Goodbye party for Lance, Naomi and Ian and other March pics

 This was on March 11, 2013. Two years since the terrible earthquake and tsunami. We drove out to the Camelia Greenhouse where we spent the anniversary last year. On the way there we passed by this young boy, young man I should say. He is a high school student now. He was dressed in a kimono and doing a dance in the middle of a construction site. It was obvious that he was dancing for someone. He was standing on the ground where a home used to be, we could see the remains of the foundation of the home. He was a student of Gabe's in Jr. High School and Gabe remembered him well. He tried to take some photographs without disturbing or disrupting this public,yet very private and personal moment. We were both brought to tears. This was just before the sirens went off in memory of that day.

Here we are at the greenhouse. This is before the siren.

 Violet drew this picture for Daichi Ozawa's birthday card. She drew it all except for the bubble and the words inside it. She said the top face was Daddy, the curly hair is her and the boy with short hair is Daichi. He really liked his card.

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?

Circle Christmas '07

Merry Christmas Everyone! This is a little video from a party we went to last night with some wonderful friends! We had a great time! Hope you enjoy the video!

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...

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)

English Circle Christmas Party

Hello all,
Just thought we'd share some videos from one of our Christmas parties. This is an annual pot-luck get-together for our Sumita English Conversation Circle. In the videos you can see many of our friends from Sumita (the town we used to live in) and some friends that live here in Ofunato. These were taken on December 18th.

"Twelve days of Christmas"


Conan Makes Green & "Seso"


"Nabe", Leif, and desserts

Steph's English Circle Party

Hey All, Gabe here... Steph and her lady friends threw their 3rd annual christmas party. There was lots of delicious food and we stuffed ourselves silly! Below you can see some videos of us playing the "White Elephant" game. Steph taught them it two years ago. You can see that our beloved friend Mutsuko was the lucky one to recieve Steph's $3 worth of pennies... HA HA!




From Wikipedia:
"The name "White Elephant" originates from an old Burmese cultural reference to the value of an albino elephant, which is considered sacred and must be well taken care of, despite the financial burden that it may bring to its owner."