December 20 (five days until CHRISTMAS!!!)

Oh man I am so dead. I am so sorry guys. I have been so busy with Christmas and school and all that I haven't had time to update my blog. Lets see, when I left off it was the beginning of October...Ah, I remember, when I left off we had just gotten finished with a typhoon and I had lost our first of many soccer games. I would have a schedule of our games and their scores, but my mom just had to throw away my schedule. I don't even remember my scores! All I can remember is that we lost most of our games and when the tournament came, it was single-elimination, we got out in the first game. I was the goalie when they scored the winning goal. So please don't rub it in.

For Halloween we all got a lot of candy, not as much as some years though. Tanner was an artist, Rachel was a 50's girl, Jessica was a cowgirl, and I was Fonzie. It was fun, but the base has some weird rules: You have to be under 16 to go trick-or-treating, you can't be out past 8:00p.m., you had to wear reflectors, and they had Military Police walking around. You can pretty much get the idea what Halloween is like on base. After Halloween we didn't have anything big, just school and soccer; which ended on December 1st, until Thanksgiving.

For Thanksgiving we went over to some friends house and ate dinner. We had turkey, ham, rolls, Jell-o salad, green beans, Grandma's dip; for those of you who don't know what Grandma's dip is it's cottage cheese, onion, cream cheese, and worcestershire sauce all mixed together and you dip Frito's and Tortilla chips in it, we also had sweet potatoes, and mashed potatoes; no gravy, don't be so surprised Joe. Anyone that is reading this most likely doesn't understand this so I will enlighten you. My mom is not a very big gravy fan; she says that it is too fattening, and so she usually doesn't make gravy. We usually go to my grandma and grandpa's house every Thanksgiving and my grandma usually is nice to us and spoils us by making us gravy, but since this year we are in Okinawa, my grandma isn't here to save us, and we didn't get our yearly supply of gravy. After Thanksgiving dinner we watched the movie "Elf."

After Thanksgiving, soccer ended and then the Christmas festivities began. We got our tree. It's fake because the trees here are super expensive. A couple weeks ago my dad went up to Tokyo for a training and my mom went with him. We all stayed at friend's houses and while they were up in Tokyo my parents were going to buy a Christmas tree, but they didn't buy a tree because one that was on sale was (huge drum roll please) $315!!!!! Shocking, I know. Something even more scary is that the highest price that they saw was $339!!!!!!!! So we decided to settle for a fake tree. Fortunately, with all the decorations, the tree looks real. Just the other day Jess and Rachel had a piano recital. That same day we also had a Branch Christmas Party. It was at the Futenma Church Building. I can't think of anything else to write so if you have any questions then leave your question on my blog with your e-mail, unless you know that I have it, and I will try and answer you questions as soon as possible and as best as I can. I PROMISE.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!
Reed