Overdue Update

Adventures: Busy as usual we’ve had a lot of fun in the last month. It rained on Labor Day so we had to post pone our annual trip to Sesoko Island. We went to Round One instead and all the adults signed up to do this little dirt bike race. We were going so fast that all the action shots are blurry! The following Saturday we made it to Sesoko Island and set up camp in the shade of the cliff and had a great day. Sadly they didn’t have the shuttle service so we had to lug our stuff really far down to the beach and they had made a netted off swimming area and made us get out of the water when we tried to go out snorkeling too far. We still managed to see some good stuff and no one got stung by jelly fish (the presumed reason for the net). Hayden refuses to go out in the ocean for fear of what's out there... but he enjoyed catching hermit crabs, exploring caves and of course reading!


Last Saturday I unintentionally ended up at Kurashiki Dam alone with the kids and had a fantastic time! I had ridden my bike out there and really wanted to take the kids. But it was raining on Saturday and then Tom got called into work so it just wasn’t working out. However, I had to drive out near it anyway to pick up a new guitar for Rockband so I decided to take the kids over just to check it out for a minute. Hayden was complaining all the way there that he would have no one to play with because we were just a bunch of girls and it would be boring. But I was determined for some forced family fun! It was still drizzly and windy but that just added to the adventure as we ran around exploring. I made up a photo scavenger hunt and we had to find all sorts of items while running on trails, bridges, and the dam. We could see a tower all the way across the park and made our way to it. Much to our delight it had an elevator inside that took us up to the top where it was windows all the way around. It was perfect timing as well because it had just started pouring rain when we ducked inside! We didn’t see any other people the entire time we were there so we really felt like we were explorers. Hayden made a team of him and Danica and they had some silly name and were running everywhere together. He just kept saying “Mom, you were right! This is awesome.” I don’t think I”ll ever get tired of hearing things like that. There is nothing better than watching your kids loving each other.



Tom: He’s up to his 20 mile runs with his marathon training. I really admire his dedication and all the hard work he is putting into this training. It is not easy, especially with how hot it is here, but he continues to plow ahead. The race is on Oct. 23rd, on Iejima (the island where we ran the marathon last year.) We’re going as a family to camp and support him on the race, we can’t wait!
He’s still busy at work and continues to get rated as the top producer in the command. It’s awesome to see him recognized for such good hard work. He likes many aspects of it but has officially turned in his resignation form and is set to separate from the Navy next summer. We will move to Vancouver Washington where he plans to join his brother’s dental practice.

Tracey: I’m still as busy as ever but slowly learning how to manage it all. I keep thinking I see the light at the end of the tunnel and really think I may actually reach it. In fact, just the other day I dropped both girls off at preschool and then spent a leisurely morning reading a book while getting the oil changed, reading at the park, and early Christmas shopping just for fun. Way back in March I volunteered to serve on the Board at their preschool. I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into (and didn’t know I”d be so busy with a new church calling!) It’s nice to be a part of their school but it’s WAY more work than what I was led to believe. Fortunately, the other women are great and I will just have to work hard to be realistic with what I offer to help with. It’s all a learning experience!
I am training for the Tour de Okinawa, a 123 mile bike ride in November. I can tell I am getting stronger and more confident on my bike but am grateful I still have time to train. Both girls are now in preschool so I can use some daylight hours to go on long rides. It’s great since I get tired of always riding at 5am when it’s so dark out! I just finished The Mocking Jay... still not sure what I thought. I like that it wrapped things up but not sure what I think about all the rest. We need a book group discussion!

Hayden: Here is Hayden on the first day of school. This picture is classic Okinawa, it's so humid the lens just fogs up! He came home from the first day of school and announced “second grade sucks.” Not a shock coming from “Mr. Negative” but it’s been nice the last week when he comes home admitting that he actually had a good day and likes school. He had become ridiculously negative and anxious toward the end of summer, constantly sure that terrible things were going to happen. I was beginning to get really worried but the routine and structure of school seem to have helped a lot. He still hates the torture of practicing his handwriting or the piano but it’s just normal kid complaining.
Hayden recently finished the Fablehaven series and loved it. I’ve started reading it also and am enjoying talking to him about it. He is excited to start into Percy Jackson. Reading and computer/video game are still his first loves in life with legos coming in a close third. Right now he is in the backyard with the neighborhood crew of boys playing some sort of game about wizards and secret potions.

