Happy Valentine's Day

 Happy Valentine's Day, Mr! I love you and can't wait to see you soon!

Since you are gone again this year, I just went ahead and posted your card from last year's flowers on the fridge (again). We'll celebrate this weekend in the sun! Muoh!

AOSA Meeting

As Vice President of Community Relations of our non-profit group, AOSA, I'm required to attend bi-monthly meetings amongst other obligations. As you can tell, it's a pretty big obligation that I have to drag myself to each month! Ha! What a fun group of ladies!

 (I promise they are candy cigarettes. Who knew that you could actually buy those things anymore?!)

Amy is the first ever Mrs. AOSA! What a fun night!

Annual Squadron Ski Trip

Over MLK weekend in January, the Liberty Bells headed to Nagano for our annual ski trip. We stayed in Hakuba this year at the Apricot Pension. Glenn was in charge of planning the trip this year which was fun, but not as much fun as just being on the trip. It's stressful planning a trip where everyone is happy which is 35 adults and children!

He did an excellent job though and all these people were happy:

Our hotel did not include dinner with the rate so on Saturday night after a day of skiing, we had several vans from a local restaurant come and pick us up and serve us yummy "Japanese" food. It is run by Australians so it's as Japanese as they can get! It was excellent though. I definitely recommend Double Black to anyone in the Hakuba area.

We enjoyed two full days of skiing in amazing powder snow. When I fell, it barely even hurt because there was at least a foot of powder. Almost too much powder for an intermediate skiier like myself. It never stopped snowing from when we arrived on Friday til we left on Monday!

For those people that didn't drive their cars all weekend, that meant this much snow! Fantastic skiing, but all that snow made for a cold weekend. We enjoyed the fire and drinks by the fireside at night. Most nights though, Glenn and I only made it til 9:30 or 10 pm. Apparently leaving for the ski trip the day after we got home from the States wasn't the best idea! The jet lag takes about 4 or 5 days to get over, not 24 hours I guess!

It was a great weekend with our Liberty Bell family. I was a little sad that this will be our last trip to ski in Nagano. Next winter, we'll be stateside!

What's for Dinner? Butternut Squash and Feta Risotto

I have a love for butternut squash. It's sweet, it's creamy and it tastes good in many different things. I first learned to love it when my friend Laura made this pasta and now I use it all the time.

Last week I made butternut squash and feta risotto using this recipe I found online. Risotto is pretty easy though because you don't have to use exact measurements. Just add things and cook it until it is finished. That's the part that takes the longest though, but I enjoy stirring and reading facebook on the iTouch. It's relaxing to me.

The sweet squash and salty feta was a perfect combo. Since I bought a giant butternut squash, I still have almost half of it left after making a batch of the bacon/butternut pasta and this risotto. I diced the entire squash and then froze it. It lasts for a couple weeks. What to made next? Have any favorite butternut squash recipes? I might try a curry butternut soup next!

Christmas Party in January

The holidays are such a busy time of year so this year, Glenn's squadron decided to have the holiday party at the end of January. It didn't really feel like the holidays, which takes a lot of the spirit out of events like this, but it was a nice time to relax and have dinner.

Our OSSG group- so tiny this year! Lauren, Christiana, Angelica, Catherine, Kathy, me and Elspeth!

 A night out at the O'Club, but with Bingo and door prizes!

The Liberty Bell ladies! (minus Toni)

Did my dress look familiar? It was an old bridesmaid dress from Annie's wedding in November 2007! I had it cut off (and taken in) last year figuring I would wear it again at some point. I've managed to wear Megan's bridesmaid dress to Badman Ball 2009. The sash from Sarah's dress to Christmas party 2009 and now Annie's dress to Christmas party 2010. I'm getting my money out of these dresses!

Some might say addicted

Well, my husband would say I am addicted to the internet. I blame the Navy and deployments. When my only connection to my husband (98% of the time) is via email, I spend a lot of time on the computer. It's their fault. They caused the addiction, right?

Anyway, I don't really care cause I love the internet! We've been gone for the last 4 days or so skiing and visiting the northern most island of Japan, Hokaiddo.

When I returned from our trip where I had very limited access to the internet, I discovered that

• my friend, Laura, found out she is having a baby girl
• another former Atsugi friend, Emily, had her baby girl
• a girlfriend from college, Megan, got engaged

Just a few of the exciting things that happened while we were gone. I now have even more catching up to do on this blog, but just wanted to say "Congrats!" to a few people! What would I have done without the internet?! How would I have known those things as quickly. It's a blessing, not an addiction! :) Now on to the cleaning of the house for the meeting I decided to host the day after we get home from vacation! Ha!

Lucky lady

The last weekend that we were in town, my girlfriends from college all drove to Rochester to see me. A few from Des Moines and Iowa City and a few from Minneapolis. The husbands came too, but oddly, no pictures of them. I miss these girls so much and I am so lucky to have them in my life. Missy only has a few more weeks til baby Jackson makes his debut so I know times like this will be rare in the future. Love you girls!

Serendipitous

While attempting to get back to Japan from Minnesota, a snow storm derailed our plans and we got stuck in Chicago for a night while we waited for the next flight to Tokyo. My oldest childhood friend, Jenny, happens to live downtown and thankfully still had the same phone number. A few texts and phone calls later and Glenn and I were on a train headed towards the city to meet her at a diner for dinner! Jenny and I have met up on numerous occasions by accident, usually. When my flight from Milwaukee to Dallas got canceled while I was on a business trip, she happened to be driving to Milwaukee that night to visit friends and was able to pick me up from the airport. Another time, I saw on Facebook that she was going to DC to visit a friend and Glenn and I were able to meet her. We don't see each other very often, but it's always nice to catch up when we do. Old friends are the best like that. I'm looking forward to seeing her (I hope) in 2012 at her sister's wedding!  Thanks for taking the time to see us, Jenny!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Looking better every year! Love you! Have a wonderful day!

Love you Grandma

My paternal grandmother flew up from Ohio to visit while I was home. She got infected by a 1 year old, stranded at the airport and dealt with sub-freezing temperatures. She must love me. I haven't seen her since before I left for Japan in November of 2008. I'm a lucky granddaughter.

Jen got private quilting lessons from Grandma too. In 3 days they got pretty far! I think my Grandma's the cutest!