Jonas and Liz's Japanese Adventures: February already?!

It cannot be....February 2nd already!! I think this is truly the sign of getting older because I feel like time is in fast forward lately. Since Christmas we have been working, of course, and since Jan 1st we started the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover, we have been playing things more low-key. We have to be more careful with our spur-of-the-moment trips and such, but we did have a chance to visit the Nagano area of Japan in early January. The snowboarding trip was an early birthday present to Jonas, who will be turning 30-something on the 9th of this month. More to come on that in just a moment. Let's see, what else have you all missed....not a whole lot, January was a busy month for me with the Spouse's Club as I am the Treasurer and all...I really like the ladies I am working with and I think it is going to be a fun experience. Plus, I am nosy so it is fun to get involved in the ins n outs of how everything in the club is run. :) But back to the money thing, it's tax season already so I have been doing fun things like gathering up Scentsy receipts and whatnot...snoozefest. But part of life, right? I'm sure you're all having your own "tax time fun."

Before we get to the Nagano trip, I must remind you that February also brings us to my personal second favorite event of the year (next to Christmas)...THE OSCARS! And since we are 7,887 miles from the Kodak Theater I had to take time off work to be able to watch the 9am coverage of said event. Yes, yes I DID take time off of work to watch The Oscars. I believe this puts me into some seriously crazy ass category of movie lover, but dangit one really cannot help what one loves. It is still on my Bucket List to have an all-out Oscar Party.....so far I haven't done it but someday soon I hope to have a circle of movie-loving friends that would attend and be as serious about it as I am. :)

Just before the New Year I embarked on a new fitness journey...decided to try to conquer my fear/aversion of running. I realized that I really, really need to find an activity that I can do every week to keep active. Yes, folks, I am 32 and realizing that I need to take care of my heart above all else and be all responsible and shit. Boring! But, anyway, I realized that running is pretty much the least excuses type activity that I can think of....if you have running shoes (and clothes, preferably) and a road then you're all set. None of the "well I don't wanna drive all the way to gym" or "I don't have the right gear" or any of the other roughly 43 excuses that someone as lazy as myself can come up with. Plus, not to be too cheesy, but I realized that my husband has had to work extremely hard at keeping up his fitness and I have never really done one thing to support it. I mean, other than the usual "hey babe, I'm proud of you" or what have you when he passes a PT test. But I'm not sure if the general public is aware of how much the Air Force has cracked down on PT scores and how that affects your career. You don't have to mess up too terribly much on PT before they start taking stripes away from you and messing with your chances of promotion, your money, etc. So, that in mind, my husband has been diligently working each week at making sure he can pass and that that scenario does not happen to our family. And I thought to myself, hey self....you could get your butt off the couch and go running with him, you know. Soooooo I looked up the Couch to 5K program that I have heard so much about and just decided to go for it. It is a 9 week program to go from the couch to running a 5K (clever name, eh?)...and this coming Monday will be Day 3 of Week 4 so I am about halfway there. And, extremely surprising to myself especially, I am really enjoying it. It is hard, but J is a great supporter and coach and he is giving me tips and helping me literally every step of the way. So that has been a fun journey and I really can't wait to be able to say I DID IT when I get to that last run. Oh and I have become even more inspired and decided that in addition to learning to run, I want to stay in shape with J and pass the Air Force PT test for females when he does his test. So I am adding push-ups and sit-ups to the end of each run so that I can get my numbers up. I have printed out the AF standards for women and I want to make it. So we can both pass together (I hope). Anyway, that is what the next few months holds for us in the way of fitness goals. More to come I'm sure!

