A little Japanese culture...

Tonight was a spouse get-together for our squadron. We do this once a month... and take turns hosting. This month's event was pretty cool. The two girls that co-hosted asked two Japanese teachers to be our special guests and teach us how to play a musical instrument... a koto (pronounced with long o's like coke and toe). It was amazing! The koto is a stringed instrument, rests on the floor, and is played with a "nail" that is similar to a guitar pick but is attached to the fingers with a fitted strap. To me, the sound of the instrument was a cross between a guitar and a harp. It was a very delicate sound. We learned a traditional Japanese song, titled "Sakura Sakura".

Here are a some photos of the evening... although you'll have to forgive me for the quick edit job on these and for not showing detailed shots. I wanted to get a few posted & also chose shots that don't show faces very clearly (except one of my friend Angela :D ) because I haven't had a chance to show the group yet. I will add more photos as they get edited.

One of our instructors demonstrating how to play the koto:

She plucked the end of the strings with one hand and pressed on the strings with the other hand to alter the sound and make the 'echo' change.

Angela & some of the other girls learning to play a Japanese koto:

The group with the two instructors:

So not ready for this...

I came home from a spouse function around 8pm Friday and Noah met me at the door. He was SO excited to show me that he had a loose tooth. Right in the front, on the bottom and VERY loose. He kept coming to me every few minutes all weekend to ask if it was ready to come out.

Well, finally yesterday, Tuesday afternoon, it came out. You wouldn't believe just how excited he was about it!! He was screaming & jumping around!! I wanted to cry... my baby is growing up too fast... but he was so happy, I couldn't be sad for long. :)

Last night he put the tooth under his pillow and after checking it a bazillion times to see if the tooth fairy snuck in while he wasn't looking, he finally drifted off to sleep. The tooth fairy brought him a shiny gold-colored 500 yen coin! That's about $5 in U.S. dollars. Later this week we'll go to the yen shop and he can get 5 little toys!

I am really glad the tooth fairy left a note saying the first tooth is worth a LOT because it's special. Not so sure she could keep up with that price for EVERY tooth. ;)