A Sticky Situation

It may have been one of the nastiest, sticky situations I have yet to encounter with these geckos.

As I was opening the closet door to retrieve my jacket to take to the movie theater so I wouldn't freeze, a gecko egg fell from the ceiling, cracking on my hand and spilling it's nasty gecko yolk all over my fingers. I tell ya, they're out to get me. This kind of thing doesn't happen anywhere else!!! I am so sick of living with these geckos!

Checklist almost done

Bus passes and Lunch tickets completed today!

The girls have exactly one month until school starts again. I can't wait to have the house back to normal but I'm not looking for those dreaded 5 am wake-up calls, drive to the bus stops and homework blues.

Fun at the Pool

We got out of the house today!!! Yea, what fun!!! I think we were all getting couped up and needed a break away (with the ok from daddy of course), We headed to our favorite pool to cool off from the scorching heat we have been having. Notice the brightly colored wristbands? The girls had to take a swim test (swim 50 meters and tread water for 1 min. in the deep end) to get into the pool (even the shallow end with a parent, what?...whatever!...Marine Corp thing I guess). They all passed!! Here are some pics. from our day:

Don't bite the hand that feeds you

Charlie learned a very important lesson today.

He was watching a show on different cultures. I was making his delicious lunch. On the program, they were talking about how the Saudis' treated their dogs with the best care, the best food, the best attention. I mentioned to Charlie that they treat their dogs better than their wives.

Then he made this comment, "You treat Sandy better than me."

"Oh really?"

That's where he went wrong. Didn't he realize he couldn't get around and was depending on me to wait on him hand and foot? I was making his lunch after all.

So I took his crutches out of reach and held his lunch just out of reach. I asked him to repeat what he said. He started to laugh and was trying his best to say, "sorry" but no sound would come out. This went on for a while.

I told him he could have his lunch and crutches once I heard him say the word with sound. Finally, after about two minutes he said the magic word, sorry. I don't think he'll make that comment again to me especially since I've been there for him every minute during his recovery. Lesson learned.

Can I get some cheese with that whine?

So it's been four days since Charlie's surgery. We've been sleeping on the couch every night since then. (Thank goodness for full reclining couches) But I think I'm done with sleeping down there. My back hurts, I don't get a full night's rest, the sun starts shining though the kitchen window at 6 am, whine, whine, whine.

I did it in the beginning to be there for Charlie if he needed the help. He doesn't need it. Lately my reason turned into support. Maybe I can support him to make his way up the stairs tonight and sleep in a real bed.

He gets the bandages off today along with a dose of physical therapy. The pain finally hit him yesterday so we're trying to stay ahead of it with the meds. I have to remind myself it's only been four days and he has 38 long days ahead of him before he can even think about putting weight on his knee. This is where my patience and understanding come into play. ~sigh~

Recovering

Charlie had exploratory knee surgery on Thursday. He and I arrived at the Navy hospital at 6 am. He was the first surgery of the day. After checking in, getting vitals and changing they wheeled him out of sight. Only about two hours later he arrived back to the recovery room and I could see Charlie and hang out with him. Waking up wasn't so bad. Charlie is the funny type after surgery. He said some pretty embarrassing things to me and the corpsmen. I will NOT share those things with you. After a few hours of waking up, drinking water and eating crackers, the doctor arrived and filled us in on how the surgery went. (Now let me back up to the MRI) During Charlie's MRI the doc. said it was all inconclusive. It could be one of three things: the meniscus could be torn, the cartilage could be torn or there may be a stress fracture. Well....it was all three. So she cleaned everything up and drilled some holes into his bone in hopes that more cartilage will grow.

We are home now recuperating for the next month. Charlie has physical therapy three times a week (his first one was Fri. the day after surgery...ouch). He can't put any weight on his knee for six weeks. He's off work for the next month.

So the girls and I have been helping out daddy. We get everything he needs. He's been doing his stretching exercises a few times a day. It's going to be a longer recovery than expected but at least he'll be all fixed up before we move next year!

Total Solar Eclipse

There was an excitement around Asia this week. Everyone was gearing up for a total solar eclipse that would last 6 mins. the longest eclipse in a century. Well I'm all about science and wanting to experience a once in a lifetime thing. Plus it's something only happening out here and all my friends and family in the states won't have the chance to experience. For some reason (maybe because everyone said) I thought it was going to get really dark like how it is in the evening. It didn't. And I thought I'd clearly see the moon's shadow passing over the sun. It wasn't obvious. A bit disappointing even.

