Newest Restaurant in Town

 
This week, Pizza Hut opened on Misawa AB. To say that the folks at Misawa were excited is an understatement. People here positively had Pizza Hut fever!

Our old pizza place, Anthony's, closed down two months ago. The Pizza Hut folks took over the space and finally opened this week. I have no idea how many pizzas these poor people cranked out this week, but it had to have been an impressive number. Folks waited for hours just to get the chance to eat their Pizza Hut favorite.

This Pizza Hut opened in the Food Court on base. So it is not your typical Pizza Hut... not really a restaurant, more of a walk up and order kind of place. In order to meet demand, they have 15 to 20 little Pizza Hut delivery cars that zoom all over base. Since they have opened, you can't drive two blocks without being buzzed by one of these frantic little cars.

Of course, we had to place our own order this week. I ordered it take out, but when I got there to pick it up, they told me it was being delivered. Luckily, Mike was home when he came by to pay for it since I was still standing around the food court. About 30 minutes after the kids and I got home, Pizza Hut tried to deliver the same order to us again.... Poor Pizza Hut employees were so busy, they had lost their minds!

When it is all said and done, it is still just Pizza Hut pizza. Not the greatest but not the worst. Most of the hype here probably can be attributed to folks missing the states and Pizza Hut seems like a little bit of home!

Love,

4Vs 

Spring is here!

 
 
 
Howdy All,
Check out what popped up in our garden. The purple ones actually just came up in the middle of the grass. I like the red and yellow tulip thingy the best.
Adios.
MSV 

Old Japanese Pirate artifacts

 
Check this out: When we went to Ship Wreck Beach 2 weeks ago I forgot to show you the cool pirate artifacts that washed up on shore of the Mutsu Bay. On the right is an old rusty Pirate's knee cap. You can see where it swivels to walk and where the wood once used to be for the lower Peg-leg. Also, as you see in the middle is a wooden Pirate hammer that I think most likely was used to pound the gun powder into the cannons or maybe was used to fight off the giant squid attacks. Apparently the squid may have won the last battle. Of course on the left side is an American Salt shaker to provide a size reference. Happy hunting for pirate treasure in your backyard.
MSV 

Who let the Dogs out?

 
Ms Grace, Mr Jacob, Mr Jonathan & Mr B with some Mall Dogs. The first one to reply with the correct answer of what the green thing is on the dog's head will get a nice Japanese suprise.
MSV 

Golf Ball Wench

 
How cool is this? I've got my own little golf ball washer! I play a couple of holes and drop them off in the sink and this little girl comes along and squirts them with a half a bottle of pink cherry blossom anti-bacterial moisturizing hand soap with green tea extract and shea butter. I won't be the best golfer out at the Gossimer Memorial course but I will have the cleanest and best smelling Golf balls.
MSV 

Pinewood Derby

 
 
Hey All, here is Brock at his PWD yesterday. He made the "silver bullet" and it was faster than the slower filler car in lane 2. Apparently the other Scout dads know how to build the cars faster with straighter axles.
MSV 

A, B, C, D......

 
Gracie and I picked up this alphabet chart at the 100yen store this week. She and I are working on learning her letters, and I thought this would be fun. It has capital letters, lowercase letters and Kanji letters- how international!

Turns out, it is a little different. Gracie and our next door neighbor Max are very concerned about the letter X. They both know that Christmas doesn't start with an X and yet the chart shows a Christmas tree with this letter. I have been over the Xmas concept with them, but they don't get it..... While we are on the subject, why would the Japanese chart have a Christmas tree at all? There are almost no Christian Japanese at all....

There are a few more peculiarities if you look at the chart as well...
T has a flower on it, but it is a Tulip
C is a cap, but Gracie and Max insist it is a hat
G is for glass, but again, my preschool friends insist it is water

Oh well, at least we have interesting conversations about the alphabet lettters!

Have a great weekend,

4Vs 

And they are off!

 
This is a fun picture from our Easter Egg hunt last weekend. It had rained all day long, but stopped just long enough in the afternoon for an egg hunt.

We had a potluck Easter lunch and then sent the Dads out to hide eggs. My brave neighbor Janet got to release the kids when everything was ready! Obviously, they were excited...even before they started wolfing down all the candy!

Happy Easter,

4Vs 

Huh?

 
One of my favorite translations...watch out for the dolphin spray! 

Japanese Girls

 
Grace found some Japanese Girlfriends at the Museum... 

Weird Japanese Caveman

 
Cant say much about this pic but it looks funny. Kind of looks like a cross between a caveman and I guy I used to move furniture with during the summer while I was in College.
MSV 

Grace E V's 5th BDay

 
This is a shot of Grace E Vaughn at the Weasel's Den birthday party room. She had fun with her girlfriends eatin' pizza and opening presents. The theme was Tinker Bell and she had lots of balloons. 

Did you see the stone which is displayed at historic park?

 
This what the kanji says on the Japanese sign at a park along the way to the Mutsu Bay north of Misawa Japan. The sign indicates that there was a large stone with the words "Nippon Chuo" carved into it which means central point of Japan in 1949. However, this place is not the central point in Japan. In approx 750 to 1150 AD a samurai carved the words on the stone. Apparently in this time they thought this was the central point of Japan relative to the islands in the region that are now Russian soil but were claimed as Japan back then.