Danica: She is back in preschool with her beloved Mrs. Weathers. She has the same teacher and some of the same friends and couldn’t be happier about school. Now that she has learned the pattern of her three days a week schedule she jumps out of bed on school days and gets dressed and ready to go! She loves to pretend she is Alyssa’s mom, loves to wear princess dresses every day and her and Alyssa insist on wearing "twirly" skirts and dresses every day. She is still enjoying learning to read and gets so excited every time she unlocks the mystery of what a new word says.
We have several new friends that have moved to Okinawa. One night we were babysitting for one of the families and our girls had to take bath. The other girls just got undressed and jumped in as well. They had a blast and even got to eat their treat while in the tub, it was too cute! Danica loves to tell me that she loves me as much as she loves her blankie (quite an honor I enjoy receiving) but today she told me she loves me so much she wants to break her tooth out...uh huh... haven't figured that one out yet.

Alyssa: My “baby” is now three and with that comes so many big girls things. She is going to preschool as well. The same days as Danica. She loves it and thinks she is so special that she gets to go to. On the way to school she sits and talks about how she can’t wait to give her teacher a big hug and kiss. I asked her if she played with any kids on the first day of school and she said “no, I was too shy.” I know that won’t last long, she is such a smiley social kid. She didn't get to go yesterday because she was sick and she was so sad. Here is their first day of school picture, I wised up and put the camera outside in advance!

Alyssa was able to switch out of our mom-and-me gymnastics class and now she is in class with Danica. They enjoy it and Alyssa is doing well at following directions and trying the new skills, it’s a good change and I still get lots of hugs because she can’t resist running over to me from time to time.
We were "kitty-sitting" for two weeks. This is Clementine, named by Danica. She was found in the dug out of the baseball field behind our house. Tom and Hayden saw her and thought she was dead, her eyes were crusted over and she couldn't move. I got my neighbor Tatyana to help and we brought her in. I slowly nursed her back to health. As she got stronger I taught her how to use the litter box, took her to the vet, got rid of her fleas and meticulously cleaned my house to make sure none were left around. Needless to say, I put a lot of time into taking care of her. However, we had no intention of having a cat. We move in less than a year and don't want to try to take her with us. Alyssa couldn't keep her hands off her and kept getting bitten. Danica and Hayden were too scared to touch her. So we put her up for adoption and she was picked up by a nice family that really love cats. Overall, it was a good experience. We rescued her and now she's in a loving home!
Okay this is random but it was too strange not to take a picture of. This is a light on the side of a building... we can only assume it's so no birds land on it?

Last thing, I was driving behind this car the other night. I'm not quite sure how the driver can see the road with 5 TV screens to distract him... crazy... no seat belt laws, no car seats and no rule about TVs. Good thing the speed limits are so much lower!

Life in Okinawa is good. We are really enjoying this last year and all the great things the island as to offer!!!

Alyssa's Birthday

This just has to be done.... I’ve started this blog a dozen times in the last month. I will not sleep until it’s posted.

Alyssa turned 3 on August 17th and we had a fantastic day! The day before her birthday she started telling me all her friends were going to come over for her birthday. This was not the plan but I could tell she was so excited so I quickly called a few and invited them to come for lunch the next day. On her birthday I took her to a little dance class at the church that she loved. Then her friends came over and I had her go in the back to watch a movie for a minute because Hayden REALLY wanted to do a surprise party. I snuck the kids in and then called Alyssa to come out for lunch. We yelled surprise and she got scared and sad... oh well, Hayden loved it. She had a blast with her friends, we did the cake that she decorated herself and she blew out all the candles. Once she was all rested up we waited for Tom and then all headed out to Cocok’s Spa where her and Danica got pedicures! She was so excited because Danica had been telling her about the time she had gotten it done and Alyssa loves nail polish.
Here she is trying to pick a design


After the fun and relaxing we went out to dinner and then home to presents.
Alyssa is such a fun loving, quick to smile, loves to laugh kind of girl. She is constantly launching herself on me for hugs and is the best snuggler. She enjoys pretending she is “mom” and walks around calling me “honey.” Her imagination is vivid and she loves to pretend and gets scared easily worrying about monsters and spiders. Her favorite game is “mom and dad” with Danica and Alyssa is usually the baby. She has mastered the art of giving a big huge grin to get out of trouble followed by “Are you happy mommy?” She’s even gone so far as to smile and say “I love you mommy” when I catch her doing something wrong. Good thing she is usually such a sweetheart!

