Our First Christmas in Okinawa

It has been far too long since I have last posted.  Not only do I think so, but my sister isn't shy about telling me so..

Well, Christmas here in Okinawa was bittersweet.  It has been SO nice having the week off from school.  I was able to get some things done around the house and just relax awhile!  I go back on January 6th so 1 week left of vacation with the Hodens!  (save that for another post)..  On Christmas Eve day, Tony and I did a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y nothing.  And loved it.  We recently (I know, we're behind the times) ordered Netflix, which has been eye opening!  There is so much AFN (Armed Forces Network) that we or anyone can take.  I have memorized every commercial unwillingly.  It's painful.  As I hate to admit my ignorance to the great invention of Netflix, I originally thought that it meant we were able to "rent" 3 movies at a time and they would be sent to us in the mail.  Apparently that isn't the case anymore.  So Christmas Eve day we started two TV series "Breaking Bad" and "The Walking Dead"… hooked.

Anways, back to Christmas.  We had an enjoyable evening.  We loaded up on the veggies and protein and made a pretty good chicken stir fry.  After about an hour of chopping and preparing the vegetables, we decided to open presents.  One of the presents was a vegetable chopper - boy that would have been nice about an hour ago!!!  We played Christmas music with a candle lit dinner and felt very blessed.  Of course, we missed being home - but reminded ourselves all the good things happening right now and how blessed we are to have such amazing family and friends.

Christmas 2014?  See you in Decorah :)

This was our "lame" tree.  But hey - it was a tree RIGHT???!!!  

The worst part .. ;)

YUM

As much as I don't want to - I have to give some GINGERBREAD HOUSE credit to Tony.  This is a pretty good one.  Don't expect to ever see mine on this blog.  Sad, sad, sad.  And to think I teach Kindergarten….

Olivia and Grace made this for us.  So we had 2 Christmas trees in this house!! :)