Ok, finally we get to the Nagano trip! We wanted to go to the famous Sapporo snow festival that was scheduled for Feb 1-4th (closer to J's birthday) but sadly, after J spent 30+ minutes in line for tickets, it was sold out. So we had to settle for visiting Happo One in Nagano on Jan 12th instead. The tour was booked through the base's Outdoor Recreation so pretty much everything was included except one meal each day, can't beat that. I must say that I was very nervous as J is an avid snowboarder but I have literally never been on any snow-fun type object except a snowmobile, which obviously requires no more personal coordination than driving a car. We had a 4 hour bus ride very early on Saturday and arrived in Nagano about 9am. It was beautiful (as you'll see below) and it was fun going from zero snow here on base to the snow-packed mountains. As I'm sure most of you probably know, Nagano hosted the 98 Winter Olympics, so that was fun to see the Olympic ski jumps still set up, though sadly we didn't see any skiers that were using them. Anyway, we got our stuff dropped off at the hotel and got geared up and headed out to begin my full day of falling all over myself. We started out both on snowboards with J just trying to talk me through just getting the feel of standing with one foot on the board and the other used as a prop to kinda push myself along on the snow...kinda skateboard style (for those of you who don't know how to snowboard). It was extremely awkward, as I'm sure it is for everyone who starts off...but I think I only fell once because I was moving at a pace that would make a snail die laughing or just die waiting for me. I was kinda terrified but I was trying to be brave so I didn't ruin J's birthday weekend. About 20 minutes into my lesson, I started to fall and J did this trying-to-catch-me spin move and ended up popping his binding completely off his board. For those of you who don't snowboard, this is pretty much death for the snowboarder at least until you buy a new $50 binding. So this means that, all of a sudden, I am the only one with a board on our fun snowboarding weekend. Hmmm...dilemma. So J puts his board away and proceeds to just hold my hands while I keep feeling things out. It goes really well, actually...hey, this is not so bad when I am being held up! I feel like Shaun White's little sister when I am holding onto someone else. ;) But quickly I tire because DAMN just standing on a snowboard is hard work, no joke. So we decide to take a break and I beg, yes BEG J to take my board for a spin so he can finally use the lift and actually have some fun. Plus, I really want to see what he can do. Keep in mind, as you'll see from the pics, this mountain is busy, so once I found a good spot to sit where I could still see him, I could stay for hours and just people watch. Which is pretty much exactly what I did the rest of the weekend. He used up both of our lift cards that we had gotten from a friend and he wore himself out on the mountain. I was kinda bummed that we didn't get to explore more together, but honestly, I know he had more fun being able to just fly down the mountain w/o worrying about me falling or getting run over or smacking into someone else, etc. So it was a great weekend and a great experience, even though I only enjoyed about an hour on the board. Wait, scratch that...about an hour and 15 minutes including the time J pushed me around on the snowboard and I used it as a sled. :) It was a beautiful place and the hotel was so cute and Japanese-y (aka tiny) and we will no doubt visit again in the next few years. Next time, I am going to try skiing, though...it looked a little easier than snowboarding but that is probably a cruel illusion.
J here: I loved the Onsen at the hotel. After riding all day my legs felt wonderful after a soak. It was really nice.

What else is goin on...oh yes, things are kinda crazy at my job but I cannot really elaborate at this time. Lots of changes and some of them are not looking so hot at this point, but I am going to hang in there. Frankly, I like the people I work with and the money is really good...but I am starting to build a scale with which I measure the level of BS vs the pay....so far the pay is winning and I hope that continues but we shall see.

Anyway, I think this pretty much gets you up to speed on us so far in 2013. I truly hope your 2013 is treating you well and finding you happy and loving life. In honor of those fun email "getting to know you" quizzes, here is a snapshot of us right now....maybe you could all comment on your own "currents" and catch us up on your lives too? :)

Current music: Mumford & Sons on Pandora ("Somebody That I Used To Know" Radio)
Current show we are both addicted to: Downton Abbey
Current food we are eating a lot of: rice. Yes, we are turning Japanese. I think we eat rice at least 4 times/wk!
Current weeknight past-time: playing XBox 360 games, mostly Viva Pinata and Batman. Yes, we are both 13.
Current thing we are looking forward to: J's karaoke birthday party next weekend!
Movie we can't wait to see: Skyfall for J (I saw it while he was in Cali...really enjoyed it), for L it is definitely Les Miserables!

Love to all!! As always! :)