August

We're half way through August, I can't believe it! I am currently suffering from "toomuchtodoitis" and can't seem to find a cure for it. I would say it will slow down when school starts but I remember saying that I could't wait for summer so that life would slow down... hmmm. Anyway, I will post later about Alyssa's birthday but right now I want to remember summer time here, since returning from our trip.

It's been extra rainy but we've still managed to get out to the pool and beach a lot. We took our new friends the Palmers snorkeling and it kept pouring rain and then stopping, pouring again, stopping. The conditions were terrible but they still managed to fall in love with snorkeling and we can't wait to take them on a good day! Hayden is terrified of sea life, like jellyfish, and won't come in the water at all. But they are doing swim lessons right now and making some great improvements. Danica was afraid to even put her face in the water at the start one week ago and today I watched her let go of the wall, put her face in and swim to her teacher all by herself! I can't wait to go to the pool with her tomorrow to see if she will swim to me! Dani and Alyssa are the only kids in her class, it's nice to get private lessons!

Tom is busy training for a marathon at the end of October. He plans to run it in under 4 hours and is working really hard on his training. I am skipping the marathon this year for a number of reasons (one being the ineveitable ferry ride that left me puking last time I ran it) and instead have switched my focus to biking. Tom and I are signed up for the Tour de Okinawa, a 117 miles bike ride around the northern end of the island with a million hills. I have a lot of work to do to be able to keep up on the ride so I am running less and biking more.

Here is just a collection of pictures from the last few weeks!

I was cleaning the back room and then discovered this little guy... I must have disturbed his slumber. Can you tell how huge it is? It's bigger than the binding on the photo album. It's called a wolf spider, they bite but it's not poisonous any more than a regular spider bite, it just hurts more because it's so big. Tom chased down, through the play room before we finally smashed it. I see them outside when I weed or clean the patio but in the house...ugh...I've been needing to clean that room again and for some reason just don't want to...

Danica and her best friend Maeko at the splash pad at one of the beaches.
Tom and I went out to a Korean BBQ on the last Parent's Day out. You pick your food and cook it on the grill at your table. The pineapple was my favorite!
Some new families moved in so we took them to Jusco, the Japanese mall to look around and then to eat at the food court. This way the kids could get McDonalds and the adults could try some Japanese food. There is also a huge arcade that the kids enjoyed.
We took the new families to a park with a large cement slide. It was great but when I got home I realized Hayden had worn a hole in his pants from sliding so much!!

Alyssa can't get enough watermelon. Luckily, it's been on sale lately so I've been buying it. Last year we couldn't get a watermelon for less than $20, it's much better this year!
One rainy day we went to Wago Family Land. It's like Chuck E. Cheese on steroids. The girls loved this room that is just full of balloons blown around by fans. Hayden was playing a video game where the object was to use this huge samurai sword to cut fish. Awesome!

Tom and I attended the annual Dental Ball, instead of formal wear they did a Hollywood theme. Everyone dressed up like their favorite characters. Tom went as Chuck and I was his super spy girlfriend Sarah Walker. Sadly, hardly anyone had seen the show. It's not even broadcast over here. We just told them all they were missing out!
My best friend Joy is finally back!!! Her house was part of a power outage so I had the kids over to watch a movie in the a/c. It was fun to see them reunited after 5 months of her being back in the states while her husband is deployed.
Well that's all for today. Soon I'll write about Alyssa's birthday!!

Our Trip to the States

I think it’s a good sign that I haven’t had time to blog for last two months. It means I have been having way too much fun! Just to keep the memories alive I want to try write everything down but that would be impossible, I’m still having too much fun to take the time to do that! So here are some random ramblings about all we’ve been up to. It started back in June, we flew out on the 23rd. We had a layover in Tokyo where we were literally running through the airport because our flight had arrived late, then flew the 9 hours to Seattle and due to the magic of time zones we arrived at exactly the same time that we left Okinawa, Wednesday at 9am. The kids were awesome on the flights. We made the three hour drive to Tom’s parents house and I got out and enjoyed just laying down on the nice grass that was not infested with insects and enjoyed the warm sun with no humidity. Blissful. The trip started off great and continued to be great the entire time. We visited with family, did TONS of shopping in one day, went to the Portland temple and then left to spend a week at a condo with most of Tom’s family. Hayden was in cousin heaven the entire time.
The condo was at Mayfield Lake and it was great. Too cold to really enjoy the water although a few of us brave souls enjoyed some good waterskiing and wake boarding. (Just Tom and I and our nephew Isaac to be exact.) The kids all went tubing fully dressed with tennis shoes and jackets because they were cold but had such a blast. I can’t believe we didn’t take any pictures of it! We enjoyed lots of game time, hanging out, running, horseshoes, water balloon volleyball and even a polar bear swim! It was freezing but fun!


