Sayonara Party for Alison & Patricia (;_;)

It's the 4th of July in Japan! Seems like yesterday that Alison & Patricia came to our neck of Iwate... Recently our good friends the Ozawa's had a goodbye party for them....

We arm-wrestled. Why? Why not?

Many Beautiful Sundays in Tono

We really enjoy our Sundays in Tono. Here are some pictures and videos of some memories with our dear parents here in Japan, the Yoshidas.

Video: "Rajo Taiso" by Gabe

Hello friends, Gabe here... below is a liitle video I made today from some clips I took over the past few weeks from "radio taiso time" in our office:

B-day Movie & Karaoke

Hey ya'll,
Gabe here,...
Just wanted to share some of my video goofery...
Our friend Alli recently had a birthday. Her husband Dan (a great guy) really worked hard to pull-off a big surprise party for her. I cobbled together this little short memory video for their blog with Windows Movie Maker and just wanted to share.
We really had a great time. Lot's of food, drinks and fellowship,...then, of course, KARAOKE!
In the movie you can see us in a "Karaoke box". Karaoke in Japan is pretty cool because you get a private room for your party...

Guestbook

Please feel free to sign and /or add a picture. By the way, there is no need to provide your email address. Thanks!

Party at Kazekobo!

One of our good friends, Kazue Sato, threw a party recently. All of the local English teachers from foreign countries were invited and it was held at "Kazekobo" (the restaurant and stained glass worksshop owned by our good friend Kayo).There were plenty of delicious dishes, drinks, & unrehearsed silliness!

Dan & Gabe singing a little:


Enzo pretends to play guitar:

Izakaya

Below is a video inside a Japanese "izakaya (居酒屋)" restaurant. We recently attended a welcome party fro a new teacher from the USA who came to our town. We had a great time...drinks and lots of delicious "snack" food.

Click here for an explaination of Japanese izakaya (居酒屋)

New Year's Day at The Yoshida's

Reverand and Mrs. Yoshida have been such good friends of our these past three years and have always treated us just like family. They have shown us so much of our local area and a-lot about Japanese culture and we always have a great time with them. Rev. Yoshida was the pastor of our church for 10 years. He is retired now and he and his wife live about an hour away from here. Every year since we have been here in Japan, they have invited us to celebrate New Year's with them by having special Sukiyaki lunch on New Year's Day.
The Japanese New Year's Holiday is one of the only times when almost everyone can take vacation time so it's a really precious time for families. This year, the Yoshida's three daughters were able to visit them on New Year's Day and the Yoshida's also asked us to come to their house to celebrate with them too. We were so happy to visit with their daughters and we really felt honored to be included. And of course, the food was amazing and we all had a great time too! Below are some videos... enjoy!

Reverand Yoshida (Jenga Master):




Reverand Yoshida Making Sukiyaki (short):


More Sukiyaki and other New Year's Food:

Christmas Eve Morning Service & Santa

Hey Y'all, Gabe here,.. here are some pics & vids form the last month. LOVE YOU ALL!

12-24-06
Christmas Eve morning at our church in Ofunato (the city where we live now). You can see Sachi lighting the last Christ candle of the Advent wreath. Sachi is the daughter and eldest child of our dear friends the Ozawa's.



After worship we had a big pot-luck:


This video is "The Doxology/Glory Be" in Japanese:


Steph's Sunday School Sings at the Christmas Eve Lunch Party
AWESOME KIDS!


Sunday School's Nativity: The kids learned The Christmas Story and madethis Nativity.


**Stay Tuned** I have tried a few times to load the video of Steph singing at the Christmas Eve Candlelight service but YouTube has been really busy...So, I'll try to post later.

12-9-06
Tono Church Kindergarten Christmas Pagent





Tono Kindergaten Santa




Who's that Santa? Well, it ain't Steph... I was Santa two days in a row for two different cities. Afterwards, we both got really sick. Ho Ho NO!

Concert Pics

Here's pics of me Steph on stage during the "We Are the World" International Fellowship Concert. Many thanks to Matsuo for giving us these pictures. I like to think we ended up looking like a modern day Johnny and June Cash. I'm, of course, not as cool and Steph is much prettier in my opinion (see below).
And below is a pic from the finale of the concert when many local foreigners living here in Japan along with several Japanese got up onstage to sing "We are the World". It was a real success! Everyone, including the audience was singing and doing the "two-hands-above-the-head-waving-and-swaying-thing". We were just so happy that everyone enjoyed the concert.
Thank you to all of you who worked so hard to make this concert a wonderful success and one of our greatest memories here in Japan!
We love you all!!!


--------------------------------other posts-------------------------------------
the poster:
http://gscraft.blogspot.com/2006/04/pretendin-to-be-famous.html

Steph on Iwate TV:
http://gscraft.blogspot.com/2006/06/steph-on-japanese-tv.html

pics from and thank you to all the people who made the concert:
http://gscraft.blogspot.com/2006/06/concert-pics.html