Bios on the Hill

Today we took a little trip to Bios on the Hill. It's basically a large park. There are walking trails, grassy fields, wooden jungle gyms, swings and tree houses for the kids to play on. There are also goats and pigs to feed and take for walks. You can also feed the water buffalo for a small fee or take a ride on the carriage around the park pulled by a water buffalo. There is an orchid greenhouse to walk through. The kids enjoyed themselves as did Charlie and I. It was a nice way to relax during their spring break.

The girls walking though the jungle.

Taking the goats for a walk and feeding them.

Maya swinging on a very long swing.

Jasmine feeding the water buffalo.

Charlie and Jasmine trying the luck in walking on stilts.

The kids loved the goats and I believe the goats loved the kids.

Camping at Okuma

This week we camped at Okuma for a few days. We love camping there because it's beautiful and we can feel that we are away from the rest of the world. The weather was awesome. It was warm but not hot so we were able to tollerate being outside longer.

The water was crystal clear for Maya and Kiera to cool off in from the sun.

The girls enjoyed going on jet ski rides with daddy.

Charlie took a scuba trip with his buddy. Here's a video of what they saw:

And we loved making smores and telling silly stories by the campfire every night.

Going Green & Making Fudge

Today a friend of Charlie's asked him if I could make him another batch of my famous peanut butter fudge (I should really consider going into business with it but that's really all I can make). Of course Charlie knew if I made his friend a batch, I'd make him one too (one lesson I learned early on).

So I got all my ingredients together and wouldn't you know I didn't have enough brown sugar. (We had only been out running around all day). So I decided to take a quick trip to the local Japanese store. I really hate trying to buy flour or sugar there because it all looks alike and it's all written in Japanese. Thank goodness I have realized the difference in sugar and salt. Anyway, we are forced to go green now that the stores don't provide bags. So I got my green bag and headed out the door and decided to ride my bike instead of driving, after all it was only around the corner. I found the brown sugar with no problem and made it back home without getting ran over. If anyone lives here you know what I'm talking about.

The peanut butter fudge came out wonderfully as usual. I asked Charlie to taste it since I used a different type of sugar.

1st taste: "Um, it's good" (he gave me a look like he wasn't quite sure, maybe something was different)

2nd taste: "Um, did you do something different?"

3rd taste: "Let me try again"

4th taste: I chimed in, "OK I think you like it, that's enough!" (really by now you'd think I'd know when he likes something and is teasing me.

Picnic Lunch

Today the girls had a half day of school to start their spring break. Kiera's teacher invited all the parents to a picnic lunch with the class. Kiera reminded us everyday this week to not forget, "Lunch starts at 10:30." Wow, 10:30? How could I possibly be hungry to eat that early? But I couldn't pass up the opportunity to have lunch with one of my sweet girls. Charlie was rushing around to get work completed but he made it out too. He always has time for lunch. I don't think Kiera really even ate. She just wanted some mommy and daddy time for herself. And how can you blame her?

NEO exercise

It's that time of year again where I plan for the worst. Living overseas on a tiny island has it's good and bad. Water sports, beautiful weather, learning new cultures are awesome but we have to prepare for typhoons, earthquakes and possible missile attacks from Korea. So every year the base has a NEO (noncombatant evacuation operation) exercise. We get to run through a scenario as if we had to evacuate the island. It's helps us to understand what to expect and what documents and supplies we my need to grab at a moment's notice. I gathered all my supplies and checked to see if I had everything my family may need for a week. I checked my documents and passports (good thing, I had to fill out new paperwork because we all had new passport numbers. I don't want to have to worry about that at the last minute or be delayed because the paperwork is wrong). So if anything happens we will at least be prepared...somewhat.

Greetful - adj. welcoming others happily

Sometimes it can be difficult teaching children and pre-teens how to be polite. I sometimes find myself teaching the same things over and over like any mom. We have always tried to lead by example. Most of the time it works. But in the case of today, it didn't and my made-up word came out.

