Angie's Bloody Mary goes International!

Whoever said you need to speak the same language to have a party was so wrong. We hosted a party with our American neighbors for all of our Japanese neighbors. Cathy asked her Japanese student to write some invitations, and we gave them out to our neighbors. To our surprise, everyone came and of course, in true Japanese fashion, they all had gifts and food. We had quite the spread by the time the BBQ was ready. We had squid and celery salad, sushi cones, hamburgers and hot dogs, pulled pork and octopus balls with mayo on them. I had some bloody mary in the fridge and brought it out and it was a big hit. They wanted the recipe, which I gave to them but I am going to get them some of the ingredients on base because I don't think they can get them all out in town and they would be 10x the cost of what I would pay. When everyone first arrived we just all sat around, but then once Sydney was showing everyone her rolly polly's and learning the bugs names in Japanese the party got started. The party went on for close to 5 hours, and we learned many things about our Japanese neighbors through our little Japanese and their little English. One of our neighbor's daughters is studying English in school so that was helpful. We learned that one of our neighbors has a restaurant close to base, so we will be heading there soon. Another neighbor competes with his son in lifting competitions and can bench press 140 kg. Ooga came with his parents and he is so cute. He is only a little over a month older than Julia and I thought Julia was a big baby but he has her beat. He weighs 15 kg, which I think outweighs Sydney. Sydney had a great time playing with everyone. She went to the park twice: once with our neighbor's son-in-law and once with the 11 year old neighbor. Harry and I both checked on her when she was with the 11 year old, but they were just looking for butterflys at the park. She also ended up inside someone's house playing on their learning piano, which I would like to see sometime. Harry and I may have figured out a way to get a Nissan factory tour from our neighbor who works at Nissan. He had a model in his pocket of the new Nissan Skyline GT-R (finally sold in America). Harry and I have already said we should have done this earlier, but I am sure we will have another get-together before we leave.