Blizzards in March?

You know how I said it was almost springtime?????? Welllllll............We got a blizzard. 20 inches in one day. It completely shut down the school and base! But it was real windy, so the snow built up in weird patterns. It was bizarre! We had to go out through the side door so we could dig out the front door. I thought about parachuting from the window, but the side door worked just as well.
Uncle Nate and I tried to keep up, but our shovels were no match for mother nature.

Uncle Nate and I were working out when we heard our neighbor's car get stuck in the snow. so we both run out to help him. THAT WAS REALLY COLD!!!! I was wearing a sleeveless shirt and the wind kept blowing the snow through my shirt.

Yestermonth

I'M GOING TO DO BETTER AT KEEPING THIS UPDATED, HONEST!!!!!!

So, here we are again. Let's catch up! This last month mom has been in and out of the country with conferences, dad has been getting training, and our uncle came to help out. He was a lifesaver! We had a blast with him! He's amazing.

Uncle Nate is back home, mom is home till Tuesday and then she'll be out for the rest of the week. Dad gets back tomorrow and then he'll be here for a bit and then he has to leave again for the actual deployment. *Deep Breath* Wow, crazy schedule!

I mentioned a bit ago that I was working on a drama with the chapel, well things are underway. The human videos is coming together, we've got 1 1/2 performances in the next couple of weeks. I'm really excited to see where God is going to lead this. We've got an awesome team who are enthusiastic and doors are opening.

Yesterday: Mom had a meeting at the chapel, and I had a human video practice for a couple of hours. After my practice, a friend and I went to the gym to play basketball while mom finished her meeting. I had a lot of fun, and I didn't get brutalized as bad as I thought I would. I actually made most of my shots, I couldn't tell you how though. Usually, after I would make a shot, everyone would stop and be like, "how in the world did you manage to do that????? You rolled over me in mid-air and still made the shot." I was usually just as surprised as them, so I didn't reply with something like, "oh, that was my famous "roll over the back and shoot" shot."

Ice Festival!

We went to the Towada Ice Festival a while back....like almost a month ago! I'm trying! lol

I don't know why, but this picture is really small







There was a stage with a huge carving as the backdrop. It was very cold, but well worth it! As it would get dark they would light up the sculptures and stage. There also was a large tent with heaters and food, or else I don't think we would have survived all those hours!




















Mmmmmm.....



































After it had gotten dark, these drummers came out (there is a different word for it, but I don't remember what it was). They beat the drums and yelled and jumped and looked very cold!

After the drum show, they set off fireworks. It was a really neat experience! A couple from the chapel did a sculpture out there, for some reason the photo won't load, but theirs looked really neat!

Running and Ponies

I will post about some more interesting stuff soon, I just forgot the password to get to the pictures to add visuals! lol

We've had a pretty laid back week. We've all gotten a good deal of school done, but not to the point of stressing out. The weather has been getting warmer and so we've all spent a lot of time outside.

Uncle Nate and I went for a run tonight. We made it into Oriosi, but it was dark so we turned back. It was a good run, a bit chilly though. I love running in Japan. I got up early the other day and went running through the rice fields, and even though it is just dirt right now the view of the snow capped mountains is breathtaking. And then at night, with the sun setting behind the bonsai trees, and then glow of Hachinohe in the distance. Even though getting here was a trial, and if it had been up to me at the time we would have stayed in Texas. But now that I'm here, I wouldn't trade the time here for the world.

Arielle, Nolan, Alex, and I walked to see the pond/ponies as well. We got to the ponies right as the farmer was putting them away for the night. He motioned for me to come over and so I did, the others were a bit behind. He and I talked a bit. With his bit of English, and my bit of Japanese we actually had a relatively intelligent conversation. We talked about the ponies; one is male, the other is female. The male is about 6 years old and named Moishu or something like that. The female is 7 and is named Hannah. We talked about whether we would get any more snow for the year. We actually joked about our speaking abilities, both of us got a kick out that! He then told me, partly in English and partly in Japanese to come tomorrow at 8, or 3 and we could feed the ponies. But then he led us over to his car, opened it up and gave us all an apple to bring to the ponies when we did. So we really need to remember to go over there tomorrow!