Friends of ours came to visit us today. The bell rings and everyone jumps up to greet the family with smiles and hugs. All except Jasmine. She just ignores them and sits on the couch. They finally make it through the greetings and notice there were no hugs or smiles from Jasmine. So they go to her, bend down, hug and say hi. And I see that she's just not into being friendly today. So the sentence comes out, "Jasmine, you need to be greetful." Ah, greetful. Where did that come from? Grateful, maybe? Of course it gets a laugh. They bring out the southern jokes for me and everyone gets their kicks. I'm glad I'm the life of the party.

Girls Day Out

Jasmine and I went to Cocok for pedicures! Yea! It's great time for us to bond and get our toe nails polished and designed. Cocok is very popular for the military wives here. I don't think you get treatment like this anywhere else around. It's something I will miss when we leave Okinawa.

SCUBA TIME

Charlie went with his buddy, Josh, on their first dive of the season. They had a great time. They saw morish idols, clown fish, parrot fish, a sea snake, a turtle and lots of pretty coral.

He finally got a great underwater camera to take some cool shots of everything he sees.

Earthquake

At 4:20 am Okinawa experienced a 5.7 earthquake. I woke up to feel the house shaking. Inside I was quite excited. I turned to Charlie and noticed that he had raised up for a moment. I whispered to him, "We're having an earthquake." He moaned and went back to sleep. He couldn't have cared less. It all ended after about 10 seconds. Nothing fell off the shelves and no furniture was moved. It was an early wake up call to start our Friday. Later today Charlie told me he had a weird dream of him driving down a dirt road. Yeah, that's about what it felt like.

Our House

Well everyone is wondering what our house looks like in Japan. I made a little video so you can see for yourself. Hope you enjoy!

A Letter to Mr. Gecko

Dear Mr. Gecko,

We need to talk! Our relationship is over. I am tired of you leaping out of cabinets onto me. I am tired of you falling from the ceiling onto my head. I am tired of squishing you under the handrail. Please stay out of my mailbox. I get enough surprises from the electric bill. Don't hang around my ac units and think it's funny to be blown out when I turn it on. It's not funny. You think it's so cute to hide in my kitchen sink and surprise me while I'm washing dishes, it's not. I hear you chirp at night while I'm trying to sleep. It bothers me. I know you're there scheming your next practical joke. And stay out of my car, I'm not a taxi! Please...we have one more year to put up with one another. Find the decency in your heart to leave me alone!

Your roommate,

Kim

p.s. Thank you for eating all the spiders. Oh, and sorry about your buddy. Hiding in the toaster wasn't the best idea. You owe me a new toaster.

Maya Quote

Mom: Maya, would you like soft tacos or crunchy tacos?
Maya: I'd like country tacos.

We're still working on her auditory processing skills. I'm not making fun of her here, I just thought it was cute. She'll get it soon.

Spring Cleaning

Charlie is back at work this week. I've finally realized how much we have been neglecting our storage room. I walk in there every day to do the laundry and every day I'm disgusted by it. Charlie and I made a plan to clean it up while he was home. That never happened, snuggling on the couch was far more fun. So finally, I picked a cool, rainy day to tackle that storage room. It really wasn't THAT bad once I got all the bikes out of there. After a few geckos jumped passed me, ran around the walls, and scared the living daylight out of me, I could see the light. I rearranged some things and threw out some more things. Thoughts of moving next year hit me. What do I want to keep, toss, weight limits, where's it going to go in our new house? So much to think about. And I know I'll be thinking it all over again next year about this same time.

Streamers

Today Kiera and I went bike riding, just the two of us. We had a little conversation along the way:
"Mom, can I take the streamers off my handlebars?"
(Whaaaa!)
"And can I take the little flowers off the wheels too?"
(Double Whaaaaa!)
My little girl is turning 9 next month. She's growing up so quickly.

Dubai

Charlie deployed to United Arab Emirates for 5 months. While he was there he was able to take a day trip to Dubai. The tour took him and his co-workers to a water park (not his cup of tea but he enjoyed being away from the base and work for a day). Here are some pictures he took along the way.

This is Dubai Marina Towers.

