Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Everyone is growing up around here...well, not everyone.

1.Hayden lost his first tooth!!! (A little late much to the dismay of his dentist/dad but I’m in no hurry for him to grow up!)
2. Danica has spent years watching Hayden turn into a reading machine and the bug has bitten her as well. She is obsessed with learning to read and begs me all day to teach her (no I am NOT complaining!) The other day she woke up and before even saying good morning she stumbled out of her bed and said “Mom, teach me to read!” In the car one afternoon she said, in one long hurried breath “Mom, I want a snack and I want to learn to read!” Needless to say I’ve been working with her and she’s doing great and can read simple words. It’s so fun to watch her excitement as she figures out each new word.
3. Alyssa is actually growing up and talking a ton and figured out how to get on and off the potty by herself (hooray!) but she is obsessed with pretending she is a baby. Her and Dani play all day a game revolving around her being the baby and Dani being the mom. Recently I got out a bassinet for our friends baby to sleep in when they came over and Alyssa insisted on sleeping in it- “I want to sleep baby bed!” Well on Sunday I gave in and let her take a nap in it because she was so insistent... imagine my surprise when I went to check on her and found that she had apparently gotten up and gotten a “toy” and climbed back into her baby bed... I don’t know who she thought was going to sneak up on her in her sleep but she was ready!

Island

Sometimes I forget that I live on an island. I am accustomed to seeing the ocean as I drive down the hill to the commissary and don’t even notice it anymore. We haven’t actually been to the beach in a while. I get so frustrated that I can’t buy the things I want, I feel so limited and think things like “What is this? It’s like I live on an island in the middle of nowhere!” Yes Tracey, you do. Last Saturday Tom and I took advantage of free babysitting for military families (offered the first Saturday of the month if you sign up.) With our free day we took a bike ride together out to a lighthouse, about a 30 mile ride. It was a fantastic ride and the view was great. As I looked out over the rocks at the deep raging water below I was reminded again that in deed, I do live on an island, surrounded by a gigantic ocean. It was breathtaking and very humbling.



So much has happened lately making me realize how fragile life is. I struggle to fight off fear and anxiety and replace it with a sense of peace and making the most of what blessings we currently enjoy. I have many friends dealing with death, cancer and other trials. Then the earthquake in Haiti...so much heartache...I understand that it is all part of “life” and a necessary part of God’s plan but it doesn't change my desire to somehow take away the pain. I have a friend who was just recently diagnosed with cancer and part of her response is to be grateful that it is her and not her husband or children because she knows she just couldn’t watch and at least now she can fight. I admire her courage and outlook. I am constantly surrounded by so many people full of strength, faith and courage, I hope some of it rubs off on me. And I hope, that while I feel guilty enjoying such a feeling of fullness and joy in my life, I can help ease the burden for someone else.

2009 Comes to a close....

So here is the last of what we did in 2009.

December 23rd was a long awaited day for Hayden- his 7th birthday!!! I was crazy enough to say he could have a party again and he chose Legos as his theme. I thought this was such a unique idea but quickly learned it’s really popular, oh well, it was still fun. The highlight of the party was giving each boy a chance to create his own mini-fig and then name him and design a house. I bought a ton of mini-figures on ebay and then we dismantled them. The boys rolled a dice and the numbers cooresponded to bowls of parts, for example, heads were in bowl 1, bodies bowl 2, hats bowl 4 and so on. It was a lot of fun. We played other lego games and simply played with legos and on the trampoline. Everyone had a great time. Hayden wanted an icecream cake... it was fine but I know for the future not to try to decorate an icecream cake. Even shaping it like a green lego was almost too much!

