American Day 2016

American Day is a huge event held every year in order to share American culture and food with Misawa. It was a much bigger deal than Japan Day had been. Several of the classes held at the Youth Center performed, including our kids' karate class. We enjoyed the festival, the food, and the performances.

 All of the state flags

 My cute family watching the parade

 Every American parade needs a tractor. . . 

 a fire truck . . .

 and a biker gang . . .

And an American festival needs a long row of grills.

No festival is complete without chocolate covered bananas

She's my cute dancing girl

At the park they had a free train ride, bounce houses, and a few carnival games. Inside the Misawa Civic Center they had performances by the Youth Center classes. The kids did great in their karate performance.

Caleb enjoyed watching the performances.

Our kids are learning Kajukenbo, which originated in Hawaii and is a mixture of karate, jiu-jitsu, kenpo, and boxing. Their instructors include their Sifu and his family. I love their martial arts family. I think they are amazing. The front row of this picture is his wife and kids (except for one who is a long-time friend of the family). They do such a fantastic job teaching and I'm so glad our kids have the opportunity to learn from such amazing people.

Simeon is in the back on the right and Alivia is in the back on the left:

This is their kata - Hop Kuen #1. They have to know this to advance to yellow belt:

This is the higher level belts and instructors doing Hop Kuen 1-3 as a set. They have to learn #2 to advance to orange and 1-3 to advance to purple:

Have I mentioned how cool I think this is? I love watching them.

After our kids' performance we stayed to watch the Taiko Drum Class perform. I wish I had infinite amounts of time so the kids and I could take this class too (and that Caleb would magically sit and behave himself while I did it). This is amazing.

After the performances we headed back out into the fray to eat some food.

 Yes my kids eat with chopsticks. Just kidding. They eat a few bites with chopsticks and then just start eating with their hands. It works.

More chocolate bananas. The other kids got ice cream and of course caleb wanted ice cream too. I was standing in line to get him a snow cone but he saw the bananas and shouted "Ice cream, ice cream". Whatever works. The line was shorter so he got more chocolate bananas. 

 Love Simeon's fighting stance. I guess the karate is paying off. 

I'm not sure how the booth about American holidays and traditions turned into Zombie Santa and Zombie Power Ranger chasing kids around on the grass, but the kids thought it was fun.

We had a fun day and the kids did great in their performance. We are super proud of all their hard work.