In the middle of May we started the beginning of our sad season to say “see you later” to many of our friends. Many members of our Okinawa family are moving and I just try not to think about life in Oki with out them. We had a big “see you later BBQ” with Randy and Melanie Ball before they left. They were so stressed with flying out the next morning that I don’t know if they remember it but we had a great time.
Hayden finished the soccer season, much of it was cancelled due to the crazy amount of rain we’ve had this season but he still had a good time. Danica finished preschool. She has loved her teacher and class and it’s been a great experience for her. They did a little program on her last day where they were singing and she started out happy and smiling and part way through the song she realized how many people were watching her and just ended up crying and nervous... it was just “so Danica.” Here she is with her two teachers, one American one Japanese. She learned a lot of great things in her culture class and sings a cute little Japanese song.
We’ve had a lot of fun exploring Japan and participated in a lot of cultural exchange activities with local members of our church. They took us around and showed us the true Okinawa side of things. We really enjoyed it and learned a lot! These black snakes are really expensive and you buy them to make things like snake soup. The kids were thoroughly disgusted and fascinated by the pigs heads and crazy fish. Alyssa was terrified the lobster were going to crawl out and get her! Danica developed a little "crush" on a boy named Levi, he's the son of the woman who was the district camp director so they spent a lot of time together while were we getting camp things planned. She hadn't seen him in a while and was so happy to spend the day with him!
Alyssa is completely adorable and I have fun taking her around everywhere with me. She's my little companion while Danica is at preschool. She is talking up a storm and loves to smile and ask me "you happy mommy?"
Tom got to DJ the youth dance last month and we had a lot of fun. Although it was pretty stressful trying to screen all the songs to make sure they were appropriate. I offered to host Hayden’s class for the end of year family picnic. It sounded easy enough, I would put together a few water games, throw out some chairs and blankets and have a good time. So I spent all week weeding and prepping the yard and getting it looking as nice as it can. Then of course the forecast was very rainy. At the last minute we rented some huge canopies for the yard and had quite a headache picking them up, setting them up and then taking them down...ugh...won’t do that again. But they saved the picnic. It’s warm even when it rains so the kids still rain around playing games, doing the slip ‘n’ slide and sprinklers while the parents stayed dry under the canopies! Hayden is done with school this Thursday and although he has loved his class this year he is dreaming of waking up and playing video games every day.... his dream life.
Over Memorial Weekend we watched our friends kids and so in return they watched our kids this past Friday night. Tom and I didn’t go anywhere but lived a life of “freedom.” We went out to dinner, did some shopping, and then went to karoke. We went to bed late and then woke up early and ran a 5K race and then went on a 20 mile bike ride before picking up the kids. It was nice!!! Saturday night we spent at the church at District Area Training. It was a long meeting but was good information.
We've enjoyed a lot of fun activities. Great beach days, park days and indoor play days. The girls play "mom and dad" all the time and I never know for sure whether to call them mom, dad or baby... I never know who I am supposed to be that day.
Now we are prepping for our big summer trip back to the states. We leave on June 23rd and will be there for three weeks. We can’t wait to see family and friends and to be in America, we miss it all!!!!