December 24th we decided to venture out in town for some Japanese Christmas Eve excitement and that is what we found! We bought tickets to a Christmas Snow festival at the zoo. It cost about $40 just to get in and that was with getting discount tickets for the kids. So it was a bit pricey but they promised igloos, sledding and a lazer show so it sounded worth it. It wasn’t. But alas, we still managed to have a good time and the kids really did the love the snow even though it was a very small amount of wet slush! Alyssa kept running around yelling "ice ice!" one of her favorite things (that I can get for free from the freezer.) The sledding incline (you can’t call it a hill because it was the equivalent of sliding off the kitchen table down the front yard) cost an extra 500 yen per ride! That’s nearly $6 a ride, it was ridiculous and we didn't do it! We watched the show which started with some sort of entertainer/magician, he was funny and did enough physical action that the fact that we couldn’t understand his japanese didn’t matter much. Then they had some dancing girls which was some fun hip hop. Sorta Christmassy at times... but we found ourselves staring with our jaws hanging open when the girls were dancing and the music went sinister and a man in a mask with a machine gun came on stage with loud laughing, gunned down all the girls who fell dead on the stage and then turned the gun on us. Seconds earlier the kids were dancing along to the hip hop and suddenly I felt the need to cover their eyes. The other adults we were with just kept staring at each other wondering if we had seen it right. A few moments later the music changed to something angelic and the girls on stage got up slowly and acted like angels (I think that is what happened but everything was spoken in Japanese so I’m not sure.) Needless to say, it was so shocking we just had to laugh. The “highlight” of the night was the Snow Show. Just as we were trying to leave they drove over the snow making machine and turned the hose up into the air so it began to snow on us. It should have been fun and magical but it was so warm and the machine wasn’t working right so we were actually being pelted with mushy slush balls. We were blocked in by people on all sides and couldn’t move. The girls were screaming in the stroller and we were grabbing our jackets and trying to take cover. Again, just laughing our heads off. The stroller was soaked with muddy slush, and so were we... Hayden loved it and wanted to follow the truck for more. 
When the truck started throwing huge discs of slush they turned it off...hopefully it worked better the next night. We wandered around looking at Christmas lights and avoiding the over priced carnival games. Luckily, the kids don’t ask us to buy them food since they don’t recognize anything! At the end we watched a lazer show, all set to Michael Jackson music...apparently, he invokes feelings of Christmas here... we went home and did our normal things of reading the bible, acting out the nativity, and opening gifts from each other. What a night... I think we’ll just skip it next year!


Christmas Day was fantastic. Tons of fun and way too many gifts for everyone! The kids are so spoiled by their relatives, they were in heaven. I love the looks of delight in their faces on so many of the pictures. You can see Alyssa saying “wow!” Hayden scored with Lego sets and was so happy. It rained ALL day, we got the girls a little playhouse for the backyard and they didn't even know it until the next day when it stopped raining! That night we had our good friends the Wilsons over for dinner, they did half the food. We invited several single marines to eat with us and enjoy the evening, we all had a great time.



When Christmas was over I decided it was great but all WAY to much to do and like I always say, I must simplify it next year... this year I’m really serious.

New Years Eve started off with a bang- I went on my first ever bike ride with the gang here. Tom wanted to go and wanted me to join him so he convinced me I could do it. It was supposed to go from 7 to 10:00...we got back at 12:00. I borrowed a bike and was nervous but figured it couldn’t be too hard...I just ran a marathon after all...however, it was a 50 mile ride, with plenty of hills. In fact, we actually took a wrong turn, but don't worry, it just means we skipped the nice flat ride along the coast and cut across the hills through the middle of the island. I had a good time and parts of the ride I really enjoyed... parts of the ride I really hated and have to admit I pretty much lost it going up the last hill. We had already gone 48 miles, nearly 5 hours of riding and then there was this hill... calling it a hill is comparable to saying it’s hot here during the summer or the spiders are big...it just doesn’t begin to cover it. Tom checked the Garmin and it said we ascended something like 500 feet, more than twice the distance of the other big hills! You can see it on the map. That said, the real point is how amazing Tom is and the fact that he was just plugging along going up the hill with no problem! These guys were crazy and I could not keep up. They all kept saying “Oh you’re doing so great for your first ride.” I like to think that’s the truth but it will be much better when I can just keep up!
Later that night we had a few couples over for a BBQ and games. The girls and everyone else’s kids went to bed around 9. Hayden made it until 11:30 when he fell asleep on the couch while he was reading. I carried him outside at midnight to see the fireworks but he was too asleep to remember it. New Year’s Day we went to the park and had a great time on the slides and beautiful weather.

2009 was a fantastic year, we look forward to 2010!!!