Not sure if you can see the famous Burj Al Arab hotel here. It resembles a sail. Rooms are $2,000 - $14,000 a night. It's very faint in this picture.

Sorry Charlie, your picture just didn't do it justice so I got this one off the web.

This is the Atlantis Palms Hotel located on the palm tree shaped artificial island built off the coast of Dubai, UAE. Rooms start at $750 a night.

This is an aerial view of the artificial island, The Palms.

Again, sorry Charlie, your picture just didn't capture the true essence of the building.

There were even ski slopes inside the malls.

Maybe Charlie will take me there one day so I can experience it too.

This Week

What a week it has been! Is it going to rain? Is it going to be nice? We asked ourselves that all week. They plan for rain, the sun comes out. They plan for sun, it rains. Make up your mind Mother Nature!

This was Charlie's last week home after his deployment. We had hoped to enjoy our time together, get out of the house, find some new restaurants, hang out. Well, that didn't really happen. We spent most of the week running errands. At least Charlie finalized all his Harley paperwork and his bike will be delivered on Tuesday! I put up some more bookshelves and got some much needed organizational projects completed. We had a Star Wars movie marathon. And on Friday we had to go to a required shop picnic at the beach (it's so hard living on an island). It was overcast all day and sprinkled but somehow Charlie actually got a little pink. All and all it was a good week.

The girls have a few field trips coming up. Maya will be going to the Commissary on Monday. Jasmine will be going to Shuri Castle on Friday. And the following week, Maya will be going to Okinawa World and visit the caves. They have made these trips many times since we've been here but I guess there's not a lot of things the school can choose from. They'll have fun anyway.

Fukushuen Gardens

Today was a beautiful day - finally. It's been raining forever it seems. Charlie and I made a date to the Fukushuen Gardens in Naha (say that 5 times fast once you figure out how to break down the syllables Fu-ku-shu-en). The grounds were gorgeous! Who would have thought this was in the middle of a bustling city?

Every tree, every flower, every rock was thought of and placed just right. It was so serene.

The buildings were a traditional Chinese design.

I loved the woodwork. There was so much detail. We stopped a moment under a gazebo and looked up. This is what we saw:

I told Charlie that I want my living room ceiling to look like this, he laughed. I can dream.

We walked hand in hand, enjoying the end of Charlie's vacation. It was a nice little get-away.

Wago Land

What do you do in Okinawa when it's been raining all week? You go to Wago Land!

We enjoyed playing in the balloon room,

bouncy stuff,

all you care to play video games

and ping pong.

Thirsty anyone?

Drink machines are like air in Okinawa. They are in every establishment, on every street corner, park, field, you name it, it's there.

Wago Land was a lot of fun. You pay one price and play for up to 9 hours. 5 hours was good enough for us. We were wiped by the end of the day.

You're So Vain

Today I went with Charlie to get his hair cut and run a few more errands. No big deal. After he got his hair cut we walked out to the van, I got in and he grabbed a clean shirt and went back inside to change. As I was sitting in the van I noticed a guy looking in the back windows. What was he doing? Was he trying to peek in at what's inside? Was he a thief? Then I saw him checking himself out. He was looking at his reflection in our windows! HA HA HA! He moved closer to the front of the van and whoops! he saw me watching him. He was so embarrassed! Poor guy. Note to self... don't check yourself out in someone's windows!

The Day I Took Too Long

The other night Charlie and I went out to Gate 2 street to do some shopping. We parked at the USO on base because it's easier than parking on the street. I had to stop in the restroom (as always) before we hit the shops. While I was in the little girl's room, Charlie was in the Harley dealership buying a Harley! What? I stop to use the restroom and you buy a Harley! Sorry I took so long. But he was planning on doing it anyway. I just thought it'd be closer to July when he put on rank. He's all excited! He has to wait a couple of weaks before he can actually ride it and take it home. Papers have to be signed by many many people on this island, it has to be uncrated and shipped so Charlie can take a one day long Experienced Rider's class.

For those who care: 2008 Dyna Low Rider 105 Anniversary Edition

Charlie is shocked because I can't tell the difference in any of them. Sorry!