Jyaa ne (see you later)

MSV 

Ship Wreck Beach finds

 
 
The 2 little Vs had a good time at Ship Wreck Beach at Mutsu Bay during spring break. They hunted for sea glass and rocks. We had a picnic and enjoyed the breeze. Did not find any glass ball floats but discovered some unique treasures. I found a wooden pirate mallet and a rusty thing-a-mabob that fell off of one of the fishing boats. Now we have some ideas to glue the rocks and glass into a mosaic pattern but first have to polish the rocks a little. Happy rock and glass hunting to you in your local neighborhood bay.
MSV 

BX Bunny

 
Brock and Grace ran into the BX Easter bunny last week. Not sure why Grace has such a funny face. Brock seems to be almost as tall as the bunny. 

Grace E V's favorite part of the USO Show

 
Gracie liked the cheerleaders the most. She thought they were very talented ambassadors of the United States with their red, white, & blue costumes.
MSV 

Patriotic USO Tour

 
Lee Greenwood came to Misawa with his Patriotic USO world tour. Along with him was the NE Patriot Cheerleaders, Restless Heart (country band), & Comedian Dick Hardwick. It was a very nice show that the military puts on. They travel 25K miles around the world and stop mainly in the Desert bases and the Pacific. The Restless Heart band was neat to see and hear as we danced and listened to their music in the early 90s in Aggieland. They have been together for 22 years. Lee Greenwood is a good performer. In addition to signing he played the saxophone and talked about his family. Something funny he did was sort of trick the audience when he said he was going to sing the song everyone came to hear and he went into a McDonald's commercial. In the end he sang his "proud to be an American" song which he wrote in 1983...seems like a long time ago.
MSV 

Birdie on 16

 
Howdy all, I got a birdie on the par 4 16th hole at the Golf course. It has been nice to get out and play even though it is 40F and windy. Brock has been out with me several times and he is enjoying playing too. He prefers to use a cart instead of walking but I bribe him with food and drinks. He is not yet up to being a caddy just yet. Hope you enjoy your spring weather.
MSV 

Havin' a Heat Wave!

 

Make a note, on April 12th around 1pm, it finally felt like Spring in Misawa! Temperatures climbed almost to seventy degrees for a couple of hours. It was lovely! Children played outside, we had the windows open in the house and life was good. By 4, we were headed back to the fifties, but it was nice while it lasted....

Hoping for clear skies and at least fifty degrees for Easter weekend!

Love,

4Vs 

Beach Combing

 
Happy Spring Break to you all! Yesterday we took the kids out to shipwreck beach to do a little exploring. I am happy to report that we saw quite a bit of snow, but none of it was on the roads and none of it was falling on us! The weather was actually quite nice :)

Nothing exciting to report from the beach trip. Found tons of sea glass and pretty rocks. Mike found an old wooden mallet that is pretty neat. We tried to have a picnic on the beach, but the wind kept blowing sand in our sandwiches.

We did meet a teacher from Misawa (the only other person for miles!). He teaches in town and is not affiliated with the base at all. His name is Mr. B and his hobbies are rocks and fossils and such. He gave us all a lesson on the rocks to be found on this beach: jade, amber, agate, petrified wood and so on... We enjoyed our time with him and left the beach a little smarter!

Mike has been off for the past three days and goes back to work tomorrow. Kids and I will play around the base and town for the rest of Spring Break.

Much Love,

4Vs 

Southern Living, Beer and Flowers

I learned something new yesterday. I was watching the snow fall outside and reading an article on petunias in Southern Living (Thanks Mom!). Over the years I have come to love the Wave Petunias. They are a relatively new breed of petunias (1995). They are easy and hardy and look great in a hanging basket. Imagine my surprise when I read in Southern Living that Wave Petunias were developed by the Kirin Brewery Company in Japan!

Since moving here, we have become familiar with Kirin beer. Sometimes beer is the only food you can identify for sure at the local festivals. When in doubt about whatever it is that might be cooking on the end of a stick (chicken? pork? dog? squid? potato?), you can ask for beer-u and know what you are getting! Kompai! (Japanese for "Cheers!")

Anyway, after futher research, I found that Kirin Brewery has an agri-business section to their corporation. They did, in fact, develop the wave variation of the petunia.

Good news- I should surely be able to find some of these in town, right? The beer is here, so the flowers must be too...(There is a joke in SL about picking up a six-pack of these petunias, but I will spare you!)

So think of us this weekend if your wave petunias look especially nice in your garden! I will be looking for them at the local markets.....

Love,

4Vs

Cool Bazaar Drum!

 
Here is a picture of my cool new drum! I won it from a drawing at the Bazaar. Gracie loves to beat it- especially after seeing the little kid drummers this weekend at Japan Day.

I am thinking about getting a piece of glass to fit over the top and use it as a little side table in the living room.

A fun new addition to the Vaughn house!

Have a great week!

4Vs 

Japan Day

 
Aren't these kids too cute?! This weekend was Japan Day on base. Each year we have both Japan Day and American Day here in Misawa. On Japan Day, our local neighbors come on to base and fill our high school with various exhibits, arts and crafts native to this area. These little drummers started the day off. They were great. Brock and Grace enjoyed them. There were also grown up drummers, dancers and fighting exhibits. There were classrooms with Japanese pottery, kite making, kimono wearing, swords and armor and everything else you could think of. We spent a couple of hours on Saturday morning checking it out.

In June we will have America Day somewhere in town. I know that Brock will march with the Boy Scouts in a parade. I am not sure what else they have planned....

More snow this Monday morning. Cold and rainy/snowy this afternoon. Gracie describes the rain/snow mix as the weather when the "snow and rain get married." (I personally hope they get divorced soon!)

Have a great week,

4Vs