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.
The group with the two instructors:
... a little further left out the front door :)
And apparently snow makes a broken skateboard lots of fun too. Preston was soaking wet from falling in the snow when he tried to "skate".
They had so much fun playing with all the kids in our neighborhood. I think there was 30 kids out there... and snow was flying everywhere! And Noah was right in the middle of it all.... literally! That's him in the blue jacket with white stripes on the sleeves... smack dab in the middle of the snowball war!
It looked so pretty on the big trees by the fence of the base. It's illegal to stop in this area so I had to stick the camera out the window while I was driving in the snow. I don't recommend this little trick but a girl's gotta do whatever it takes to get the photo. ;)
This is the view from Noah's bedroom window... and it snowed another 2 hours after this photo. The roads & sidewalks are so slushy... and temps are supposed to drop overnight. I hope it's not all ice by morning. 
He was a little nervous about driving to begin with but after a few seconds he was all over the yard like a pro! He had so much fun driving over the pile of leaves in the backyard and trying his best to run over me while I was taking photos! :) 
And just to prove my children are little snot heads... 
That's what Noah & Preston gave me when I asked for nice smiles. *sigh* Gotta love boys!! ;)
He sold the black Toyota Supra a week ago & used that money along with his first full paycheck and some Christmas money (Thanks Grandma and Granny & Papa!) to get this new car & pay for his insurance! It's a Nissan "One-via".... it's a limited edition... something about the front end body style of some car & the rear end body style of some other car... I don't know... but it's a very pretty deep blue and it's in MUCH better shape than the Supra. He LOVES it!!! And I love that it's not a fixer-upper... because it won't cost a small fortune to fix it every other week! ;)
He wants to take more photos to show Grandma and Granny & Papa but he was busy with school and work yesterday. Maybe this afternoon we'll get some that show the great blue color and the engine. (Apparently it's important to show Papa the engine!) :)
We had loads of fun with the decorating spray color for the cake! That stuff goes EVERYWHERE!! Noah wanted to try all of the tips to the decorating tube. We have flowers, leaves, some basket weave & something that is supposed to be a star but didn't turn out all that great... all on one cake! I think it officially got out of control when he got the sprinkles!!! And his masterpiece: 
After hearing "Can we have cake now?!" a bazillion times throughout the afternoon, it was finally time! We brought out the cake as soon as dinner was done. Noah reminded us all that we had to sing to him before the cake was even on the table! 
