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!

Sunrise at the Beach

This morning I nudged Pete and the kids out of bed and we headed to the beach. It's sad that it took me 6 months to realize we had yet to see the sunrise over the ocean. After a restless night, I decided to remedy this and my wonderful family was good enough to humor me.

I guess at this point it may be prudent to mention that I neglected to notice the clouds in the dark sky until we were close to the beach, therefore we didn't actually get to 'see' the sunrise, more we got to see the lightening of the clouds and sky as you can see in the pictures of us on the beach. It was still a great morning. We started out with donuts and chocolate milk on the boardwalk then the kids and I collected seashells and dried coral.
Yes, I know. Becca has her own unique sense of style. At least she matches today ;)

Becca had to go to the bathroom. Fortunately they had a public restroom. Unfortunately, it was only Japanese style toilets which she hates because she thinks the toilet is going to swallow her so she spends the whole time she's going to the bathroom telling the toilet not to eat her.

While the girls were surviving the toilets, Pete and Alex decided to hide from us by some of the old Tombs. When they finally emerged they were covered in sticky seeds. Kind of like those stickers that get on your socks back in the states, but these stick to EVERYTHING as you can tell by the way the stuck to Pete's leg hairs.

While Pete was de-stickering his legs the kids played at the park. This is one of the kids favorite parks because there is so much to do here.

Because it was overcast and early we had the park all to ourselves. Great times.

A perfect Date

Pete, sitting at the very edge of this cliff that dropped 100s of feet before ending in the ocean.

This morning was overly discouraging. After talking with the AMC terminal we were frustrated with the whole idea of trying to plan a trip and not being able to. Pete and I hopped in the car and went for a drive. It was wonderful. Perfect weather for it, we opened the sunroof and rolled the windows down an just drove up North for several hours. Up North (Nago) is the ubber pretty part of the island. Before long we were singing our hearts out to the music (just like old times), stopping at the beach and watching the waves, exploring bike stores and a not-so-Italian bakery. We had a great time. completely carefree and not stressful. Loved it.

Out exploring

We found these kit-kats we assumed were cheese flavored, only when we opened them we found:

That's right, Cheese you are supposed to eat WITH the kit kat. I thought a was a yummy combo, Pete didn't.

And finally, a nasty picture of Pete's sprained ankle he got in the middle of his last PT test. Over a week later and his ankle is still swollen and purple. He's seeing a physical therapist for it who said he has loose joints... not fun.

We're looking forward to the possibilities of this week although each day, some of the possibilities we were most looking forward to are not looking as good as we'd hoped but we'll keep hoping. Hopefully all works out well.

Alex and Mom Ice Skating

Alex's class went ice skating and I went with them. The first couple of minutes were hilarious as ALL the kids feel. It was funny, seriously like all these kids falling and crawling around. Alex did really well because its similar to roller blades. He kept riding around helping the other kids out. We had a great time. Alex loved the hot chocolate vending machines that plopped your cup down and then filled it up.

Drinking our hot chocolate. Notice the steam, this is the coldest we will ever be in Okinawa.

Alex after a spill. I feel once when Alex pulled me down :)

The vending machine that pours the hot chocolate for you.

Okinawa Zoo of strange Creatures

So, you all know I'm not the biggest fan of zoos. Don't really like them. Always the same sad looking animals just standing around while we point and stare at them. That said, I took the kids to the zoo this past weekend while Pete was studying.

The zoo itself is really pretty this time of year with all the flowers in bloom, it's not too hot- just perfect weather. It does have a lot of the same old animals but there are also so many animals that we have not seen before (yes, they still had the same sad expressions on their faces but at least they were different sad faces than we have seen in the past).

Ironically, Alex loved the giraffs.

I know he's seen them before, but he liked them. Lalee and Becca liked the lions and monkeys, espeically the one with the red face that looked like a mask and swung from his

tail. (You can kind of see it in the background).

Personally, I think the coolest thing we saw was the giant ant-eater. I didn't realize that this was an actual animal. It was big- probably 5-6 feet long, and its face is primarily a really long funnel-like snout. Sorry for the poor picture.

It's the one flower on the hat that makes Frosty come alive- don't you know?

I logged on to post a couple of times lately but I can't find the cord to the camera, thus no pictures. Oh well. Not a lot has happened in our lives lately. Last weekend we had an amazingly beautiful day here- very pretty. We went to Comprehensive park, rented a paddle boat and feed the fish. The kids loved the playground but talk about crowds! Today and yesterday have been COLD. Maybe not Utah cold but cold for Okinawa. Throw in the humidity and it feels a lot colder than it is (54*). I know, I know! I can't believe I, a Utah native, am calling 54 degrees cold. But have no fear, we are supposed to be back up in the 60s by the weekend and by this time next week we are supposed to be close to the 70s. Very Weird weather here. I started school again. It is an interesting set up and I'm still getting used to it. The whole job thing is a wonderfully, discouraging adventure that must go on. We have spent our fair share of time at the dentist lately. Lalee had a check up two weeks ago, Alex and Becca had checkups this week. Both of them are returning to have cavities filled in a month. Lalee went to her first ortho appointment this week. She is missing a couple of permanent teeth, has a big over bite and some spacing issues. They won't put braces on until she stops sucking her thumb. We'll go back in a month and hopefully we will be able to have mastered that obstacle. Alex got 85% on his spelling test this past week. I know that doesn't sound like much but even with studying, Alex typically only gets between 40-60% on his spelling (not his strong subject) so that was reason to celebrate at our house. Yesterday, after her class watched frosty the snowman, Becca announced, "We have to go and get on three airplanes and take 2 days to fly to Utah so I can build a snowman and put a hat with just one flower on it and then it will come alive." To which I replied, "Really? It will come alive?" Her. "Yep, and the movie said the hat has to have just one flower." Me: "And we have to go to Utah for this?" Her (with a "duh" look on her face. "There's no snow here, mom. Just in Utah." It probably doesn't sound all that cute but I about bust a gut laughing. Poor girl, she honestly believes she will have a live snowman friend if she can only find a hat with just one flower to put on its head. I am still writing a weekly article for the local blog OkinawaHai. I write the "To Mingle" piece each Tuesday. This has been a great way to met people and become familiar with the island. That's about all the news from our corner of the world for the past week or so. Here's hoping the rest of January smooth and positive.