Happy 4th of July!!

Every 4th of July, Kadena (the giant Air Force base here) puts on AmericaFest and opens it up to all of the military families as well as the public. This is one of very few opportunities where Japanese civilians can come onto base, so they're very anxious to see what it's all about. They have many booths full of food and games, rides, blow-up things, concerts, and plenty of airplanes (of course) for people check out during the day, followed by a big fireworks display at night. So, Chris and I volunteered to man his squadron's booth for 4 hours in the morning, where we sold ice-cold Gatorade's and ice cream. Here's a pic of Chris helping a kid put sprinkles on his ice cream.

Keeping the Gatorade cold and the ice cream non-soupy proved to be a bit of a challenge since Okinawa is so hot, but there were a bunch of people from his squadron helping us out. The Japanese have a plethra of drinks, but they don't have Gatorade, so they were pretty quick to buy it all up! Here's a pic of just a fraction of the crowds there that day... there had to be at least 20,000 people that came out for the event, although it's hard to estimate when there are so many people!

Chris never gets tired of checking out planes, so here's a pic of us in front of an F-22. We couldn't even get close to it since many of its functions are still top-secret... but that didn't stop the Okinawans from going picture-crazy with this plane!! I've never seen so many high-tech cameras in one place in my whole life... I now wish that I would have gotten a picture of them taking pictures instead of this one of the plane...

For all you American Idol fans, Melinda Dolittle (season 6, I believe) made an appearance there, putting on concerts Friday and Saturday for the public. Most of the audience was up in the stands, so I had no problems walking up really close to the stage to get a pic of her!

Here's a pic of Chris, looking like he very desperately wants to play this basketball game with all the other 8-year-old boys in line. Let me tell you, he can never get enough sports!!

And here's our last pic of the day, looking very exhausted (and my hair looking very frizzy). Let me tell you, I've given up fixing my hair here. If the humidity isn't enough to destroy your hair, then you're in a constant state of sweating... it's never pretty, so I just don't really even try anymore!! :)

Hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July too!!