About Me... Becca Boo

It's Becca's week at school. We had a great time putting together an "About Me" poster for her. I thought it was fun and wanted to share. It might actually be something I will do with each of the kids each year to see how much they change over time. Here's Becca's for 2010.
46" tall, 45 lbs.

WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO BE:

The tooth fairy (Dental school of course) or a policeman that is a girl.

IF I HAD THREE WISHES:

1. It would be my birthday every day

2. All my family would live by me and come visit me

3. I would always have a lot of butterflies around me

THINGS THAT I LIKE:
(The color green, playing in the sprinklers, snow and sledding, talking on the phone, necklaces and stuffed animals, roller-blading, cuddling, camping, princesses, Dora and cupcakes, and fruit-peaches but especially strawberries.)

THINGS THAT I DO NOT LIKE!
(Scary Rides, Strangers, Being sad, Being cold and the dark and yucky food.)

Sesoko Island

We had originally planned to go camping this weekend but things just didn't work out that way. It was too beautiful a day to stay inside so we set out on a road trip. We ended up at the Sesoko Island, connected to Northern Nago by a bridge over a small stretch of ocean.
We got there at lower tide and were able to wade for quite a ways in the perfectly clear, blue water (although for some reason you can't really see the blue in the pictures). Alex and Lalee snorkeled for about an hour and then played 'crack the egg' with the waves for a while. Becca and Pete claimed 'coldness' and napped on the beach instead.

As a family we beach-combed looking for unique seashells and sea glass.

We made the not-so-wise choose to stop at a "Hawaiian" restaurant on the way home. We should have learned by now that we aren't overly found of Okinawaian's version of Hawaiian. Lalee stuck with Soba- one of her favorites. We do have some interesting pictures of the rest of us eating our food! I'm attempting to eat pickles seaweed- not at all appealing- it looked (and smelled) like slimy sludge. Yuck.

Becca got tricked into eating some vinegared carrots with some weird sea-animal in them. She actually swallowed it before she realized how much she didn't like it. It didn't stay swallowed. And Alex experienced fish flavored and spam flavored Tofu. Not our best eating experience. Oh well. We had a lot of fun and think we found a new favorite beach, Very peaceful and calm. The caves and scenery make it interesting for more than just swimming.

Beach combing

I love the ocean, I love the beach. Watching the waves come and crash up on the sand makes me giggle like a little girl. It always has. So it's no surprise that we spend quite a bit of time down at the beach. recently we were walking down by Araha beach during low tide. We're usually here during high tide and so we didn't realize just how far you can walk and how high the water actually is on the wall during high tide. (See the picture of the sea wall below). We love collecting seashells and looking at the marine life that exists just below the wet mushy layer of seaweed (looks like grass below). There is always a wonderful breeze off *sigh* a great place to spend the evening ;)

Of course Pete and the kids were done long before I was. I loved the candid shot of them hanging out on the stairs waiting for me. For some reason, this snapshot really spoke to me. During high tide the sea wall is covered all the way up to the top of the stairs. It was fun to see the different paintings that covers miles of the seawall, typically hidden by the ocean.

We were planning on camping this weekend at Okuma but I'm not sure if the weather will hold. Either way, I'm sure we'll have an adventure.

School Adventures

Alex's first grade class went on a field trip to Okinawa Land and Pete chaperoned. They began the trip by walking through this fairly long cave, or at least it had to be long because Alex too over 100 pictures of the thing! They were able to go through the snake museum, watch a mongoose and a habu race each other, watch a cobra as it was provoked and it's head flared out. Sounds like the perfect field trip... for the boys that is! Below is a picture of Alex with his classmates holding an albino python.

Alex loves that his best friend, Jacob is in his class. (Below). He was so excited when Jacob got to come back home with Alex after the field trip and have a sleepover.

Lalee's sleepover @ the School: Space Night

All the fourth graders at Stearling Heights were invited to sleep over at the school for space night. Yep- SLEEPOVER! She was looking forward to this for weeks. The night began around 5 with all kinds of activities like 'moon walking',

flight simulations, star gazing, astronaut food eating, airplane making, and even rocket making and launching which Pete went to the school to help out with. (Yes, two school activities in one day. Pete said, "I think I've spent more time helping at the school today then I have ever spent at the school helping out- combined!")

As expected, they didn't get much sleep due to creaky old school, noises, ghost stories and giggly girls. I went to the school in the morning to help out with breakfast. They all looked so tired but happy. She said her favorite part was when Dad helped with the rockets.

The proposal

10 years ago when Pete and I were getting married we did without a lot of things, including a proposal. Not that I didn't really, really want one. It just didn't happen. It's been something that I have teased Pete about through the years.

We celebrated our 10th anniversary this year. We don't usually celebrate except on our actual anniversary on Feb. 29th, so every 4 years (married me on Leap-year). Pete mentioned shortly after returning home from the states that he had a babysitter for our anniversary, an event that was over a week away, I was shocked, he had obviously put a lot of thought into the night.
That morning we woke up early (5ish) to a shake the house, buckle the windows and knock pictures off the wall earthquake. Of course all the kids were up for good and I quickly developed a migraine which lasted two hours and left me drained. I got up and started cleaning, afterall I had a babysitter coming over that night, and within the hour had yet another migraine... argh. We cleaned all afternoon so by the time the babysitter showed up, I was exhausted, still nauseous and not wanting to do any celebrating whatsoever (translation.... being pretty witchy) Poor Pete! I knew he was really wanting to go when I begged him to reschedule and he refused, I actually started to wonder what was up.

