller crowd and shorter lines. You can see some of the elementary school kids in one of the pictures with Grace. The color of their hats indicate their grade.

Gracie wore her Japanese nametag to the museum for fun. She visited a Japanese preschool with my neighbor Janet earlier this month. The kids there made her a Kanji nametag which G wants to wear whenever we leave base!

If you come to Misawa, we will take you!

Love,

4Vs 

Oyashio~ June in Japan!

I learned a new word this month, Oyashio. This is the Japanese term for an ocean current that pulls in cold water from the Northern Pacific. What does this mean for the 4Vs? It means that even as late as today, June 19th, we are pretty darn cold up here in Northern Japan!

June is traditionally the beginning of rainy season for this area. As we recall, rainy season lasts till about mid-July. We were cold and rainy when we got to Misawa last July!

May was beautiful. There were even days in the 70s. We have been stuck in drizzling rain and mid 50s temp for a couple of weeks now. To add insult to injury, the base cut off heat to the base early for budget savings. It sounds insane, but folks are rushing out to buy space heaters for their homes. My Texas upbringing is just spinning over this...June? Space heaters? I dug out winter stocking caps for the kids last week so we could watch Mike's baseball game! Strange, strange world!

I am optimistic today because this afternoon, while wearing jeans and a layered long sleeve shirt but no jacket(!), I actually had the chance to see my shadow outside. That's right...to have a shadow there has to be at least a little bit of sun! Yeah! We celebrated by heating stuff up for dinner in the oven so the kitchen wouldn't seem so cold!

Enough about the weather- I am sorry to be so delayed in updating. We will spend some time over the next few days to catch you up. Most recent news is that Brock's school year finally ended. He is done with second grade and is happy to be out for the summer.

Also, we are thrilled to have Mike's brother Matt visiting this week from Dallas. He should be here on Tuesday and we are looking forward to a great visit.

More news soon!

Love,

4Vs