This picture is right before bedtime Christmas night. Clara Grace is all bathed and dressed in her new American Girl pajamas that match her doll's pajamas. I just thought she looked so pretty sitting there. By the way, after much debate, she chose to name the doll Quinn. I'm assuming it is because we have watched the movie Santa Paws about five times over the last few weeks and there is a little girl named Quinn in it.
Here, you can see Zach having a blast on his little battery operated four wheeler. Luckily he was beginning to get the hang of steering by the end of the day. Let's hope he doesn't regress over night. He also got the hang of dragging it into position, climbing on and taking off. 
Zach is climbing onto it for the first time on Christmas morning while Clara Grace looks on.
Cheese! He is such a little ham!
Santa came!
Clara Grace and Zach are playing with toys after getting to open one gift on Christmas Eve.
Clara Grace and I made snickerdoodles to leave for Santa. She did most of the work, including cracking the eggs. At this point though we launched into team work.
These next few pictures chronicle our first trip to Ganesh, and Indian restuarant in Iwakuni. Everybody raves about it so we decided to give it a shot. It IS yummy! This is my plate.
Charlie's plate
Zach got a little from each of us, and although he was quite a pistol, he seemed to like the food. 
Clara Grace got the kid's meal. She and Zach both got a yogurt drink, but she enjoyed refilling her water cup from the pitcher on the table more than anything.
This is the same day as Ganesh, but it was without Charlie and Zach. Clara Grace and I joined a couple of ladies I work with and their kids for a day trip to Hiroshima. We met at the train station and rode it into Hiroshima. We went first to the children's museum, then ate at McDonald's, stopped at a Starbucks for a sweet treat and then Cafe du Monde for beignets followed by some window shopping and then they took me to the Peace Park where this picture was taken of me and Clara Grace. At this point, I have now been to both Nagasaki and Hiroshima and to each city's peace park. 
Although I took tons of pictures at the museum, I am trying to limit the number of pictures in this post. The museum was lots of fun and the language barrier wasn't too much of an issue as it was so interactive. They are looking at a big screen of them inside the game, and if you look at the screens to the left you can see it too.
This was LOUD! 
This is a group shot of the ARFF Christmas party that they do each year for the Tsuta Orphanage that they sponsor. We had tasty food, Santa came and the kids ran around playing and bouncing in the bounce house.
I finally got Zach to sit down with his big sister as Santa went through his bag of gifts, handing them out to each one.
The Single Marine Program sponsors an event each year called the Thunder Run as it is a drive for the Toys for Tots donations. Charlie joined it. It was his first group ride. A band was there and a lot of the Japanese riders come on base for this. This picture is of Charlie and Clara taking the toy to drop in the bin.
Charlie is suiting up for the ride.
The kids and I walked down to the corner to take a shot of them before they took off. 
The same band that played for the Thunder Run played for the Christmas Tree Lighting event on base. It is nice. They offer free hot cocoa, cider and cookies while the high school band and chorus put on a show followed by the band mentioned. Some prizes are raffled off and the tree is lit. 
We were rather proud of Clara Grace as she was selected to perform in living history wax museum the school put on. The students chosen dressed as their historical figure, memorized their biographical information and waited until their "button" was pressed to tell their stories. Clara Grace was Amelia Earhart and did a fabulous job. She did this all day long, with a lunch break, as students/parents came through throughout the day. My class visited first thing in the morning. She seemed a bit nervous but I had so many people come to me and say what a great job she did AND she was among about seven of those that did it that was invited to present at a school advisory meeting the following week. I was also proud of her because of the mature way she handled missing out on a field trip. The first grade had a field trip to pick mikans but she honored her commitment to be Amelia. 
The first grade put on a Veteran's Day performance that was really nice. My little performer put on quite a show too. She did a great job, but managed to stand out. And as an aside, while we were watching (I watched as a teacher and had my class with me) I noticed one of my students looking very concerned at another student. Upon closer inspection, this girl that the boy was looking at looked quite distraught. I leaned toward her and asked if she was ok. She looked at me and said, "It is just so beautiful!" And I have to agree. It was really nice to see the kids sing such patriotic songs. 