The only thing I noticed was this ring that formed around the sun. It was pretty and it lasted for a good 45 mins.

Only one other thing happened during the eclipse...those annoying cicadas shut up for a few mins. You all in the states are lucky to only have to put up with these every 17 years. We get them every summer. They scream so loud for hours.

SCUBA the Karamas

Today Charlie took a scuba trip to the Karamas by boat. They are a beautiful group of islands off the coast of Okinawa for snorkeling or scuba diving. He went with a group of friends and scuba buddies. This was his most exciting trip because he saw this guy:

Charlie was able to get close to it and take lots of pictures. He was so proud. He even got a video of it swimming beside him that I posted below after the pictures.


He's so comfortable hanging out there.

Charlie also got close to a curious clown fish and it's baby hiding in the anemone .


Look at this giant clam he found.

Here's a pretty coral fish.

And to top it off, a pretty parrot fish.

Here's the video of the sea turtle swimming along with Charlie:

1 list down... 2 to go.

So the first stateside list came out this past week. Not one base on the list, WOW! We are really looking forward to Aug. 4th when the overseas list comes out.

I really can't get my hopes up. Hope and pray... a lot.

Ocean Expo Park

Sit back and relax because this is a four part post. The girls and I went to Ocean Expo Park to enjoy our day. The park offers many things, the beach, gardens, an aquarium and a culture center. Here is the start of our journey.

A sea turtle:

Birds:
A manta ray:
Crush and squirt from Finding Nemo:

Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium

The girls and I took a trip to the 2nd largest aquarium in the world (Atlanta is the 1st largest). It was fun and we enjoyed looking at all the fish. Charlie and I had seen most of them in the ocean while scuba diving or snorkeling.


The girls were able to handle some starfish, sea cucumbers and coral in the touch pool:

We saw tons of tropical fish and the habitat they live in. This post would be way too long if I shared them all.

But this is what we were waiting to see... sharks, mantas and two huge whale sharks! Everyone looks so small compared to this wall. It is 30 feet tall and almost 2 million gallons of water.

Dolphin Show

Part of going to the aquarium is seeing the dolphin show. It's free! It's short! It's in the hot, hot sun :( But we always enjoy it. It seems like these dolphins jump higher and higher every year.



And here's one sticking out it's tongue and letting us know the show is over. Bye!

What do you do in 110 degree heat?

I don't like to complain, BUT it's freaking HOT here. After walking around the aquarium all morning, making Jasmine eat some Japanese food that she hated (there was no other choice, either eat or go hungry), sitting through the dolphin show outside in the sun while pouring sweat and making the kids smile while taking their picture at every interesting thing, it was time to cool off.

This mist although nice, wasn't doing the job:


Oh a fountain, can we play?

Cute trick... do you see where this is going?

Now that's what I'm talking about:

Yes, I let them play in this for an hour while all the Japanese little kids asked their parents if they could do the same and was told, "no". I would have been in it too if I had a change of clothes or didn't have to drive home.

You never know when you will need a tarp in the car!

Gorilla Chop He-ya

This weekend we took a day trip to Gorilla Chop. It's a dive site in northern Okinawa in Motobu. Can you see from the rock how it got it's name? Look closely. Do you see the gorilla doing a karate chop? The beach was beautiful and once again we were the only ones inhabiting the land.

Snorkeling here was fabulous. I had never seen so much beautiful and colorful coral. At first it made me claustrophobic swimming over it. It looked so close to me that I though I was going to scrape it swimming by. But no stopping here for a break.

Seeing all the tropical fish was awesome. It really is a different world down here.

Charlie dove down to get a better view of an angelfish

while I found this coral fish.


I also found this little snowflake eel. It was only about a foot long. I like the pattern. It's one of the best I've seen.

The evening came and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset on the water.

It doesn't get much better than this.

Welcome to Minna Island

4th of July we loaded up and headed north to Motobu to catch the ferry to Minna Island for some fun in the sun.

Here are the girls when we first got on the ferry:

And here are they when they learned they could ride on the outside of the cabin to the island:

They really enjoyed the 15 min. ride. Soon you could see the tiny untouched island we were going to inhabit for the day:

This is the view once we arrived. It looks stormy but it wasn't. The clouds were a great shade to keep the sweltering sun at bay.

We snorkeled all day. After 3 years the girls finally got into it. Here's Jasmine with IE island in the background:



And here's what we saw underwater:



All smiles here!