40 year Anniversary of Bremerton-Kure Sistership

Monica and I met up to get ready before the event dinner celebrating 40 years of sistership between Bremerton and Kure, Japan. 38 delegates represented the City of Kure, where we stayed for the summer of 2005. We were excited to meet others involved in the program, and of course had a great time chatting with Nikki, who we worked with before leaving on language, ettiquette, and managing our iternerary. She introduced us to the students who went last year, and we sat with them as well as some ladies on an event board.

Having been on the receiving end of a lot of cultural demonstrations while we had been in Japan, it was interesting to see what Bremerton chose to show these delegates on our side of the water. The Kure group also had a few performances of their own, including two traditional performance dances, a presentation of three puppets, and a group dance called "The Coal Miner's Dance," which is basically the Japanese version of a kind of cha-cha macarena line-dance.

Leading up to the event I found myself reflecting on that experience all over again. Since my travel to Japan had been such a formative and important experience for me, I found myself wondering how I could give back to the wonderful sistership program, which sends three students to Japan and houses three Japanese students every year. I also felt pretty intrigued about the possibility of going back to Kure on a shorter term trip, like the adult delegations that rotate every four years.

The above is basically a simple photo montage of the event itself, hopefully capturing some of the cameraderie that was shared between the Japanese group, many participants and supporters in Bremerton, and the other interested parties that all turned up to support the 40 year sistership between Bremerton and Kure.

Port Townsend Trip

Yesterday Kevin and I took an impromptu trip, joining my family heading north to Port Townsend for Matt's soccer game. Since he's not playing on the team that went, Matt didn't mind that we took a walk and explored during the game. Kevin and I first grabbed coffee at "Better Life Through Coffee," a neat shop right on the water that serves coffee with Dunganess Valley Whole Raw milk, like we keep at home. They had a great ambiance and the entertainment offered was right up our alley- we need to check out Wise Traditions magazine, which we perused while in there. Kevin took a call from Lavengro people about a training this weekend, and otherwise we were uninterupted for a little spontaneous date.

After that we walked through the Wooden Boat construction center where they have all kinds of great public education programs and community-stregthening resources. We had seen the center the first time at the Wooden Boat Festival 2009 during our anniversary trip, and it was nice to see how it had continued to develop since then. While there, we strolled down into the docks and checked out who was tied up- spotted the Pliades, among others.

Finally we got up the energy to hike up Washington into the neighborhoods above, where we visited a wonderful park I remember from my childhood on the penninsula. Of course we also just oogled the beautiful victorian architecture and community. While we were up there we chatted about how much easier our transition goals, lifestyle choices, etc. would be in that town, but agreed that the town wouldn't ever need us as much as Bremerton may. As much as we allow ourselves to daydream about a giant victorian over the port, we're committed to Bremerton for good! Even so, I look forward to our second anniversary this year and another trip up to the Boat Festival!

Iris and Adele Tea Party

Today Iris stopped in for a few hours in the afternoon. We wrote some letters, one to her friend Lauren and one to Nana and Papa. We also had a nice outside tea party and Iris got on her inner photographer. It was awesome! She's actually got a pretty good eye for centering an object, getting a little balance going on in the photo, and today she was trying out the difference between standing up close and standing far away, seeing the difference in size and perspective.

Earlier I was working on a website I put together, to organize our focus on resilience and transition-related stuff. It's going pretty good but I'm not sure what to include next. You can check it out at http://sites.google.com/site/kitsapfarm/home . If you think of anything I should add, or have questions about the project, send me a note either in a comment here or to my email: melody.adele@gmail.com . Thanks for reading today!

Easter at the Stouts

Pictures are in from our Easter this year. Lots of friends from Keyport, and a few others including Kevin's parents Connie and Rory, gathered at the Stouts' home for feasting and a great egg hunt for the kids. Iris and Ariana played hard with Rachel and some big kids outside, while ladies passed around Nathan and chatted in the relaxed dining room area. Meanwhile, since we had so many guitar players and other instrumentalists, a band was formed around a coffee table, playing some hymns and worship music.

This collage was another experiment on Picasa- it likes to post directly to a blog, so I hope you enjoy collages! I'm a little addicted to the color dropper for the back ground.

In Memory of our Seattle Apartment

In the process of learning a few techniques on my computer, I ended up making this collage from photos I took shortly before we packed everything up to head over to Bremerton. It's sort of sentimental to me, and as I review the pictures and just the way the light seemed to hit our life, I realize what a blessing it was to spend the first year of our marriage in that place. It also makes me a little forward nostalgic... looking ahead to the time when we are able to set up another life in another place. It will be funny to get all those old things out of the storage unit and produce a brand new home from them.

180*

Since our last post, we've had a lot of changes. Probably the most impactful was our decision to forego Japan, as the day drew closer to make a final commitment. People have been kind of confused about how it happened, but it went quite smoothly between us, actually. For a long time it had just been an assumed agenda item for me, but we decided to seriously look at where we were and how we were going forward. Once we put the trip in light of our long term goals, as they have distilled in the last few years, it seemed like a kind of peculiar detour in some ways. After praying over it for several weeks we agreed that, though God would have blessed either route, we felt that what we have been learning about eachother and about life was pushing us a new direction from where we had been when we started the application process. It was a much more direct route to plan on staying in the states, and though we missed some opportunities I really looked forward to, we both have a lot of peace about the decision.

Straightening our road by eliminating the Pacific however did not exactly equal short! Since our lease came up when we were planning to leave to Japan anyway, we agreed to move back to Bremerton to set up house near my family. With my family, actually, for the time being. Statistically, the multi-generational household is really in right now, and for us it means a little extra stability to be saving while Kevin looks for work. While we look forward to house shopping and starting a family, it's been a huge blessing to have the old Nipsic house open to us. It's been surprisingly nice to gain a little domestic expertise from my mom (which I necessarily rejected as a highschooler). Of course it's great to just all be together and reconnecting.

In the process of moving, we got sad news that my great grandmother in Luisiana had passed away. In spite of the loss, we were happy to travel with so much of my family to join Nana in Ruston, where we were able to help with the funeral and spend some time with my great aunt, and also my great uncle whom I had never met before. We refreshed our sign language to communicate and enjoyed a Mardi Gras trip to Natchitoches (say Nack-a-dish), the oldest town in the Luisiana Purchase.

While Kevin keeps up the job search, I've been helping my dad with a number of tasks relating to Springtides Corporation, especially his upcoming publishing project. He launched his book, Your Ultimate Sales Force, late last year with a gala event, and now we're working on another project relating to the BizBuilders network. As usual, I really enjoy working with him and getting to spend a little extra time with my busy daddy.

So, Bremerton! We're looking forward to putting down roots and all that means, although it's skipping a few years ahead of where we thought we'd be. The community of Manette, where we live, is a pretty good place to keep playing with the Transition concept. We're also plugging back into Keyport where my family has gone since they moved to Kitsap County, and we're excited to see how new relationships unfold. We're also very eager to keep in touch with the close friends we left behind in Seattle, especially with the wonderful kind of visits we've had lately with Jon and Rachel (who are getting married this summer) and Elizabeth and Jason, among others.

That's a fair summary of the interlude. Keep in touch!