Monday, December 6, 2010

Basketball Camp

Stacey Taylor, the Commanding Officer's wife of MWSS-171 shared with us at our OSC Board Meeting that there will be a basketball camp for the kids during Winter Break.  She wanted to make sure you all knew about it.  Here is the flyer.  
The Basketball Camp for will be December 28-30, 2010. The camp will run from 0800-1100 each day.  If you're interested please sign up at IronWorks Gym.

Thanks Stacey and MWSS-171 
for offering this for our kids!!!!!

Sunday, December 5, 2010

MCAS Iwakuni Quarters One Holiday Party

It is a wonderful tradition that the Commanding Officer of Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni invites the members of the Officers' Spouses' Club as well as members of the JMSDF Officer spouses to a holiday party in December.  

Colonel Stewart is a geo-bachelor, so there were several members of the OSC Club who stepped up to get Quarters One decorated.  The end result was absolutely beautiful! Thank you to Nicci Aikey, Tish Petersen, Meeghan Ertwine, Trang Baseel and Chantelle Lang for all of your fabulous hard work!  WOW!!
Very festive, using the Stewarts' gorgeous antiques. 
Many, many more pictures here.

It is normally catered, but it was decided that we could do it nicer job in a less expensive way, in these economic times.  So all of the members looked through their recipe boxes and made this delicious spread!
Appetizers, main dishes, desserts...all so scrumptious!
Then we had a Christmas present exchange.  We sat in two groups and Valerie read the "Left Right Night Before Christmas" story.  It was SUPER FUN!!!!
Each time Valerie said "left" we passed the package in front of us to the left and each time she said "right" we passed the package in front of us to the right.  Very fun and entertaining!!!!
Here's the story if you want to do it with your group or family!  ☺

We are so privileged to have Harumi Redden as a member of our Officer Spouses' Club's Board as the Commanding Officer's wife of MALS-12.  She is a Japanese native (from Hiroshima) and served as our translator.  She did a fantastic job.  Thank you Harumi!!!!!!!

We all were laughing here because Valerie went on a little long and Harumi teased her that she wasn't sure if she could remember all that she said!  ☺

I was in the kitchen when Harumi and Colonel Stewart were talking about their closing remarks and he asked Harumi, "How do you say 'Merry Christmas' in Japanese?"  The answer is....Merry Christmas!  ☺
Thank you so much to Colonel Stewart for opening his home to all of us for a very festive afternoon!

Trim the Trees with OSC!

The First Annual "Trim the Trees with OSC" was held on Friday, December 3rd and it was an absolutely fabulously fun time

Each unit or group (civilians, thanks for contributing!) were invited to donate a decorated tree, in any theme, which were to be voted on by the attendees of the December Command Roll-Off at the Officers' Club as well as auctioned off, through a Silent Auction.  

This event was the brainchild of Erin Ramey, a 242 Bat Wife.  :)  She mentioned to Tish Petersen, Commanding Officer's Wife of VMFA(AW)-242 that she noticed that the Officers' Club didn't have a lot of Christmas spirit and wouldn't a tree decorating contest be fun?  :)  Tish ran with it, creating a new fundraiser for the OSC's Scholarship Fund as well!  (AND we had a lot of fun to boot!)  Hooray!!!!!

Tish is dressed as "Claire" from "The Breakfast Club!"  That will be explained in just a bit!  ☺
 The trees ran the gamut.  

The Bat Ladies of 242 had the most participation that night and fully supported their "Movie Night" tree by dressing up like one of the characters from the DVD that they donated for the tree.  
It was a red carpet event! 
24 DVD's were on the tree along with popcorn and candy garland.  It was not only a valuable tree, but a very pretty one as well!
The ladies of MWSS-171 had the UDP officers in mind when they drank, I mean, created their tree!
Grolsch beer bottles were drank at a pre-trim-the-tree party at the Taylors and made into this fabulous tree!

Shockingly, a Mom of four daughters, not one of the geo-bachelors, was the high bidder on this tree! (Hmmm....who could that be?)
The ladies of the MAG had a party in mind as well when they designed their tree!!!!!!

Mini liquor bottles, a finely strung (and very uniquely pretty!) wine cork garland and even an (empty) Advil bottle adorned this very fun tree!  In addition, there were regular size bottles of liquor that were "presents" under it that went to the highest bidder! 
The ladies of H&HS wanted their tree to ring in the New Year in a gaudy way!
And I think gaudy was achieved!

Sorry....I didn't gather the H&HS ladies since our COW, Megan Coletta, was home sick, but had my hubby, Mick, the Christmas Mouse, pose with me.  ☺
The civilians tree was very beautiful and was the only live tree of the evening. 

The tree had poinsettias around the base.  It was very elegant!
Nice job Scarlett!  ☺
The Medical and Dental OSC Members spirited in and out without me able to get a picture of them with their tree.  It was titled "The Reason for the Season."
It came with this Nativity set!
Sorry I missed you Dental!
And smallest, but not least, was the MALS-12 Snowflake tree!
A very elegant tree that will be able to be displayed in any size home!
The winner of the First Annual "Trim the Trees with OSC" event was Grolsch Tree by the ladies of MWSS-171!!!!!!!  WAY TO GO!  Their unit will be on this plaque which will be displayed in the Officers' Club. 
Money was raised in two ways.  Voting tickets were purchased for $.50 cents each.  That's how MWSS-171 won with a total of 404 votes!  VMFA(AW)-242 came in second place with 268 votes and MAG-12 came in third with 165 votes.

In addition, money was raised by the auctioning of the trees.  The MAG tree grossed the most with it going for $160!  The 242 tree was second with the highest bid of $115 and the 171 (voting winner) tree was third with the winning bid of $55.

Altogether, over $1,000 was raised!!!!!!!!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!

Special thanks to the Bat Ladies of VMFA(AW)-242 for an awesome new event!  Fun, festive and philanthropic!  WOW!!!!!  What a combination!  ☺

The rest of the pictures can be viewed on our Facebook page by clicking this link.

Ho!Ho!Ho!  Merry Christmas!!!!!

Ikebana Class

The week before Thanksgiving, we were lucky enough to have thirty-seven years of collective expertise come to us for an Ikebana class!
Thank you! Thank you for coming!!!!

Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arranging.  We had a beautiful assortment of flowers to use to make a very elegant Thanksgiving centerpiece.
There were apples and pomegranates too!
 First was the demonstration along with some helpful "how-to's"!  :)
When you cut fresh flowers, do so under water, and snip them three times.
We were all very attentive listeners!!!!!
 Then we were "cut" loose to create our Ikebana arrangement!
With some expert help along the way!

All of our arrangements were quite beautiful!  
To see all of the pictures and many more arrangments, please visit our Facebook page for this album by clicking this link.

Wonderful class!!!!!!