Cherry Blossoms

Cherry Blossoms are a big thing here. And honestly, it is very beautiful on our little island during this time of year. There are so many flowers and shrubs in bloom, tons of different colors and vegetation.

Today we drove up to Nago and spent a couple of hours walking around a park that is really in bloom. Of course there was a lot of climbing (and some sliding) involved. Even some trekking along some of the more secluded trails.

I'm not sure were Alex was while taking these pictures. Oh well. Below is Lalee ringing a bell which we found at the top of a hill. I wish I could tell you why the bell was there but I have no idea!

Okinawa is a very odd mixture of jammed-packed concrete buildings, so many buildings all touching and built right on top of each other all the way to the street with grass and yards being an oddity. Most buildings around town have stores on the bottom floor and then several floors of apartment buildings above. The apartment building typically have balconys with clothes lines to dry clothes. In addition, most of these buildings also have billboards, advertisments, or ads on them. It is definately a site to see when you first get here and makes it look perhaps a bit run down and uncared for although that's typically pretty far from the truth. When there isn't a a constant towering wall of buildings, you have a real tropical jungle. There isn't a middle ground. Either its major city, or major foliage. But usually flowers everywhere. I love the balance of it all. I think it's perfect. Oh, and there is (of course) the third type of scenery, my personal favorite, the ocean. That all said, I loved this view. I thought it captured all three aspects of Okinawa all in one shot: the foliage, the cities and the ocean.

Pictures from our day-to-day life.

This is long overdue and I'll apologize to those who have asked for it, I'm finally getting around to posting pictures of our daily life. Pictures of the house, and what not. I just realized as I was going to upload that I don't have any pics of the outside so a video will have to do.

When the video starts you are standing by my front doorway looking out. We are F. There are 12 families living in the houses you see in the video. Definitely not our dream home but with the military, there's not a whole lot of (read any) choices in the matter. It may not be fancy but as you can see, all concrete so secure. After you walk in the door you go down the hallway:

And then into the TV/living/family/dinning room.


From there you go around into the kitchen.

Upstairs are our bedrooms.

Becca wanted flowers, fairies, and butterflies. I didn't do so well on the fairies but she didn't seem to mind. She loved the green and purple combination.

Our bedroom in is just white, green, and wood. i have a couple of Japanese sayings and pics of us through the years on the walls you can't see. Still working on curtains but its coming. And the walls have tree branches with leaves and small blooms. You can't really see them will in the pic.

I'm not sure what happened to the pic of Alex's walls. They are painting with rolling hills and blue sky. I also has a 'Tree' for his curtains. This dragon hangs from his ceiling. At one point I had made this wicked awesome bunkbed cover that was a castle. Sadly, it didn't last too long against Alex and his friends. Maybe I'll make a more sturdy one someday... I didn't post more pictures of Lalee's room as I posted a bunch back in Sept.

Pics of the vehicles we are currently driving:


I also thought I'd throw in a couple of pictures of places that we go on a daily or weekly basis.

The BX/Commissary and food court. Don't let the size impress you too much, there is a LOT of poorly used space. It is a super nice building though. Also, a picture of our church building.

This is the fruit market I buy our fruit from.

This is the kids in front of their school. There are actually lots of palm trees lining all the sidewalks and road leading up to it but I didn't think to include them. It looks different without them.

This is a side view of the kids school. As you can see, outside hallways for lots of the school. I didn't make it to take a picture of Pete's work yet, I'll post one when I get there. So there you have it, the sites we surround ourselves the most with!