We had dinner at Poco a Poco. This Indian restaurant which has individual rooms divided by sheer curtains, candle light, lots of ferns, very atmospheric




Loved the restaurant, food was good, but the restaurant was fun. Romantic, we talked and laughed. It was so peaceful and amazing to be out without the kids, talking just about us, no kid talk for the night. After leaving, Pete asked me what I wanted to do. I told him I wanted to go and find one of those photo booths, like the ones we used to cram ourselves into as teens, and take some pictures. Little did I know, I was playing right into his plans. We were close to American Village which has a huge Ferris wheel. I mean huge. this thing is quite a bit taller than the any of the buildings next to it. It goes really slow, it takes about 15 minutes to go all the way around just once. As we are walking around looking for a photo booth I turn to Pete and say, "Hey, wanna ride the Ferris wheel?" I was actually kind of surprised when he didn't protest at all, got this huge smile on his face and started pulling me down the street towards the Ferris wheel.

So we get on the Ferris wheel and we're looking at the island, it was about 9, the sun sets at 6 so it was all the way dark. The view was incredible, There aren't many high points at Okinawa and we were in this Ferris wheel that towers about everything, lights sparkling, you can see all the buildings and people below. There are parts of Okinawa that kind of look like the Vegas strip at night, all lite up. The Village is one of them, so it was a great show of lights and activity. Pete moves to the other side of the bench and I glanced over at him and did a double take. He was down on one knee, a ring box in hand and he asked me to marry him saying something like "I know it's 10 years late but I wanted you to have a story ... " I'll spare you the details of the rest of it but it was charming, it was totally unexpected and left me speechless. 10 years late or not, it was perfect. And the fact he still wanted to propose, after my mood all day, made it even better!

February all in one post

It's been a really long time since I posted. Mainly because I am so far behind I keep on waiting for a good period of time so I can catch up and then I get even more behind. So, stopping procrastination.

We had a great time time on our trip. We were finally able to leave on Wednesday afternoon. We took a C-5. We spent some time in Hawaii on the way. Christina took us around the island. We loved the HUGE waves there and seeing the island through Christina's help.


Through a small miracle of listening to promptings we took a smaller, slower plane to Reno instead of into Travis which was very good as the plane to Travis ended up not taking passengers. The planes were loud and somewhat cold but it was a great adventure, Alex even got to go up into the cockpit to watch the pilots during take-off.

Sandi and Dan came down to Reno and picked us up. The kids all thought we were going to Main land Japan until they saw Sandi. It was kind of sad because Becca said, "Mom, I left most of my stuff in Okinawa, will they mail it to us." When I told her we were going back home she started bowling. We drove a van back to Utah. From the time we left Oki until we got to Bear River was 53 hours. We were so tired. We also managed to get some pretty nasty colds but I guess that's pretty common when going from one climate and elevation to one so different. Alex was fascinated and obsessed with the snow. Weird as he's always liked the snow in the past, but now loved it. Cara and Jason were awesome with going outside a lot with the kids. He spent as much time as possible outside.

We were able to spend time with our friends as well. We caught up until early hours of the morning in Smiths bakery, laughed at the rivalary during the superbowl, had girl time doing stupid stuff, and celebrated the new changes and accomplishments in life.

The wedding went off without any problems and everyone got a long which is amazing! Pete and Joey did a great job decorating Mike's car. Lalee, Becca and kamlyn were inseperable. They loved dancing and playing



We were so lucky and happy that we were able to see so much of our family. We really appreciate everyone making such an effort to see us and spend time with you guys. We love you so much.

Getting home had each adventures. We had bought tickets from SLC to Seattle from Delta. We got to the airport only to learn that Delta does not show us on their flight and will not do anything for us either (I did find the email confirmation when we got home). Fortunately, we Southwest was able to help us, if fact they actually gave us two comp tickets. We definitely had some guardian angles looking over us. There were only a very few people get onto the plane in Seattle, in fact we literally got the last seats.
The week after getting home was crazy as we were all still pretty sick (we spent the bulk of time in Utah with some nasty colds) and catching up on homework, work and sleep. Jetlag between here and there isn't pretty! Pete surprised me by getting a babysitter the last weekend in Feb. to celebrate our anniversary, Read the post about that for more details.

He made it really special. It's been a great, interesting 10 years. Wonder what the next 10 will bring. We spent last weekend out and about with Flat Stanley. He (Flat Stanley) got all tuckered out and is on his way back to Tyler ;)


We've spent quite a bit of time at the dentist lately. The picture of Lalee below is of her getting ready to get her braces. She hasn't sucked her thumb in 7 weeks HURRAY! and should be getting her braces on at the end of March.

Our family date for last week was riding in the Ferris Wheel and getting ice cream in American Village. This week was group dates. Us girls went to a craft fair and the girls made small snake-skin purses. Doing a project/ receiving instructions is always much more entertaining when you speak a completely different language and have to rely upon gesters and a small group of words and nods. It makes you realize just how basic a lot of human nature is, you'd be amazed with what you can communicate without words. We also rented little ponys and popped some pop-corn, the perfect girls date. I'm not sure what Pete and Alex decided to do ;)

And finally, I've been spending most of my time lately doing homework, walking along the seawall (below) and playing with the kids. It's a pretty relaxed and happy time of life. Love you all. Nae