The trip was awesome and we had so much fun relaxing with family it was hard to leave. But on July 3rd we flew down to Utah to spend the 4th of July holidays with my family.
As we flew into Salt Lake Danica looked out the windows and kept saying “It’s so beautiful mommy!” Oh, my home sweet home. My grandma lives in California but had flown in to stay with mom so we could see her during our visit, it was great!
We spent the weekend seeing my brother and his family, my other grandma, cousins and tons of relatives along with great fireworks and a parade. During the parade Danica was so funny every time she would see a float go by with a pageant winner like Miss Provo she would run out and wave and smile. At one point she turned to us and said “It’s a dream come true!” It was princess heaven. Later, Tom and I drove around Provo reminiscing about where we first met, lived as newly weds and where we had Hayden while my parents took the kids fishing. The rest of our time in Utah was packed with so much summertime fun. As you read this list you’re going to think “they seriously did all that in a week?” We went 4-wheeling up in the mountains and loved it. We got together with the Debaltzo’s, Tom’s cousins that we lived near in Cleveland and hardly recognized because the kids seemed so much older! Wednesday, we went to Seven Peaks water park and couldn’t get enough of the lazy river and tube slides. Thursday, we went downtown and visited Temple Square (a first for the kids),
then my parents met us and we went to the children’s museum while the boys went to the planetarium. Then we met up with some of our great friends from our first few years of marriage in Provo. It was so fun to see them and see how things have changed since adding so many kids! The next day we headed off to Lagoon and had way too much fun. Grandma took the kids on all the spinning rides that make me sick and we all got soaked on the river ride!


Saturday was a special day, my little sister went through the temple for the first time. It was fantastic to see her there and to see her surrounded by so many people that love her the way I do! We went out to lunch with her and enjoyed our favorite, Red Robin! That night we went to visit my grandma again and then spent some time with some friends of Tom’s from his mission. They have 5 boys, Hayden was in heaven!
Sunday evening we drove up to Park City and checked into the luxurious Marriott vacation resort, compliments of my sister who works for Marriott. We spent the next two days swimming, alpine sliding, outlet shopping and playing games. It was blissful. Tom and I even went on a date. On the way home on Tuesday we stopped off and watched the ski jumpers practicing. Once home we scrambled out to do the last bit of shopping possible in the U.S. for another year and tried to cram it all in our suitcases (thank you mom and dad for loaning us an extra one!). Then before we could leave the U.S. we had to go to Cafe Rio. YUM!
Wednesday morning we woke up at 5am and started the long journey home. We flew up to Seattle, had a long layover in which we got to see my friend Cori, and then boarded the plane to Tokyo. The kids were great on the 11 hour flight, our layover in Tokyo was grueling because we were exhausted but everyone was good and there were no major delays. We passed out on the next plane and woke up 3 hours later in Okinawa. I was pleasantly surprised that the humidity didn’t knock me down. I guess I was expecting it. Our friends had left our van at the airport so we simply loaded it up and drove home.
Now here we are. We’ve been home for almost a month, I started this blog two weeks ago and can’t seem to find the time to get it done. Now we need to go to bed but at least I got this much accomplished! Next time you can hear about the summer fun in Oki!! Thanks again to everyone who made our trip to the states so fantastic and absolutely worth every single cent, of which there were a lot!!!

Home Again

We just returned from a FANTASTIC trip back to the states. It was perfect, so much fun seeing family, shopping and playing hard, non stop. The kids did great on the long flights and are finally over the jet lag after days of waking up at 3am. I can't wait to post pictures and relive all the fun we had. However, I have been sick the last few days with a fever and sore throat leaving me all achy and tired so I am way behind on the unpacking, cleaning and such. The updated post will have to wait, hopefully not for long, but at least until I get some laundry done. I hope your summer is going well and that the cicadas are not nearly so loud at your house at they are at mine!