4th of July Weekend Recap

I haven't enjoyed a 4 day weekend this much in a long time.  Our weekend was filled with the perfect balance of excitement and relaxation.

The 1st day of every month, a Shrine a few towns over has a huge flea market type sale.  They sell a variety of used Japanese goods like kimonos, obis, pottery, and small trinket items.  There is a West Point cadet here TDY for a month and she wanted to pick up a few of these items so some of my neighbors and I took her to the sale on Friday.  It was was crazy hot but a lot of fun looking at all the stuff.  After shopping we had lunch at the TGI Fridays there.

While we were out shopping, Jason spent the morning/afternoon fishing.  He had me convinced to eat this guy for dinner...until I saw it mid-cleaning!  YUCK!  I prefer not to see my food in that stage.

Friday night we went to a local Mexican joint with a bunch of our neighbors.  YUM!
(sorry no photos)

Saturday morning I had an ESL lesson, then Jason and I spent a few hours at the pool over at Atsugi.  Our favorite thing about spending time there, McDonald's fountain soda for me and Baskin Robins ice cream for him.  2 things we can't get on our base

 Then we headed to the 4th of July celebration at a park on our base.  

They had a petting zoo set up and I think that was everyone's favorite part of the afternoon.

 we really miss our "binny pig"

 The kids were fearless around the animals

so were the adults

yes, that's my husband with 3 rats crawling on him!

We had a great time with friends

 found the cheapest form of entertainment ever!

and Jason and I even put on a little show!

There's a bit of a back story to those last 2.  We are both big fans of ska music, so at our wedding, we had the DJ play a song by Reel Big Fish called "Sell Out".  Here we are dancing to this song at our wedding. 

My mom likes to refer to this as "crazy dancing" but it's actually called "skanking".  As you can see, out of  the 200 people at our wedding, there were 6 of us that knew what was going on.  It's one of my most favorite moments from our wedding day, one I will definitely never forget!  So, when the Army band started to play this song on Saturday, I forced my hubby to go out in front of all of Camp Zama (and probably most of Atsugi) and dance with me.  My neighbor was kind enough to snap a few photos of us doing our thing.

After some fun at the park, we returned to our neighborhood where we had a fabulous view of the fireworks from our neighbors house.

Awesome neighbors, Cristy, Melody, myself and Kristin

some of Camp Zama's firework display...

 not to shabby for not having a tripod

We had a great time celebrating America's birthday together

We spent the actual 4th of July relaxing at the pool with some friends.

It was the perfect way to end the long weekend!

(Sorry this turned into the longest blog post ever!)